February is Black History Month!
In Black Facts: A Celebration of Black History Month, the OPSEU Workers of Colour Caucus pays tribute to historical figures and movements that contributed to the struggle for all against social injustice and inequality . Keep an eye on this page for new Black Facts which will be posted throughout February 2015.
February 28: Lincoln MacCauley Alexander
We want Canadians to fight racism wherever it rears its ugly head– in schools, in hockey rinks, in workplaces, on the street, and yes, even in Parliament.
Lincoln MacCauley Alexander PC, CC, OOnt, CD, QC was born in Toronto, Ontario, on January 21, 1922, the son of immigrants from the Caribbean–his mother was from Jamaica and his father from St. Vincent. His mother, Mae Rose, was a maid, and his father, also named Lincoln MacCauley Alexander was a carpenter by trade, but in Canada, he had to work as a railway porter, which in those days was one of the few jobs available to racialized men. The younger Alexander grew up in Toronto until the age of 15 when he moved to Harlem, New York City, to live with his mother. He subsequently lived in Long Island and in Brooklyn.
On returning to Canada, Alexander served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during the World War II years of 1942 to 1945. At Lachine, Quebec, he trained to be a wireless operator and on graduating, he was sent to Portage La Prairie, Manitoba, where he flew training missions.
Lincoln Alexander entered McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1949. He would also earn a law degree from Osgoode Hall in Toronto. At the time, there were only about four Black practicing lawyers in all of Ontario. When established law firms turned him away, in 1954, he became a partner in the first inter-racial law firm in Canada, Duncan and Alexander.
It was not really difficult, but I didn't have all the clients, because people weren't used to having a Black lawyer. Nobody said it, but Black meant you were seen as incompetent.
In 1962, he became a partner in the Hamilton law firm of Miller, Alexander, Tokiwa and Isaacs, and he was subsequently appointed Queen's Counsel in 1965. In that year, Alexander also entered federal politics. At first, he hadn't really expected even to win his party's nomination. There were only a few hundred Black persons in Hamilton at the time and "no one of colour in those days was involved in politics to any great extent. They really weren't wanted.” Regardless, he succeeded in becoming the first Black candidate to run for a federal seat in Hamilton. As the Progressive Conservative candidate in the riding of Hamilton West, he lost to the Liberal incumbent.
However, Alexander's team regarded the result as a victory and he immediately got himself nominated again for the next election, which would not actually occur until two and a half years later. His long campaign led to success. In the 1968 general election, he won by the narrow margin of less than 350 votes and became the first Black Canadian elected to the House of Commons. He was the only Progressive Conservative party candidate to be elected in an Ontario urban centre, as the Liberals, led for the first time by Pierre Trudeau, scored a majority government win. Alexander's victory was notable for another reason too. He had never held any political office before and
went from the guy in the street to the House of Commons. Most people (in the Commons) usually had some previous experience in politics, maybe as an alderman or school trustee.
Alexander would win federal re-election four times and serve in Parliament for almost 12 years. In 1979, he was the first Black cabinet minister ever appointed in Canada's history, in the newly elected Progressive Conservative government of Joe Clark. But his term as Minister of Labour would last only nine months until the government's defeat in the winter election of 1980. A few months later, in May 1980, Alexander resigned his Commons seat to accept an appointment from Ontario's Premier William Davis as Chairman of the Workmen's Compensation Board of Ontario.
Alexander would make front-page news again in 1985. On the recommendation of then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, he was appointed Ontario's 24th Lieutenant Governor. It was another historic step, as Alexander became the first member of a racialized group to serve in that vice-regal office in any province in Canada. His official duties included summoning and dissolving Ontario's legislature, reading the Speech from the Throne at the opening of each legislative session and giving assent to bills passed by the legislature.
Meanwhile, he made youth and education issues key parts of his mandate as he spoke to students at more than 250 schools during his term. He constantly promoted the importance of education, with the advice to young Canadians to:
Stay in school. Get an education. Leave drugs and alcohol alone. You don't need them as a crutch.
