Mr Harrison, a Ballarat Aboriginal Elder, will speak at the City of Ballarat Remembering the National Apology Day event today.

"Up until then the Stolen Generation was a type of myth. It was, 'this is just something that's Indigenous peoples and blackfellas, it's one of their myths', white people continued to perpetrate that up until the time Mr Rudd actually said, 'you're the Stolen Generation'," he said.

"Instead of being a myth anymore, they were somebody. This is what the day means to us, not just the apology, but being recognised as really being here."

From the mid-1800s to the 1970s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were forcibly removed from all areas of the country.

At 10 years old, Mr Harrison was stolen from his family in Gippsland with his aunt and two sisters.

"We were taken without consultation," he said.

"They grabbed my sisters by the hair, dragged them out and threw them in the car screaming, and me being held by the collar and punched behind the ears."

From there he was taken to Turana Youth Detention Centre, a "brutal" place where he was placed in a dark cell, had his head shaved by staff and scrubbed with steel wool "to scrub the black off me".

At 84, Mr Harrison still carries the trauma with him.

He was the only Stolen Generation member from Ballarat to attend Prime Minister Rudd's formal address in Canberra in 2008.

"When he's saying, 'they took the children away', it came back as though it was actually happening and my sisters being actually physically taken away and thrown into the car," he said.

"For 70 years, until I got the apology from Mr Rudd, I'd wake up screaming about this stinking door being shut on me and this dark room, in fact, I'm still a little [affected] with dark rooms, the dark room sometimes still invades the psyche."

The effect of the individual and collective pain experienced by the Stolen Generations has been well documented.

In a study of health and economic impacts of forcible removals and the Stolen Generations, the Healing Foundation in 2018 found 39 per cent of Stolen Generations over the age of 50 reported poor mental health.

City of Ballarat Mayor, Cr Daniel Moloney said today's event would allow us, as a community, to reflect on and remember the National Apology and the effect it had on the Stolen Generations.

"February 13, 2008 was a landmark day in Australia's history and it is important to take a moment to pause and remember the apology and what it meant to the Stolen Generation," Cr Moloney said.

"It will give me great pleasure to attend this event and to listen to Murray Harrison's first-hand impression of this momentous occasion".

"I would encourage people to also take a moment on Sunday to stop and remember such a significant moment for not only Ballarat's Stolen Generation but also the Stolen Generation all across Australia."

The event, at the Art Gallery of Ballarat, will be hosted by Ballarat Koori Engagement Action Group and the City of Ballarat from 10.30am.

For Mr Harrison, today is as much about joy as it is about remembering a painful history.

"This is why we need to keep celebrating this day and have people more aware it is a celebration of joy, really to be able to stand there and say, 'okay, I am a Stolen Gen, and I am also a survivor'," he said.

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