In February 1926, American historian Carter G. Woodson launched an event called Negro History Week. The goal was to celebrate and draw attention to the many contributions of black people in American history, until the day when the thorough mixing of “black” history and “American” history in the public consciousness would make the event obsolete. Fifty years later the celebration became Black History Month and was imported into Canada, first informally by the Ontario Black History Society, and later officially when Jean Augustine, Canada’s first black woman elected to Parliament, brought the issue before the House of Commons in 1995.
In recent years some have objected to the observance of Black History Month. In a 2005 interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes, American actor Morgan Freeman famously protested, “You’re going to relegate my history to a month?” Others have shared his concern that the event segregates black history from the rest of American history and, rather than combating racism, only draws attention to it.
In Canada the controversy has made fewer headlines, but each February in recent years has seen debates on online forums, blogs and other forms of social media. If so many people are opposed to Black History Month—including those who identify themselves as black—why do we still celebrate it?
One answer may be that we have not yet reached Woodson’s dream of an educated public. In 1995, the Canadian government mandated the teaching of black history in schools, but this measure does not guarantee well-rounded results. Many Canadians are still unaware of important figures like Mathieu Da Costa, a free black man who worked as an interpreter between Samuel de Champlain and the Mik’maq people. Many do not realize that slavery continued to exist in the British colony of Upper Canada even after Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe introduced legislation in 1793 to gradually abolish it. Few know that our country had its own set of Jim Crow laws that persisted for years after that.
Thus far, the Presbyterian Church in Canada has not involved itself in the debate over Black History Month. In fact, the church has had little to say about the event. Dionne Cousins, a member of St. David’s, Toronto, and of the Justice Ministries advisory committee, wants to see that change.
“I think the PCC should make the month of February
important and relevant,” Cousins told the Record. “Lay participation of black congregation members would be nice during that month.” Cousins also wants to see black history featured in sermons, and in resources released by the national church.
Cousins, whose family came to Canada from Jamaica and England in the 1960s, also points out the trouble with labels that many black Canadians encounter. “I identify with being black, not African-Canadian. I’m proud to be black,” she says.
Okelo Aballa came to Calgary from Ethiopia in 2002. “When I got here I couldn’t find a job,” he says. Although many employers responded well to his strong resume, he never received the second call he was promised after interviews. Aballa feels his skin colour and background influenced their decisions, which is why he believes Black History Month is so important.
“It’s about equality and living peacefully together no matter the background,” he explains. “That’s how I think.”
His church family helps. The Presbyterian Church, with its strong Scottish tradition, is often considered too rigid and homogeneous to appeal to newcomers from other cultures. However, when Aballa first found Centennial Presbyterian in Calgary, it was the familiarity that attracted him.
“The way they do the service is almost the same as we do in Africa,” he says. He is also quick to explain that the racism he experienced in the workplace has never been an issue at Centennial. “The church is really friendly. I call them my family because they’ve been supporting me.”
Dr. Rose Dijana, who was born in Cameroon and lived in France before coming to Canada, had a similar experience finding a church when she moved to Montreal in 1999.
“I was … a bit worried about the type of church I would find here. So when I attended the worship service at Église Presbytérienne St-Luc, I thought, Wow! It was close to what I was looking for.”
Dijana is now the clerk of session for St-Luc. One change she wouldn’t mind seeing in her church—and within the whole church—is a deliberate effort to recognize Black History Month. Tools and mandates from the national church would not be enough, however; change would also require the deliberate involvement of black congregation members.
“What can the people of black descent … contribute to our church?” she asks. Dijana also wants to know what they have contributed in the past. “I don’t know what is, spiritually, the presence of people of African descent in Canada. That would be something really interesting to know. How did their place in the church evolve?”
There is little documentation about the exact roles of black Presbyterians over the years. The church doesn’t keep records of its adherents’ ethnic backgrounds. However, there have been some significant events that are worth remembering during Black History Month.