He served as Lieutenant Governor until 1991. That same year, he was appointed Chancellor of the University of Guelph, in Ontario.
In 1997, Alexander was appointed as inaugural Chair of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation. The Foundation was created by the Government of Canada as part of the Japanese Canadian Redress Agreement. In a 1999 speech at the launch of what he described as:
the largest anti-racism campaign of its kind in Canadian history,
Alexander noted the equality rights provided by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But he added,
Racist attitudes and institutional racism are still very much alive. In my view, we still have a long way to go.
In asking Canadians to join in the fight against racism, Alexander stated:
We want Canadians to fight racism wherever it rears its ugly head – in schools, in hockey rinks, in workplaces, on the street, and yes, even in Parliament.
From 1991-2007, Alexander also served as Chancellor of the University of Guelph. He was also appointed to the boards of the Ontario Banking Ombudsman, the Ontario Press Council, the Royal Winter Fair, and the Shaw Festival. He has been the recipient of a very long list of prestigious awards and honours, including seven honorary doctorates. He was appointed to the Order of Ontario in 1992.
To commemorate his term as Lieutenant Governor, since 1993, the province of Ontario has made awards annually, in his name, to two young people between the ages of 16 and 25 who have demonstrated leadership in eliminating racial discrimination. The new Ontario Provincial Police headquarters is named after Alexander, as are a secondary school in Mississauga, Ontario, two public schools in Hamilton and Ajax, Ontario, and a parkway in his home city of Hamilton.
Compiled from:
- “First Black Canadian Elected to the House of Commons” Electoral Insight, Elections Canada,, published October, 2002 at http://www.elections.ca/res/eim/article_search/article.asp?id=70&lang=e&frmPageSize
- “Lincoln Alexander, Canada’s 1st MP Dies”, CBC, published October 19, 2012 at http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/news/lincoln-alexander-canada-s-1st-black-mp-dies-1.1180603
- “Lincoln Alexander Dies at 90,” The Toronto Star, published Sat October 20, 2012 at http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2012/10/20/lincoln_alexander_dies_at_90.html
For further information:
- The Canadian Race Relations Foundation Profile of Lincoln Alexander “A Man of Respect: The Honourable Lincoln Alexander” at http://crrf-fcrr.ca/en/news-a-events/articles/item/25280-celebrating-lincoln-alexander
- Watch "A conversation with The Hon. Lincoln Alexander, from 2003" from TVO's Allan Gregg In Conversation at http://youtu.be/i7W3Mx5YuBE
February 27: Charles Roach
I have to re-double my efforts. The struggle is the most important thing. The principle is the important thing. Not how it ends. Not whether I win or lose…but did I fight the struggle and do all that I can do?
For fifty years, the human rights lawyer, activist, artist, and musician campaigned to make Toronto a more equitable place. Through his work, Charles Roach became a leading figure in Toronto's Black community and was recognized for having inspired several generations of activists, and helping to alter the city's political culture.
Charles Roach was born in Belmont, Trinidad and Tobago, the son of a trade union organizer. In 1955, he arrived in Canada–an aspiring priest–to study at the University of Saskatchewan. He was soon politicized by the civil rights movement, stating:
after the '50's, I started being more political… This was the spirit of the times. I'm really from the civil-rights era.
He then studied law at the University of Toronto and was called to the bar in 1963.
Roach worked as a staff lawyer for the City of Toronto in the 1960's, while also participating and organizing marches and demonstrations for human rights. He opened his own law practice in 1968, eventually becoming the firm of Roach and Schwartz Associates. Roach was also a founder of the Caribana festival, serving as its first Chair. He also went on to establish the Movement of Minority Electors in 1978 to encourage members of the racialized community to enter electoral politics.
Along with Dudley Laws, Charles Roach founded the Albert Johnson Defense Committee and the Black Action Defense Committee (BADC), which led the charge against racist policing in Canada.
Charles Roach was especially known for his long-standing efforts to win civilian control of policing following the shootings of Buddy Evans in 1978 and Albert Johnson in 1979. Roach most recently represented the family of Michael Eligon Jr., who was shot in February of 2012.
