Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains images and names of people who have died.
Djiringanj Ngarigo elder John Dixon's eyes light up when he remembers his late mother Margaret.
"She brought us up with love, because we had nothing else," Mr Dixon said.
His childhood began as a "fringe dweller", living in camps on the edge of Bega in south-east New South Wales.
It was an all-too-familiar experience for many Indigenous people of his generation, but a part of Australia's history that was overlooked and denied for decades.
"But I also remember that mum and dad made sure that we were happy."
He said his mum worked hard to keep the family clean and fed.
She lived in constant fear of her children being taken away.
Even after Margaret, her husband Eric and their children became the first Aboriginal family to move into a house in Bega in 1968, the children had hiding places in their home and were told not to answer the front door in case the authorities came.
A referendum in 1967 for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to be counted as part of the population became the most successful campaign for constitutional change in Australia's history.
But while more than 90 per cent of Australians voted yes, the no vote in the Bega electorate was double the national average.
The Bringing Them Home report was handed to the government 30 years later on May 26, 1997.
It brought to light the impact of decades of government policies of forcible removal of Aboriginal children from their families.
The report "shattered a lot of silences", according to writer and historian Mark McKenna.
"The individual testimony of Aboriginal people took centre stage for the first time in our history," Mr McKenna said.
He said it had a cathartic effect.
One of the report's 54 recommendations was that all Australian parliaments — and all state and territory police forces — formally apologise for the forcible removal of Aboriginal children.
In the absence of an apology from then-prime minister John Howard, community organisations, church groups, local councils and state governments around the country began to fill the void and make their own apologies.
When Jack Miller was elected to the Bega Valley Shire Council in the mid-1980s, one of his first priorities was to set up an Aboriginal liaison committee to improve relations between council and the Indigenous community.
Mr Miller consulted with the committee after the release of the Bringing Them Home report and put forward a motion that the council apologise to the Aboriginal community.
His repeated attempts to pass the motion were repeatedly voted down in council meetings.
The public gallery began to swell with members of the Aboriginal community and their supporters.
'It's a very hurting thing'
Mr Miller noticed Margaret Dixon sitting behind him at a council meeting on August 12, 1997, and asked if she would like to address the councillors.
She said yes, but the council rejected a motion to give her leave to speak.
Mr Dixon said the councillors had an important opportunity to unite the community.
"For councillors to miss that opportunity, it was absolutely wrong," he said.
"She wanted everyone to understand that it was hurtful."
His mother walked out in tears, followed by more than 100 supporters from the public gallery and several councillors.
The words "shame" and "racist fools" were painted in large red letters on the wall of the council building overnight.
The graffiti was hastily removed, but not before it was immortalised in the Bega District News.
Mr Miller organised a standing-room only town hall meeting a week later for the community to hear what the council had refused to let Margaret say.
"There was a standing ovation as Margaret walked to the front of the hall," Mr Miller said.
"She described how her sister had been taken, concluding with the words, 'It's a very hurting thing', and she was heard in absolute silence."
Letters to the editor in the Bega District News urged councillors to "take every opportunity to right past wrongs", and deplored the council's "lack of guts, vision and leadership".
Even the newspaper's editor Anna Glover joined the calls for an apology.
It would not be until the entire Bega council was dismissed and an administrator appointed in September 1999 that a formal apology was made.
It finally broke an impasse that had become what Mark McKenna described as a "moral crisis".
"It really does show how, at some points in our history, governments are so clearly behind the mood of the people," Mr McKenna said.
"As we continue to move forward towards reconciliation, it will be useful to look back to the late 1990s and learn from the struggle that we went through just to apologise to Aboriginal people."
Mr Dixon said his mother's good will and courage brought out the worst in a handful of councillors and the best in a community.
"Our people have been very giving, very patient and very resilient," Mr Dixon said.
He said they had made a big contribution to the Bega Valley.
