Remembering Black Workers in Canada
[Police force a black youth to the ground. He was among about 80 student demonstrators who marched on the U.S. consulate on University Ave. to back civil rights workers in Alabama on March 16, 1966. (Gerry Barker/Toronto Star/Getty Images) from Macleans, September 29, 2017, “Confronting Canada’s Ugly Record of Anti-Blackness,” by Melayna Williams]
“Following the Second World War, Mr. Grizzle and his fellow porters fought to create a new Canada by embodying a citizenship that reflected the diversity and dignity of humanity itself. They battled to normalize what is now routine, and even taken for granted, in our daily living: Black workers holding a wide range of jobs, including civil-service positions, and black people from Africa and the West Indies immigrating and becoming citizens of Canada.”
“We should always remember this was not a fight they were sure to win. We should also not forget that Canada wasn’t originally intended to be a multicultural society. Official multiculturalism was a fluke of history, and some thought of it as democracy gone wrong. Against great odds, the sleeping car porters sacrificed themselves and all they had, figuratively speaking, to put a stick in the wheels of a Canada headed in a different direction. The train porters turned Canada black, brown and a host of other shades. Yet this important piece of Canadian history has yet to be fully told.”
“Why don’t we know more about the struggle of black men and women who fought Jim Crow laws and political policies so they could be recognized, not only as humans, but as full citizens of Canada? Why are their achievements in community- and nation-building often absent, or erased, from official narratives? Why is it not understood that Canada officially became a multicultural country because – yes, it’s worth repeating – because of the pioneering work of the railway porters and the still-not-fulfilled dreams of black people such as Mr. Grizzle, who at one time were only allowed to hold jobs as sleeping car porters, if they were men, and in-home domestics, if they were women? Why are these black activists not celebrated or fully recognized for taking Canada off the bankrupting path of trying to be an exclusive, and racist, country for white people? Why are these stories of Canadian blackness still not told, even in this moment of multicultural awareness and racial, ethnic and cultural reconciliation?”
The Globe and Mail, February 1, 2019: “How black train porters helped put Canada on track,” by Cecil Foster
“You don't see a lot of black faces”
“Treasury Board President Jane Philpott said the government is aware that bias in the federal public service is preventing black workers from being promoted to the bureaucracy's highest levels. ‘There are systemic barriers for black employees in terms of getting jobs, advancing in their careers and being underrepresented,’ she said.”
CBC News, Jan 23, 2019: “Black public servants look to shatter their own ceiling”, by Idil Mussa
CBC News, Jan 19, 2019: “Nova Scotia wants to hire more black and Indigenous jail guards,” by Sherri Borden Colley
The Conversation, January 18, 2019: “Martin Luther King Jr., union man,” by Peter Cole, Professor of History, Western Illinois University
Events and Art Exhibitions in Toronto in Black History Month
Now Toronto, February 4, 2019: “A hundred Black women and gender-non-conforming artists feasted in the AGO,” by Kelsey Adams
Now Toronto, February 1, 2019: “The best Black History Month 2019 events in Toronto”
Workers History Museum, February 4, 2019: Cal Best and Black History Month
The Conversation, January 17, 2019: “Black Canadian women artists detangle the roots of Black beauty,” by Cheryl Thompson