One of the movement's key achievements was the creation of the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), the civilian agency mandated to look into killings and serious injuries caused by police. Over the decades, BADC has continually pushed the SIU to do more substantial investigations.
Roach has always pursued human rights on two fronts simultaneously: in the courts and through political organizing.
Another of Roach’s spectacular victories was the case of the seven Jamaican mothers who won permanent residency with the help of his activist-legal campaign, which challenged the situation of domestic workers who had been in Canada for many years without hope of landed status.
His contributions to the fight against apartheid in South Africa included founding the Freedom Ride Against Apartheid (with Lennox Farrell), and the controversial 1986 case in which he argued that the South African ambassador to Canada was complicit in crimes against humanity and therefore should not be permitted to give a lecture at U of T. In 1999, Roach went to Rwanda to represent Hutu journalist Mathieu Ngirumpatse against human rights abuse charges before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
One of Roach’s most persistent projects was the abolition of the oath of allegiance to the Queen as a condition of citizenship. Roach's refusal to swear allegiance to the Queen had cost him. He was, for example, offered an appointment as a provincial court judge, but since that required the oath, he could not accept it. Because the oath is integral to the citizenship ceremony, he could never become a Canadian, though a resident of Canada since 1955. He lost an oath-to-the-Queen case in federal court in the 1990's, and the appeal as well, but he had more recently initiated a similar case in Ontario's Superior Court of Justice and a month before his death, won the right to continue that case.
Compiled from lawyer Peter Rosenthal’s homage to Charles Roach in Now Toronto magazine and the tribute in The Toronto Star dated October 3, 2012.
For further information:
February 26: Adelle Blackett
I teach labour law, I teach international trade law. To many people that combination is entirely counter-intuitive. But from the perspective of Black History Month, that is very much revelatory of our own history. We were brought here as slaves, brought to the Americas in the form of a triangular trade. We were purchased as commodities, our labour power produced commodities that were then sold. That dehumanization process is part of our history that is rarely taught…
Professor Adelle Blackett is a William Dawson Scholar and Director of the Labour Law and Development Research Laboratory at the Faculty of Law at McGill University. Professor Blackett, who holds a doctorate in law from Columbia University and has over 40 publications in 3 languages, has devoted her research and advocacy to the issue of social justice for historically excluded communities, in Canada and abroad.
Professor Adelle Blackett has expertise in labour law, trade law, and international development. A former official of the International Labour Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, Professor Blackett has also been a visiting academic at the African Development Bank in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.
Professor Blackett is a research coordinator for the Inter-university Research Centre on Globalization and Work (CRIMT), the convener of the Labour Law and Development Research Network (LLDRN) and the recent recipient of a Canadian Foundation for Innovation award to construct a Labour Law and Development Research Laboratory (LLDRL).
Professor Blackett has has recently been commissioned by the ILO as the lead legal expert on standard setting for the adoption of a new international labour convention on decent work for domestic workers in 2011. Her other current research focuses on the role of international persuasion in labour law reform in West Africa (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council) and identifying regulatory vehicles to promote the citizenship at work of domestic workers (Fondation du Barreau du Québec).
In 2009, she was unanimously appointed by the National Assembly of Quebec to the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse (CDPDJ), where she has contributed to policy and action on racial profiling, employment equity and migrant workers’ rights. Prior to coming to McGill in 2000, she worked for United Nations specialized agency the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva. She has been the ILO’s expert setting historic international labour standards on domestic workers’ rights (2008-2011), and has led a participatory, ILO-sponsored initiative to revise the Haitian Labour Code (2011-2014).
She is the recipient of the 2010-11 Bora Laskin National Fellowship in Human Rights Research, a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal (2012), and the Christine Tourigny Award of Merit from the Barreau du Québec (2014).
