More than three hours before Nicky Winmar made history, 20 years ago on Wednesday, he entered a pact with Gilbert McAdam, another Aboriginal player with St Kilda, who was about to play his first game at Victoria Park, then the home ground of the Magpies.
At half-time in the reserves, the pair emerged from the visitors' change rooms, down the players' race, to familiarise McAdam with what was then the most hostile territory for opposing clubs in Australian football.
The race was next to the area occupied by the fanatical Collingwood cheer squad and the racial abuse hurled at the two Aboriginal players from the moment they emerged was so offensive that, two decades on, McAdam still can't bring himself to repeat it. ''I don't want to say what it was, but it was full-on,'' is how he puts it. ''I'll just say that it was racial and it was bad - it was terrible.
''We just looked at each other and, whether it was me or him, just basically said to each other, 'We're not going to put up with this crap! Let's get out there today and run amok. Let's get first and second best on ground.' And it was funny. It turned out that way and we won the game, which was the most important thing.''
When the siren sounded, and an undermanned St Kilda recorded its first win at the ground in almost two decades, Winmar found himself near the Collingwood cheer squad, and instinctively, spontaneously, raised his arms over his head before lifting his St Kilda guernsey, pointed to his bare brown skin and declared: ''I'm black - and I'm proud to be black!''
As some in the crowd responded with yet more abuse, a defiant Winmar blew a few kisses before jogging to the middle of the ground in and hugging McAdam.
Were it not for the skill and news instincts of photographer Wayne Ludbey, a seminal moment in the history of race relations in Australia - one that transcended football and sport - would have been greatly diminished, perhaps even lost.
Ludbey not only captured Winmar's gesture, frame by frame, he heard what Winmar said and immediately appreciated the weight of it. When he arrived back at the offices of The Sunday Age a powerful front page had already been designed around long-awaited verdicts in the Rodney King bashing case in Los Angeles, an expose of Australian paedophiles in Asia that would win a Walkley award, and a tight result in a federal byelection.
The page was quickly redesigned and a modest sports pointer became a substantial story, run with Ludbey's picture under the headline: Winmar: I'm black and proud of it.
What followed is now history. Senior columnists and editorial writers condemned what had happened and called for zero tolerance of racist remarks; the then Collingwood president unwittingly added to the controversy, saying, ''As long as they [Aborigines] conduct themselves like white people, well, off the field, everyone will admire and respect them,'' then set about making things right; a United Nations conference was told how Winmar's action should be a catalyst for action against racism in all its forms; McAdam was appointed as the AFL's first indigenous liaison officer.
More action, notably the rule banning racial and religious vilification, came after Michael Long took his own courageous stand on Anzac Day, two years later, but the importance of Winmar's gesture is simply impossible to overstate.
''At some stage - what's that old saying? - you draw a line in the sand, and I suppose that Vic Park day is where you drew the line in the sand and that's where it all changed,'' McAdam says.
''A lot of good came out of that because it did make a lot of people stand up and take notice and probably get a better understanding of Aboriginal Australia and how we feel and the things that we had to put up with to play the game.
''A lot of stuff back then was hush-hush, so for it to come out was massive. It opened a lot of clubs' eyes, and not only clubs but supporters. When I see AFL today in 2013 and I see so many Aboriginal players in all the different clubs, it just makes me proud that it can have an impact on the younger ones.''
Now, Winmar's action is the focus of an exhibition at the National Sports Museum at the MCG; of Black under the jumper, The image that shaped a nation, a book to be published later this year by Victoria University's Matthew Klugman and Queensland University's Gary Osmond; and of Silent Shout: The Nicky Winmar Story, a documentary on Winmar's life by US-born, Australian-based Tim O'Brien.
And Winmar? It is fair to say the weight of being a kind of national poster boy on reconciliation has not always sat easily with him.
For many of the intervening years it has been something of a burden, with Winmar insisting to O'Brien that others suffered more from the blight of racism and are more worthy of role model status.
I was with Winmar in 2000 when he addressed a group of aspiring Aboriginal athletes at Mutitjulu, near Uluru, and told them his story, the important role his father had played in it, and implored them to ''go out and give it your best shot''. The quiet dignity and respectful interaction with those who lived there, especially the older women, was striking. More recently, there have been heart problems and a much lower profile.
It is the many layers of the story that appeals to filmmaker O'Brien. One of those layers is the bond between Winmar, a Noongar man from south of Perth and the son of a shearer, and McAdam, an Aranda man from Alice Springs, the son of a stockman.
Twenty years on, McAdam is heading west to support his friend. ''It's going to be grouse, because we haven't seen each other for a long, long time. We go back a long way. We're good brothers.''
Black and Proud: A Stand Against Racism will feature at the MCG's National Sports Museum for the rest of this year.
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