The Elgin Settlement
In 1848 Rev. William King, a missionary of the Free Church of Scotland who had recently inherited the land and slaves of his late wife and father-in-law in the United States, petitioned the synod of the then-named Presbyterian Church of Canada. His goal was to create a settlement for former slaves in Ontario, then called Canada West. The synod approved and the following year saw the creation of the Elgin Settlement, located just south of Chatham, Ont. Lots of 50 acres each were made available to black settlers, beginning with the 15 slaves King had inherited and brought north himself. The settlers could pay off the price of the land over the next 10 years; the money would go to stockholders in the Elgin Association—Presbyterians who had bought shares of the settlement and agreed not to seek a profit when the new tenants paid for their land.
The settlement had certain regulations. No alcohol was permitted; each house had to conform to a particular design; each lot had to have a picket fence and a flower garden. However, Buxton (as the growing town was called) became known not for the strictness of its engineers, but for the opportunities it provided, especially in the field of education. The No. 13 Raleigh School at which King taught was the first school in North America to offer black students a classical curriculum rather than a vocational one. This meant they were qualified for higher education and training in the professions. In fact, the school was soon so highly regarded that white families began to send their children there. As a result, No. 13 Raleigh School included both black and white students long before desegregation. Two of the first six graduates, Jerome Riley and Anderson Abbott, went on to become doctors and established what is now Howard University Hospital in Washington. James Rapier, their classmate, became a congressman for Alabama in 1872.
1853 Synod, Hamilton, Ont. (Canada West)
The committee on the subject of slavery gave its report that, “re-declaring, in terms of the synod’s resolutions at Kingston, in June, 1851, their belief in the sinful and unscriptural character of the slaveholding system, this synod judge it to be their duty to God and to man, to co-operate by all moral methods in promoting its abolition.” This took place 20 years after the abolition of slavery across most of the British Empire and 60 years after the practice began to be phased out in the empire’s Canadian provinces. The resolutions of the committee were not to discourage any slavery in their own midst, but to establish a spiritual and political stance in relation to the Presbyterian Church in the United States. Further resolutions in the report stated that the synod should support those American churches that were opposed to slavery, and that the synod’s members should refuse communion with any ministers or congregations who were “supporters of and defenders of this national iniquity.”
Policy for Dealing with Allegations of Racial Harassment
In 1981 the Board of World Missions, in its report to the 107th General Assembly, was the first to acknowledge the changing demographic of the Presbyterian Church as “ethnically and culturally pluralistic.” In 2008, after several years of work and revisions, the church released a document entitled, Growing in Christ: Seeing the Image of God in our Neighbour, a policy for dealing with allegations of racial harassment within the church. The church officially identified and defined words like race, culture, ethnic group, majority/minority groups, racism, racial prejudice and racial discrimination. The policy identifies the manifestations and results of racial harassment and states the church’s non-tolerance of such harassment.
Forum for Ethnic and Racial Minority Presbyterians
At Crieff Hills in April 2008, Justice Ministries hosted what became known as the Ezekiel Forum. The idea came out of consultations that Justice Ministries held while drafting the church’s policy to address allegations of racial harassment. The 49 individuals who attended the forum sought to address various needs: to feel like an “insider” in the church; to have members of visible minorities more active in church leadership; to reach such a level of equality that terms like “visible minority” are no longer needed.
As a result of the forum, the Presbytery of Ottawa presented an overture to the 135th General Assembly regarding a “strategy for greater racial and ethnic involvement in leadership.” The recommendation was approved and an anti-racism and diversity task force was created.
Rev. Paulette Brown is the executive director of the Flemingdon Gateway Mission in Toronto, and is active in justice, gender and racial diversity programs within the PCC. Born in Jamaica, she was the keynote speaker at the Ezekiel Forum. Her address challenged the church’s various racial and ethnic groups to re-think the term, “minority” and to break out of the stigma associated with that word.
“One challenge that faces us is not only to resist the fictitious meanings and the homogenizing attitudes connoted by the term ‘racial/ethnic minorities,’ but also to discover new and just ways of speaking about racial/ethnic diversities,” said Brown. “We must strive to think and speak in ways that reflect an understanding of ourselves as different and equal. It is this ‘different yet equal’ aspect of our God-given identity that seems to be at stake with the uncritical use of ‘minority’ designations and their frills … For how we understand ourselves will certainly affect how we engage the process of discerning what God is calling us to be and do in our church.