To hear Adelle Blackett speak as Quebec Laureate of Le Mois de l’ Histoires de Noirs (Black History Month) click here http://youtu.be/tnMFFA9Kkcw
February 25: Lawrence Hill
We continue to embrace subtle means to define people by dint of their blood purity, or by degrees of mixture. It still influences the way we talk when we describe our neighbour as half black and half white, or our co-worker as one-quarter Irish, one-quarter Japanese, and one-half Nigerian. How quaint. How exotic. How ludicrous. Human identity cannot be arithmetically quantified…
-Excerpt from Blood: The Stuff of Life
Lawrence Hill is the son of American immigrants. On his father's side, Hill's grandfather and great grandfather were university-educated, ordained ministers of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. Hill's father, Daniel G. Hill (1923-2003), became the first director and later the chairperson of the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Daniel Hill also served as the Ombudsman of Ontario and published a still seminal work about Black history in Canada: The Freedom Seekers: Blacks in Early Canada.
Hill's mother, Donna M. Hill (1928-), came from a Republican family in Oak Park Illinois, graduated from Oberlin College and later went on to become a civil rights activist in Washington, D.C. Donna Hill worked as a human rights activist for the Toronto Labor Committee for Human Rights in the early 1950s and worked to persuade the Ontario government to enact anti-discrimination legislation. Also writing on Black history: A Black Man's Toronto, 1914-1980: The Reminiscences of Harry Gaiery, Donna Hill's book was published in 1980 by the Multicultural History Society of Ontario. Daniel and Donna Hill co-founded The Ontario Black History Society with Wilson O. Brooks and other friends.
The work of his parents in the human rights movement and Black history greatly influenced Hill's work as a writer. Hill curated and wrote the exhibit on his father for the Ontario Archives, called The Freedom Seeker: The Life and Times of Daniel G. Hill.
Lawrence Hill is also the author of nine books of fiction and non-fiction. In 2005, he won his first honour for his work, a National Magazine Award for the article "Is Africa's Pain Black America's Burden?" published in The Walrus. But it was his third novel, The Book of Negroes (HarperCollins Canada, 2007) — published in some countries as Someone Knows My Name and in French as Aminata — that brought his writing to broad public attention. The novel won several awards, including The Rogers/Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, both CBC Radio’s Canada Reads and Radio Canada’s Le Combat des livres, and The Commonwealth Prize for Best Book, which came with a private audience with Queen Elizabeth II. The Book of Negroes television mini-series which Lawrence Hill co-wrote with director Clement Virgo, was filmed in South Africa and Canada and is currently airing on CBC.
Lawrence Hill’s newest non-fiction book, Blood: The Stuff of Life was published in September 2013. Blood is a personal consideration of the physical, social, cultural and psychological aspects of blood, and how it defines, unites and divides us. Hill drew from the book to deliver the 2013 Massey Lectures across Canada. The lectures were broadcast on the CBC Radio "Ideas" program. Blood: The Stuff of Life won the Hamilton Literary Award for non-fiction. In 2013, Hill published the essay Dear Sir: I intend to Burn Your Book: An Anatomy of a Book Burning.
Formerly a reporter with The Globe and Mail and parliamentary correspondent for The Winnipeg Free Press, Hill is an honorary patron of Crossroads International, for which he travelled as a volunteer to the West African countries Niger, Cameroon and Mali, and to which he lends the name of his best-known character for the Aminata Fund, which supports programs for girls and women in Africa. Hill is also a member of the Council of Patrons of the Black Loyalist Heritage Society, and of the Advisory Council of Book Clubs for Inmates and is an honorary patron of Project Bookmark Canada.
Compiled from Lawrence Hill’s web-site at http://lawrencehill.com
Lawrence Hill’s exhibit on his father, Daniel Hill http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/en/explore/online/dan_hill/index.aspx
More information about the Book of Negroes: Lawrencehill.com/the-book-of-negroes
February 24: Afua Cooper
When something is silenced it is as though it never happened.
-Afua Cooper on the importance of writing about slavery and its legacies on CBC, the Morning Edition, February 6, 2007
Born in Westmoreland, Afua Cooper grew up in Kingston, Jamaica and migrated to Toronto in 1980. She holds a PhD in African-Canadian history and she is currently the James Robinson Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies. Her research interests are African Canadian studies, with specific regard to the period of enslavement and emancipation in 18th and 19th century Canada and the Black Atlantic; African-Nova Scotian history; political consciousness; community building and culture; slavery’s aftermath; Black youth studies.
