Why Black History Month?

BY THE REV. CANON GEORGE KWARI

Why should we have a month dedicated to Black History? Why should we hear the narrative of Black people in the month of February in church, school or anywhere else for that matter?

Is it even appropriate to hear the narrative of one group over the others? These were questions our guest preacher, writer and retired Classics professor John Harewood, recently posed in St Stephen’s. In his wisdom, John reminded us that, as Christians we are not strangers to narrative. The Bible is a book of narratives with the stories of creation, the stories of pharaoh, captivity, exodus and the founding of the nation of Israel, then the fall and living in exile when Israelites became part of other people’s history. To draw everyone into the narrative, gospel writers shared with us how we all became one, neither Jew nor Gentile, slave or free people through the birth of Jesus, his crucifixion, death, resurrection, ascension and sending of the Holy Spirit. It is a narrative that has been told across the world and has brought hope and oneness in the human family Narrative gives us a way to feel empathy for others. Shakespearean narratives are about love, hope and failure, and they are universal, he added.

So narrative is common to human history. We like to tell a story about ourselves. We also want to tell what others want to believe about us. Canada had a narrative about the French and the English establishing the nation. That is now being revised to acknowledge that the story is much older and began with the First Nations and Inuit peoples. To that narrative, we have added the words, diversity and multiculturalism.

People are often curious about those with a different accent or skin

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Please call 613-233-6363 to reserve your date and time. Learn more at amica.ca/theglebe colour, and many Black people have been asked, “Where do you come from? And when they say, “I come from Montreal,” there is a follow up question such as, “Where did your parents come from?” The questions suggest that they are outsiders and do not belong to the Canadian narrative

Lincoln Alexander was elected as the first Black Canadian Member of Parliament in 1968. Harewood reflected on how this real step forward was quickly overshadowed by the Sir George Williams University student riot in Montreal in 1969. When complaints about a professor’s grading being racial discriminatory were dismissed, students began a peaceful sit-in protest. When some refused to leave, riot police were called in and fire broke out. As the building burned, the crowds watching the scene from below chanted racist epithets. Coupled with this sad incident in the 60s, was the demolition of Africville, a Black community located in Halifax. The city called it urban renewal, but residents saw it as an act of racism.

All this led to Al Hamilton, a West Indian immigrant from Barbados, to publish a newspaper aptly titled Contrast to give a voice to the Black community. Contrast was a magnet for budding Black journalists. There were many, including Harewood, with talents honed around the world — who found the newspaper an oasis in a bleak landscape where Black people generally were not seen as reporters, editors and certainly not as on-air presenters or actors.

Contrast was ground zero for these struggles. The paper filled a void. Author Cecil Foster once said, “Hamilton [believed] in a just Canada in which Black people would simply be no more and no less than citizens and individuals. It was a struggle to which he woke up every morning.” Hamilton and others around him saw Canada as a work in progress and felt that there was always reason for hope rather than the despair of exclusion. He touched the lives of many accomplished Black Canadians, including the Toronto Star’s Royson James, Citytv’s Jojo Chintoh and, of course, Foster. The paper, even with its lack of resources, made Black people feel they mattered and belonged to society.

Returning to his initial question of whether should be focusing attention on the history of particular people as if it is more special than another, Harewood said, “That is not what we are all about when we talk about Black history.

 Black History Month, p. 13