Artist, musician and Aboriginal community leader Martin Ballangarry has a long record of service to numerous organisations including the Bowraville Community Alliance, the Nambucca Valley Reconciliation Group, the Bowraville Aboriginal Medical Service and the Bowraville Local Aboriginal Land Council. He created history in 2004 when he became the first Aboriginal person to be elected to the Nambucca Shire Council.
When Ballangarry was 10 years old, Charles Perkins and the Freedom Ride came to Bowraville. Ballangarry was one of the Indigenous people who attended the segregated picture theatre at Bowraville and was escorted from the theatre by police, for attempting to sit in the seats reserved for white patrons. In 2009 part of Ballangarry's life story and the old Bowraville theatre seats were featured in the National Museum of Australia's travelling exhibition From Little Things Big Things Grow.
