One-time rabbit-trapper and horse wrangler Angelina McKenzie-Stuart sees a bright future for people to work together in Australia.
Mrs McKenzie-Stuart spent her childhood in the South Australia bush around Wirrelpa at Martin's Well Station when Aboriginals were "calm" and "did not drink".
Now 79 and living at Port Augusta, she says she has seen racism during the years, but is keen for people to "walk hand in hand" toward an indigenous Voice to Parliament.
"We really need to move on and hold hands and I believe that will be a step forward," she said.
"We definitely need a voice - we could use about two or three there."
During National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee celebrations in South Australia, Mrs McKenzie-Stuart was named the state's NAIDOC Woman Elder of the Year.
"Someone must have recognised me as an elder because I am no spring chicken," she said at her home in Hospital Road, Port Augusta.
"My greatest achievement was getting Native Title for the Adnyamathanha land around the Flinders Ranges," she said.
She said it involved the right to negotiate with miners and protect heritage.
Her mother was Adnyamathanha and she embraces the clan.
Mrs McKenzie-Stuart recalls that she saw no racism in the outback, but that changed when she reached Port Augusta.
"We had just got off The Ghan train and Mum was desperate to move into a house and we had just moved in," she said.
"There was a noise outside.
"There were these policemen with batons and the Aboriginal men were not scrawny and didn't have shirts on and they were being hit over the head.
"Because of the shiny skin and blood running down, it reminded me of a Sturt's Desert Pea flower. I have never forgotten that."
She said Aboriginals did not drink much until after the referendum of 1964.
"Back there is when Aboriginal people were calm people and all of a sudden ... it was like a rollercoaster. There should have been education on how to drink first," she said.
"It is still going on for what must be 60 years later."
Mrs McKenzie-Stuart worked in health in Port Augusta and had two terms on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission known as ATSIC.
She visited Singapore and China where she went to the Great Wall.
"I was one lonely black person - I couldn't even look at a map of Australia. I was that homesick," she said.
As a child, she attended school only to Grade 3 and spent much of her time with her father at the station.
He was a boundary rider and they used to trap rabbits for sale and she helped him with horse and sheep work.
"It was beautiful. I would love to go back," she said.