Ranginui Walker - championed racial equality and a Maori renaissance

To celebrate Māori Language week our daily instalments are back! This year we’ll be featuring inspirational Māori leaders from the Eastern Bay of Plenty.

Ranginui Walker: Ko Te Whakatōhea Te iwi, Ko Ngāti Patumoana Te Hapū, Ko Waiaua Te Marae

Dr Ranginui Joseph Issac Walker was born on 1 March 1932 into a farming family belonging to the Whakatōhea iwi of Ōpōtiki. He was considered one of Māoridom’s most influential academic leaders and advocates for Māori rights and social justice. He championed racial equality and a Maori renaissance.

He was educated at St Peter's Māori College in Auckland and trained first as a primary school teacher, working in that profession for 10 years.

In 1967 he took up a temporary lectureship in the Anthropology Department at the University where he completed his PhD in 1970. Walker’s political and social consciousness began to take shape in 1969 after an uncle persuaded him to serve as secretary for the Auckland District Māori Council, which was becoming a nexus for transformation-minded Maori.

From then until his death (February 2016), he provided academic ballast from within the Pākehā establishment to the growing advocacy for Māori culture and values.

Dame Cath Tizard told him her Auckland Mayoral predecessor, Sir Dove-Myer Robinson, declared Walker to be “the most dangerous Māori in New Zealand”. History, however, would designate him as among the most unifying Māori of his time. His doctorate on Māori urbanisation was the first of his many influential writings that not only analysed the impact of Māori dislocation from iwi and hapū, but also reframed New Zealand as being first and foremost a Maori country, but one with other cultural influences.

He held many prominent and influential roles; Dr Walker was a member of the Maori rights group Ngā Tama Toa, New Zealand Māori Council and a foundation member of the World Council of Indigenous People.