black history month 2021

celebrating and Honoring black / African Canadians

While Black History Month often receives attention and awareness in the United States of America, few British Columbians are aware of our history of both contributions that Black / African Canadians have made to our country and province as well as the the degree of prejudice and racial animus that they historically and contemporarily face in our society.

In the hopes of promoting awareness and conversation in our community, the Lifelong Learning Centre created a series of posters honoring historical and contemporary figures from the Black / African Canadian community who have contributed to our political economic cultural and social makeup. We were honored to take part in Black History Month and devote time to educating ourselves about the Black/ African community here in Canada. We believe that literacy is fundamental in the understanding of the world around us and through this project, our understanding and education on Canadian Black History Month has grown.

We are grateful to our downtown business partners who agreed to participate in this initiative by displaying these posters in their storefront windows:

Bop City Records, Uplifters Shop, Artifact Shop, Searle's Shoes, La Cache Comox Valley, Shone’s Cafe, Uranus * Hip Gifts * Cool Cards, Second Page Used Books 546 Duncan Ave., Onethirtythree Boardshop, High Tide Public House, 5th Street Florist, States of Summer, Laughing Oyster Bookshop, Too Good To Be Threw, Kradles, Unbridled, Bigfoot Donuts, Finders Keep Hers Boutique

Posters were removed at the close of BHM, please see below for the archived images.

 

did you know?

  • The Victoria Pioneer Rifle Corps (Founded in 1861) was made up of Black volunteers. They lasted until 1865, when the prejudice they experienced from the community they served caused them to “disband in disgust”. Victoria Pioneer Rifle Corps – BC Black History Awareness Society

  • Black settlers were among the founders of Saltspring Island, promoting education and community development. Evidence suggests that despite their efforts, they were not welcomed by their neighbours and many of them left by 1971. Mystery of Salt Spring Island: Who Killed Canada’s Black Landowners? | Black Agenda Report

  • Black Strathcona was a working-class black neighborhood in Vancouver. Over the years, blacks endured efforts by the city to rezone Strathcona making it difficult to obtain mortgages or make home improvements, and by newspaper articles portraying parts of the neighborhood, such as Hogan’s Alley, as dens of squalor, immorality and crime. In the late 1960s, a freeway was planned that would run through Hogan’s Alley and Chinatown. The freeway was ultimately stopped, but construction of the first phase – the Georgia viaduct – was completed in 1971. In the process, the western end of Hogan’s Alley was expropriated and several blocks of houses were demolished.( Black Strathcona - 10 video stories about Vancouver's black communityBlack Strathcona )

  • British Columbian pioneer, Mifflin Gibbs had actively fought racism in Philadelphia. In California, he led civil rights protests and founded the state’s first Black newspaper. He had already looked racial hatred in the face. But when he and his wife were showered with flour as they attempted to take their seats in the Victoria Theatre, it was one insult too many. ( ON THE ROAD NORTH - Black Canada and Journey to Freedom | TO CANADA BY ANOTHER ROAD - North to British Columbia | Racism (virtualmuseum.ca) )

  • The first race riot in North America occurred in Shelburne, Nova Scotia. A mob of white Loyalist settlers stormed the home of a Black preacher in Shelburne, Nova, Scotia, armed with hooks and chains seized from ships in the harbour. The confrontation ignited a wave of violence in Shelburne County that lasted approximately 10 days. The majority of the attacks targeted the county’s free Black population. ( The Shelburne Race Riots | The Canadian Encyclopedia )

  • The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 abolished slavery throughout the British Empire (with the exceptions “of the Territories in the Possession of the East India Company”, the “Island of Ceylon” and “the Island of Saint Helena”; the exceptions were eliminated in 1843). Only slaves below the age of six were freed. Enslaved people older than six years of age were re-designated as “apprentices” and required to work, 40 hours per week without pay, as part of compensation payment to their former owners. ( Emancipation Day in Canada: Past, Present and Future – BC Black History Awareness Society )