Dr. Cooper founded the Black Canadian Studies Association (BCSA), which she currently chairs.
Her dissertation, "Doing Battle in Freedom’s Cause", is a biographical study of Henry Bibb, a 19th-century African-American abolitionist who lived and worked in Ontario. She also has expertise in women's history and New France studies.
She has published four books of poetry, including Memories Have Tongue (1994), one of the finalists in the 1992 Casa de las Americas literary award. She is the co-author of We're Rooted Here and They Can't Pull Us Up: Essays in African Canadian Women's History (1994), which won the Joseph Brant Award for history. She has also released two albums of her poetry.
Her book The Hanging of Angelique (2006) tells the story of an an enslaved African Marie Joseph Angelique who was executed in Montreal at a time when Quebec was under French colonial rule. It was shortlisted for the 2006 Governor General Literary Award for non-fiction.
Cooper still lives in Toronto. She is a winner of the Harry Jerome Award for professional excellence.
To hear Afua Cooper talking about her writing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z5CJreHfpg
February 23: Jean Augustine
The Government of Canada considers the selective treatment of individuals solely on the basis of ethnic or racial characteristics as unacceptable
-Jean Augustine, Statement in the House of Commons, 2004
In 1993, Canadian politician Jean Augustine became the first Black woman elected to the Parliament of Canada. She was elected in the riding of Etobicoke-Lakeshore in 1993 and sat in Parliament until 2006.
Among her accomplishments as an MP was the introduction of a motion, passed unanimously, to have February proclaimed as Black History Month in Canada. The city of Toronto had been celebrating Black History Month, working with organizations such as the Ontario Black History Society, since 1979.
Born in St. George's, Grenada, Jean Augustine was a qualified teacher when she arrived in Canada in 1959. She decided to take advantage of a Canadian Program that offered citizens of countries belonging to the British Commonwealth of Nations the opportunity to come to Canada as domestic servants and had the right to settle in Canada after one year if they so desired. She came to Canada in 1960 at age 22, but had to work as a domestic and shoe clerk before earning an Ontario Teacher's Certificate.
After completing a Master of Education degree, Ms. Augustine became a school principal with the Metropolitan Separate School Board in Toronto. From 1988 until 1993, she was chair of the Metro Toronto Housing Authority. Jean Augustine also supported many social causes through her involvement in boards such as that of The Hospital for Sick Children, the Stephen Lewis Foundation and the Harbourfront Corporation. She is a former national president of the Congress of Black Women of Canada. She holds an honorary doctorate of law from the University of Toronto.
During her years as a federal member of parliament, The Honourable Jean Augustine served as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister of Canada, Chair of the National Liberal Women's Caucus, Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and the Status of Women, Chair of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Deputy Speaker.
In March 2007 Jean Augustine became the first Fairness Commissioner for the province of Ontario. The Office of the Fairness Commissioner assesses the registration practices of certain regulated professions and trades to make sure they are transparent, objective, impartial and fair for anyone applying to practise his or her profession in Ontario. The office requires the bodies that regulate the professions and trades to review their own registration processes, submit reports about them and implement the commissioner’s recommendations for improvement.
Jean Augustine is the recipient of numerous awards–including the 1994 Canadian Black Achievement Award, the YWCA Woman of Distinction and the Kaye Livingstone Award for support of issues relating to Black women. Ms. Augustine has worked on many initiatives related to youth, noting that "racism is the most significant barrier to the successful integration of newcomer black youths to Canada."
February 20: Rosemary Brown
Unless all of us are free, none of us are free.
-Rosemary Brown
Born in Jamaica, Rosemary Brown emigrated to Canada in 1951 to study at McGill University. There she soon encountered racism—no other female students wanted to room with her; only a few other students would speak to her in the dining hall. Prospective landlords and employers shunned her when she went in search of an apartment or a job.
