by Charmaine McIntosh | on February 23, 2022
Josiah Henson
Josiah Henson was born into slavery on June 15, 1789 in Charles County, Maryland. He was sold three times before he reached the age of eighteen. By 1830, Henson had saved $350 to purchase his freedom. After giving his master the money he was told that the price had increased to $1,000. Cheated of his money, Henson decided to escape with his wife and four children. After reaching Canada, Henson formed a community where he taught other formerly enslaved people how to be successful farmers. American abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe read his autobiography, The Life of Josiah Henson (1849), which inspired her powerful and controversial novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Honourable Lincoln M. Alexander
The Honourable Lincoln M. Alexander was born in 1922 in Toronto. He served with the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War, between 1942 and 1945. He was educated at Hamilton’s McMaster University where he graduated in Arts, and Toronto’s Osgoode Hall School of Law where he passed the bar examination in 1965. Mr. Alexander was appointed a Queen’s Counsel and became a partner in a Hamilton law firm from 1963 to 1979. He was the first Black person to become a Member of Parliament in 1968 and served in the House of Commons until 1980. He was also federal Minister of Labour in 1979–1980. In 1985, Lincoln Alexander was appointed Ontario’s 24th Lieutenant Governor, the first member of a racialized community to serve as the Queen’s representative in Canada. During his term in office, which ended in 1991, youth and education were hallmarks of his mandate. He then accepted a position as Chancellor of the University of Guelph. In 1996, he was chair of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and was also made Honorary Commissioner for the International Year of Older Persons Ontario celebrations. The Honourable Lincoln Alexander was appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada and to the Order of Ontario in 1992, and in June 2006, he was named the “Greatest Hamiltonian of All Time.” Mr. Alexander died on October 19, 2012, at age 90. On December 2013, the Province of Ontario proclaimed January 21 (Lincoln Alexander’s birthday) as "Lincoln Alexander Day" and the following year, the Day was nationally recognized.
Chloe Cooley
Chloe Cooley was an enslaved woman in Upper Canada. She resisted her owner, Sergeant Adam Vrooman, a United Empire Loyalist, who forcibly tied Cooley to a boat and brought her across the Niagara River to be sold in New York State. Witness, Peter Martin (Black Loyalist) and William Grisley (White) reported the incident to Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe, who used the Chloe Cooley incident to introduce anti-slavery legislation in Upper Canada. It was Cooley’s actions that put in motion the Act to Limit Slavery in Upper Canada in 1793, which prohibited the importation of new slaves into Upper Canada. This was the first legislation in the British colonies to restrict the slave trade.
Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
Born into a free Black family in Philadelphia, Gibbs moved to San Francisco in 1850 and became one of that city’s most prosperous Black merchants. Concern about the racial climate in the United States prompted him and other African Americans to head north and seek the protection of British law in Victoria. As a politician, businessman, and defender of human rights, Gibbs was the recognized leader of the Black community on Vancouver Island during its early years between 1858 and 1870, and is still a revered historical figure in the Black community of British Columbia. Through his political abilities, Gibbs made Black residents a force in colonial politics and was elected to Victoria City Council. He acted as a spokesperson for the West Coast’s African Canadian community, encouraging their integration into Vancouver Island society and intervening repeatedly when efforts were made to segregate them in the churches and theatres of Victoria. In 1870, Gibbs returned to the United States and enjoyed an equally significant political and business career in the American South before his death in 1915. Gibbs was recently deemed by Parks Canada as a person of National Historic Significance.
Source: https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/black-history-month/black-canadians.html
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by Charmaine McIntosh | on February 20, 2022
The purpose of Family Day is to give people more time to spend together.
Here are some activities with that purpose in mind.
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by Charmaine McIntosh | on February 17, 2022
February is Black History Month. Take some time for reflection, participate in events, and learn about Black Canadians throughout the month of February. Celebrate and honour the contributions, the legacy and resilience of Black Canadians and Communities, not just this month but everyday.
Mary Ann Shadd Cary
Born free in Delaware, Mary Ann Shadd became the first Black woman to publish a newspaper in North America when she established the Provincial Freeman. She was also a teacher, who established a racially integrated school for Black children in Windsor, in addition to writing educational pamphlets promoting settlement in Canada, including A Plea for Emigration; or Notes of Canada West which was written in 1852. Mary was also an activist for numerous causes including the abolition of slavery, temperance and education. She also became increasingly vocal about women’s rights, becoming a women's suffragist. Not only did she promote these issues in the Provincial Freeman, she also spoke about them on lecture tours.
