WARNING: This story features the name and image of a deceased Indigenous person, which has been used with the permission of his family.
In 1995 Malcolm Cole died.
He was in his twin brother's house in Far North Queensland surrounded by family who loved him, bathed him and cared for him even after society and past friends had shunned him.
They shunned him for being HIV positive.
But before that, Malcolm had blazed a trail at the 1988 Mardi Gras, against the backdrop of Australia's bicentenary and a celebration of the nation's convict past, the Aboriginal and South Sea Islander man had dressed as Captain James Cook.
Now his twin brother Robert is recreating the costume and marching in 2024 to ensure his brother's legacy lives on.
When Malcolm marched in 1988, attitudes were different.
hom*osexuality was far less accepted than it is today, the HIV epidemic was raging and an apology to Indigenous Australians from a prime minister was 20 years away.
Sydney was busy preparing its bicentenary celebrations to mark the 200th anniversary of the First Fleet arriving at Botany Bay.
On January 26, 11 tall ships arrived in Sydney after retracing the original convict voyage from the United Kingdom. Performances of British expeditions were staged in period costumes across the city.
Prince Charles addressed the nation on the steps of the Sydney Opera House.
While that was happening thousands of Indigenous people travelled to Sydney to protest the celebrations, and Malcolm was brainstorming ideas for a float.
Panos Couros was a young gay man who took part in the protest and later met Malcolm at a Mardi Gras workshop.
"We locked eyes ... I said, 'Do you want to do a float?' And he said, 'That's why I'm here,'" Panos recalls.
Together they came up with the concept for the float.
On a tall ship, pulled by a group of white people, Malcolm would dress as Captain Cook, the British explorer who claimed New South Wales for the British Crown in 1770.
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Narungga and Kaurna man Rodney Junga-Williams would dress as Sir Joseph Banks, a botanist who arrived in Australia with Captain Cook and who was key in justifying the legal dispossession of First Nations people from their land.
Panos stepped back from marching with the float and filmed the moment.
Robert, who was living in Townsville at the time, got a call from Malcolm before the parade.
"Malcolm being the person he was, [he said,] 'I'm going to do this. I don't care what people say. I'm going to do this,'" Robert recalls.
"It happened and it's caused a stir amongst a lot of you, even today. It's still stirring, stirring, stirring the pot."
'Being gay was a no-no'
Malcolm and Robert were born in the small community of Ayr in Far North Queensland in 1949.
"As kids, we were very close … we used to play tricks on lots of people because we were so identical," Robert says.
They had six brothers and three sisters. The family were heavily involved in the local church. Robert went to Sunday school with his now-wife Phillipa.
"Being Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, South Sea Islander, being gay was a no-no," Phillipa recalls.
In a past interview with Big Eye/Yarmuk Productions, a Queensland Indigenous production house, Malcolm reflected on growing up in Ayr.
"In Ayr, I had to walk down the street and [people] would whistle at you and things like that and I had to take all that," he said.
At 19 the twin brothers moved to Sydney. Malcolm fell in love with dance,touring with the Aboriginal Islander Dance Theatre and teaching in schools across Sydney.
He went on to co-host Blackout on ABC TV with Lillian Crombie in 1989, a show covering the First Nations community in Australia.
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"He was a full-on Black gay man … If you didn't know Malcolm when you first seen him, you will know him after that day," Robert remembers.
"And the kids that he taught in the schools say that, 'Malcolm was someone that we didn't have to put pen to paper. We just remembered all of what he said.'"
'My friends rejected me'
Malcolm discovered he was HIV positive in 1988, the same year that he marched as Captain Cook.
"He was only in the early stages then … he was still up and active and still kicking and carrying on," Robert says.
In an interview before his death, Malcolm spoke about the stigma he faced being HIV positive.
"All my friends [in Sydney] that I used to drive around with, rejected me … they didn't even want to know about me," he says.
Malcolm continued to encounter the community's fear of HIV when he moved to Townsville to live with Robert.
"People used to say to us, 'Why don't you put him somewhere — put him out in a home or something?'" Robert says.
"To [suggest we] put someone like that, your own twin brother, in a home or outside, was just devastating … We loved him, hugged him, bathed him, washed him — did all those things. Malcolm died in 1995 at my place in Currajong, Townsville."
After Malcolm's death, Robert and Phillipa say they weren't allowed to hold a viewing of his body and that they were billed an additional fee to have the hearse industrially cleaned after the funeral.
"This is how they treated these people back in those days … they never made it easy for people who had HIV," Robert says.
A legacy finally recognised
At Sydney's White Bay Power Station, the final installation for the Biennale of Sydney is being completed. Among artworks from around the world hangs a 13-metre-tall mural of Malcolm dressed in the Captain Cook costume.
It's by artist Dylan Mooney, a 28-year-old Torres Strait and South Sea Islander.
"Malcolm was larger than life and his story is a big story ... so the size really informed the work," Dylan says.
Dylan was born in Mackay the same year Malcolm died, and attended primary school in Ayr.
He says he was familiar with the Cole family but didn't know the full story of Malcolm's life and achievements until he visited Robert to consult on the mural design.
"To be sharing Malcolm's story to the wider audience, and being from North Queensland as well, is very special to me," Dylan explains.
"Growing up, I didn't really have many idols ... I didn't know many queer Indigenous people, and then in my later years going into these queer spaces, there still wasn't much of that representation.
"Even today, there isn't that many stories of queer Black people being told within the media, and for the time [of the 1988 parade] there wouldn't have been that much attention for Malcolm's story."
Artist Tony Albert, who was born in Townsville, is theFondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain First Nations Curatorial Fellow at the Biennale of Sydney.
He was also unfamiliar with Malcolm's story before the mural commission.
"That doesn't surprise me at all," Tony says.
"As Aboriginal people, it's not what's written into history, it's what's purposely excluded, and I think the light that has been shone upon this story is nowhere near as bright as it needs to be."
"I think Dylan is the perfect match for telling this story in a contemporary manner."
Robert and Dylan will be featured on a panel at the Biennale of Sydney reflecting on Malcolm's legacy.
"Now, it's all coming to fruition," Robert says.
'For my brother'
Robert admits he is nervous about marching in the parade this year. This is the first time he will be attending Mardi Gras.
"I'm still determined," he says.
"This is Malcolm coming down in me [saying], 'I'm going to do it.
"I'm doing it for you, my brother."
Robert reflects that since 1988, the lives of First Nations people in Australia have "got worse" in some areas.
He says he's concerned that people may misunderstand the message he wants to share by dressing as Captain Cook.
"To people who are looking from the outside [saying], 'Look at that silly Black man doing all those silly things, dressing up as Captain Cook and jumping on a float' … [It's an] invitation to say, 'Hey, listen to me. I'm here to tell you a story,'" Robert says.
"You've got to accept it — the history is there. It's in black and white … we're dying faster than the wider community."
At this year's Mardi Gras parade, Robert will be there, determined to make sure his twin brother is not forgotten.
Watch Robert Cole's Mardi Gras journey on 7.30 on ABC TV and ABC iview on Monday March 4.
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