In mid-1955, Brown moved to British Columbia to complete studies in social work. She and her husband Bill Brown joined the British Columbia Association for Colored People (BCAAP) and then the Voice of Women. Brown remained active in both groups and in the 1960’s began appearing regularly on a television show called “People in Conflict.”
By the late 1960’s, Brown was speaking up about the racism within feminist communities and the lack of attention to sexism in racialized communities. In a 1973 speech, Brown said, “…to be black and female in a society which is both racist and sexist is to be in a unique position of having nowhere but to go up!”
With that spirit, Brown grasped opportunities that others found daunting. She took the position of Volunteer Ombudsman and in 1972, she was elected to the provincial legislature in British Columbia becoming the first black woman in Canadian history to become a member of a Canadian parliamentary body.
The first time she was approached to be a political candidate, Brown laughed. She thought no riding association would nominate her –a black woman—not even the New Democratic Party. In 1972, Brown ran for the sake of raising awareness of racism and sexism and to defeat the Social Credit with no expectation of winning. Brown became the first member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) and went on to serve for fourteen years.
A determined feminist, Rosemary worked throughout her life to promote equality and human rights.
Brown was a founding member of the Vancouver Status of Women Council, and a founding member of the Vancouver Crisis Center. Her campaigns included efforts to eliminate sexism in textbooks, increase representation on boards and prohibit discrimination based on sex and marital status.
A busy mother of three as well as an active member of the National Democratic Party, she ran for leadership of the Federal NDP in 1975, becoming the first woman to contest the leadership of the national party. She used the slogan “Brown is beautiful” and in a tight race, lost on the fourth ballot to Ed Broadbent.
Rosemary served in the B.C.. Legislature until 1986 when she became CEO, special ambassador and president of MATCH International, an international development agency run by and for women. Brown said, “No matter how much progress Canadian women make towards equality, if you are surrounded by countries where women have not achieved the same, then your achievements are at risk." From 1993-1996, Brown served as Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission. She also later became a professor in women’s studies at Simon Fraser University.
Rosemary’s dedicated community service won her numerous awards. In 1995, she was a recipient of the Order of British Columbia, and in 1996, she was named an Officer of the Order of Canada. Brown was also sworn to the Crown’s Privy Council for Canada as a member of the Canadian Security Intelligence Review Committee from 1993-1998 and she served on the Order of the Canadian Advisor Committee until her death in 2003.
- Compiled from the book Being Brown (Random House: Toronto) and from the web-sites heroines.ca “A Guide to Women in Canadian History” and Section 15.ca.
February 19: Stanley Grizzle
While working at the Canadian Pacific Railway in the 1940s, Stanley Grizzle became active in the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP), the first trade union in Canada organized by and for black Canadian employees.
Stanley Grizzle was conscripted into the Canadian army medical corps in 1942 during World War II. He says, “the reason I qualified for the medical corps is because I was a sleeping car porter and I could make a bed, ” but he says the reason he decided to answer the notice to report to war was not because of “the social conditions as they affected myself and my people.” Grizzle describes:
“We couldn't’t get jobs here. The only job a black person could get was on the railroad as a porter, for a man. And for a woman, domestic. You could walk up and down Yonge Street, you never saw a black person working in a restaurant or any of the stores. That’s just the way it was. And so, there was no motivation for a black person to get into the army. One of its themes was ‘To Save the World for Democracy.’ Well, we weren't’t enjoying any democracy in peacetime, so I couldn't’t see too much reason to join the army. I got this notice, and decided that I better answer the service. “
Upon returning to Canada after serving in Europe during World War II, Grizzle was elected President of his union local, and by the early 1950’s Grizzle had become a member of Canada’s Joint Labour Committee to Combat Racial Intolerance. Along with seeking better wages and working conditions for union members, the Brotherhood also pressured the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Northern Albertan Railway to enact anti-discrimination employment practices. At the time, porters were barred from employment as conductors or engineers. Grizzle campaigned to open management ranks to blacks.
Grizzle also led groups that met with provincial and federal government offic