Following her time in Canada, Mary decided to return to the United States, where she became a recruitment agent for the Union Army during the Civil War. She also pursued a law degree at Howard University and became one of the first Black women to complete a law degree in 1883, becoming a civil rights lawyer. Among her other “first,” she also became the first Black woman to vote in a national election. In 1994, she was designated a Personal of National Historic Significance in Canada.
Mary Bibb
Born a free person in Rhode Island, Mary Bibb became an abolitionist, teacher, dressmaker, activist and co-editor of the Voice of the Fugitive. In 1854, Mary Bibb also founded the Windsor Ladies Club, also referred to as the Mutual Improvement Society. Mary, along with her husband Henry, was also instrumental in managing the Refugee Home Society and distributing aid to incoming Underground Railroad travelers. They provided newcomers with food, clothing, housing, but also job training and protection from slave hunters. This was in addition to establishing a school for young people who were excluded from the local public school due to discrimination. It was in 2002 that Mary, along with her husband Henry, was recognized as a Person of National Historic Significance in Canada.
Rose Fortune and Peter C. Butler III
First Black police officers in Canada
Born into slavery, Rose Fortune relocated to Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, after her family escaped the British colony of Virginia during the American Revolution. She developed a successful business transporting luggage from the ferry docks to Annapolis hotels and homes via wheelbarrow and providing wake-up calls for travellers. Over time, Fortune became known as the first female police officer in Canada – an unofficial title she earned by maintaining order and safeguarding property at the town’s wharves.
The grandson of a formerly enslaved person, Peter C. Butler III (not pictured) became the first Black police officer in Canada in 1883. His career spanned 50 years, during which he was known as a peaceful man. He sometimes kept local offenders and drunks in his home to keep them off the streets, instead of tossing them into jail. Butler rarely carried a gun; he preferred to keep the peace with only a baton and his large hands instead.
Jean Augustine
Jean Augustine is a trailblazing politician, social activist, and educator. She was the first African-Canadian woman to be elected to the House of Commons, the first African-Canadian woman to be appointed to the federal Cabinet, and the first Fairness Commissioner of the Government of Ontario.
Born in 1937 in Happy Hill, Grenada, Augustine overcame personal and economic adversity from an early age to excel academically, and began her career as a teacher. After arriving in Canada in 1960, she advanced her education and career prospects, participated in grassroots organizations to strengthen minority and women’s rights, and served her community and the City of Toronto with great passion and charisma. Augustine carried her roots and convictions in community service, education, and advocacy as she entered politics in 1993 as a Member of Parliament. In 1995, her proposed motion before Parliament to recognize February as Black History Month passed unanimously, thereby establishing a lasting tradition of celebrating the important contributions of Black Canadians to Canada’s history, culture, development, and heritage. Augustine continued on to serve in such key positions as Minister of State for Multiculturalism and the Status of Women, member of the Queen’s Privy Council of Canada, and member of the Citizenship and Immigration Committee.
Augustine has received numerous awards and recognitions for her work, including being inducted as Member of the Order of Canada in 2007, appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, as well as receiving honorary degrees from the University of Toronto, University of Guelph, McGill University, and York University.
Fred Christie
Fred Christie was born in Jamaica in 1902. In 1919 he immigrated to Canada and settled in Verdun, a suburb of Montreal with a vibrant and growing Black community. In Montreal he found a good job as a driver, made many friends and developed a passion for hockey. In the 1930s, Fred Christie was a season ticket holder at the Montreal Forum, where he supported either of Montreal's two NHL teams.
In July 1936, Fred Christie and two friends went to the York Tavern attached to the Montreal Forum. However, the staff refused to serve them because Fred Christie was Black. Fred Christie sued the tavern and the case eventually ended up in the Supreme Court, which ruled that the York Tavern had the right to refuse service to customers because of their race. Disappointed in losing his case, Fred Christie left Montreal in the mid 1940’s and settled in Saranac Lake, New York. The case is emblematic of an era of legalized racism, while its facts reveal the subtle ways in which racism unfolded in early 20th-century Canada.
Source: https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/black-history-month/black-canadians.html
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by Charmaine McIntosh | on February 09, 2022
Can mindfulness enhance self compassion? In his book, No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering, Thich That Hanh says, “The work of mindfulness is first to recognize the suffering and second to embrace it. A mother taking care of a crying baby naturally will take the child into her arms without suppressing, juding it, or ignoring the crying. Mindfulness is like that mother, recognizing and embracing suffering without judgment.” (2014, p. 8)
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