“God has intervened by effecting a convocation of a group of ‘different peoples’ for the purpose of calling our church to account for true racial/ethnic inclusiveness and to spearhead the struggles necessary to bring about true racial/ethnic inclusiveness in the PCC.”
A Black History Month Celebration
St. Timothy’s, Ottawa, held a special service to celebrate Black History Month last February. The regular choir was joined by the Afro-Caribbean-South American choral group, Ni Wewe Tu (It’s Only You). The blended choir brought the whole congregation to its feet, and young and old alike were enraptured by the children’s story that Baiye Orock, a member of St. Timothy’s, told about his childhood in Mbonge, Cameroon. A special moment came when the congregation broke with its normal tradition of quietly passing the offering plate and joined the choir in walking and dancing their offerings to the front while the words “It’s a great thing to serve the Lord” and “Hallelujah” were sung. After the service, traditional dishes from several African and Caribbean countries were shared while congregants and guests socialized. A photo essay of the whole service is available at St. Timothy’s in Ottawa
READING LIST AND RESOURCES
GROWING IN CHRIST: SEEING THE IMAGE OF GOD IN OUR NEIGHBOUR
A PCC policy for dealing with allegations of racial harassment in the church
JUSTICE MINISTRIES’ REPORT
on establishing a “strategy for greater racial and ethnic involvement in leadership” is in the 2011 Acts and Proceedings.
REPORT OF THE PCC’S EZEKIEL FORUM
presbyterian.ca/resources/online/3681
THE STORY OF WILLIAM KING AND THE BUXTON MISSION
An online exhibit of the Presbyterian Church in Canada Archives
BUXTON NATIONAL HISTORICAL SITE AND MUSEUM
Information about the museum and history of the Elgin Settlement
BLACK HISTORY CANADA
An interactive website that makes black history in Canada accessible
AFRICAN CANADIAN ONLINE
The Centre for the Study of Black Cultures in Canada website
CBC DIGITAL ARCHIVES
Online access to radio and television clips relating to black history
THE BOOK OF NEGROES BY LAWRENCE HILL
A novel inspired by a historical document of the same name that records the names of thousands of former American slaves who were relocated to Nova Scotia by the British following service during the American Revolution.
BLACK LIKE WHO? WRITING BLACK CANADA BY RINALDO WALCOTT
A collection of essays that explore different expressions of black culture in Canada.
SOME BLACK WOMEN: PROFILES OF BLACK WOMEN IN CANADA BY RELLA BRAITHWAITE AND TESSA BENN – IRELAND
A collection of profiles and photographs documenting the lives of black women in Canada.
THE BLACKS IN CANADA: A HISTORY BY ROBIN W. WINKS
A chronological history of the presence of blacks in Canada from slavery in New France to immigration in the 1970s.
MARY ANN SHADD BY ROSEMARY SADLIER
A juvenile non – fiction book telling the story of Shadd, who came to Canada to teach escaped slaves and went on to become the first woman publisher in North America.
THE KIDS BOOK OF BLACK CANADIAN HISTORY BY ROSEMARY SADLIER
An illustrated overview of the last 400 years of black Canadian history.
THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD: NEXT STOP, TORONTO! BY ADRIENNE L. SHADD
A children’s nonfiction book exploring not the journey of escaped slaves north to Canada, but also the later lives of those who formed a community in Toronto.
VIOLA DESMOND WON’T BE BUDGED! BY RICHARD RUDNICKI
A children’s biography of Canada’s own Rosa Parks: a black woman named Viola Desmond who was jailed for refusing to sit in the balcony at a theatre.
BLACK HISTORY MONTH RESOURCE BOOK BY MARY ELLEN SNODGRASS
A book of activities meant to work with the American public school curriculum but also suitable for churches and community groups.
FOR MY COUNTRY: BLACK CANADIANS ON THE FIELD OF HONOUR BY DENNIS MCLAUGHLIN
Published by the department of national defence.
Resources compiled by Justice Ministries.
