Bringing Black History to Light

In the early 1800s, Head of the Lake was a growing Black community in Ontario where people built homes, ran businesses and worshipped together. Located on the western end of Lake Ontario, on what became the city of Hamilton, this vibrant society was established by both free and formerly enslaved Black men and women from the U.S. who purchased land to forge a new life.

These early Black Hamiltonians also fought for justice and equality. They railed against the extradition of an escaped slave to his former master in Kentucky and fought for their children’s right to attend public schools, overcoming the prejudiced objections of local white people. These and other efforts to resist racial discrimination helped transform Hamilton into a hotbed of anti-slavery activity.

This chapter of Canadian history is not, however, part of the curricula at most Canadian public schools, which is precisely why it’s included in A Black People’s History of Canada. The website is a new public education resource led by U of T Scarborough professor Afua Cooper, a Black Canadian studies expert who wants to ensure that current and future generations of schoolchildren in Canada better understand how Black people have experienced and shaped this country.

“Despite the many ways Black people have influenced Canada – economically, politically, through abolitionist struggles, the civil rights movement and beyond – these histories have been studied very little,” says Cooper, who teaches in the history and women’s and gender studies programs at U of T Scarborough.

In 2021, as Killam Research Chair at Dalhousie University, she was awarded just over $1 million from the Canada History Fund to create classroom-ready learning materials for teachers across the country. She recruited a team of researchers to gather information on the key figures, organizations, movements and contributions that comprise 400 years of Black Canadian history. They are turning their findings into articles, lesson plans, presentations and videos that will be integrated into English- and French-language Black history curricula in most provinces and territories.

The site already covers topics such as the first all-Black battalion that fought in the First World War; Portia White, Canada’s first Black opera singer; the many Black entrepreneurs who thrived as barbers across Canada; and how class and race have impacted the lives of African-Canadian children. New materials are being added regularly, covering the experiences of Black Canadians in abolitionism, science, technology, business, the civil rights movement and other vital domains.

For Cooper, growing up in Jamaica near a former slave plantation and hearing her grandmother’s stories about Black rights activism in that country ignited her social conscience and her passion for history. As a teenager, she discovered historian Walter Rodney’s 1972 book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa and says learning about the devastating effects of colonialism “changed my life” and inspired her to become a historian.

Cooper moved to Canada in 1980 to join an older sister, and soon enrolled at U of T, graduating with a BA in African Studies in 1986. Later, she earned master’s and doctoral degrees from the university. Her dissertation focused on abolitionist Henry Bibb, a runaway slave who founded Voice of the Fugitive, Canada’s first Black-led newspaper.

She went on to teach women’s history and Black history at Simon Fraser University, where she founded the Black Canadian Studies Association and later, at Dalhousie University, established a Black Studies program. She took on her current role at U of T Scarborough in 2024.

Alongside her academic pursuits, Cooper nurtured her love of poetry: in 2003, she co-founded Dub Poets Collective, whose members performed internationally, and, in 2018, was named Halifax’s poet laureate. A few years later, she founded a consulting firm devoted to ending racism globally. Working with companies, school boards and non-profits around the world, she helps organizations improve racial justice in the workplace and confront the legacies of slavery.

Cooper says the more she learned, taught and wrote about Black history in Canada, the more she observed the gaps in studies and published works. Then, when her three children attended public school, she noticed that the historical experiences and achievements of African Canadians were almost nowhere to be found in their textbooks or assignments. She remembers her daughter in Grade 3 having to write about Canada’s pioneers, and none of them were Black.

“Imagine my daughter, and others like her, going through the education system for 12 years and almost never seeing themselves reflected in the curricula,” Cooper says. “It makes you feel like you don’t belong. That’s a great harm.”

A Black People’s History of Canada is her response – an “intervention,” as she calls it, to mitigate this harm by empowering educators with the full picture of Black life in Canada. Cooper and her colleagues are also working with ministries of education and school boards across the country to have their materials approved for use by elementary and secondary school teachers. They have also held a conference, panel discussion and other events to promote the project, and Cooper has led workshops for teachers in Nova Scotia.

“Many of the teachers are either delighted or upset because they have never heard this history. They’re saying, ‘I’m an educated person – how come I didn’t know this?’” Cooper says.

The initiative continues to grow. Cooper is developing a Parks Canada-funded film series on distinguished Black Canadians, beginning with Marie-Joseph dite Angélique, a Portuguese-born enslaved woman who rebelled against her indentured servitude in what is now Old Montreal.

The more we learn about each other, the more we can appreciate each other”

Cooper sees this work as urgent. She is concerned about declining funding for the humanities, which she believes inhibits research on Black history. She is also troubled by the recent crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion offices at U.S. universities, a trend she says is already underway in Canadian companies and school boards.

Cooper says she is weary of how misused power can divide us and set back social progress, but she sees herself as an optimist, and she understands that education can change the world.

“We are not a colour blind society. We are not a society that’s based on equality,” she says. “So, the more we learn about each other, the more we can appreciate each other, and then we can say, I’m not going to discriminate against someone; it doesn’t make sense.”

Three Black Canadians you need to know

A Black People’s History of Canada will introduce more young people to African Canadians who helped shape the nation

Opera singer Portia White, one of Canada’s greatest 20th-century vocalists, was born in 1911 in Nova Scotia. Barred from many performance venues due to racial segregation, she persevered with the help of a community trust and enjoyed success on stages worldwide – even singing for Queen Elizabeth II in 1964.

Among the first to legally challenge anti-Black racism in Canada was Lulu Anderson. In 1922, she was denied entry to a play at Edmonton’s Metropolitan Theatre because of her race. Though she lost the lawsuit she filed, the case became a landmark in Canada’s civil rights history.

Having escaped enslavement in Kentucky in 1841 and settled in southwestern Ontario, Henry Bibb published The Voice of the Fugitive, a newspaper that championed civil rights. He founded the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada and chaired the 1851 Convention of Coloured Freemen, a historic Toronto gathering of prominent abolitionists.