By: Michelle Young, Opinions Editor
Content warning: mentions of racism and enslavement.
Perhaps we know Martin Luther King Jr and Rosa Parks — but what else is known about how Black people shaped history in Canada and the US? There are many “forgotten” histories that feature the intersectional work of Black people. The quotation marks around “forgotten” are meant to question — forgotten by whom? There is so much history not taught by our institutions, and many people don’t know more solely because it wasn’t taught to them, or they didn’t look. Canadian Viola Desmond, for example, challenged racial segregation by refusing to leave the “whites-only” section of a theatre. She is currently on our $10 bills, but wasn’t pardoned by the government until 2010.
One of the biggest movies of 2023, Oppenheimer, erases the Black contributions to the Manhattan Project by only having one minor Black role, despite there being “at least 19 Black scientists and technicians” who worked on the project. This historical erasure also extends to Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk. While “soldiers from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and elsewhere were key to delaying the German attack” — there is little to no representation of these soldiers in the film. This is especially troubling considering these films are supposed to showcase history.
Our education system loves to talk about the Underground Railroad, but it tends to ignore that Canada, too, enslaved Black people from 1629 to 1834. Yet, Canadian councillors are still arguing that they have no white privilege and calling for an end to Black History Month. This shows exactly why we must continue to bring awareness to this history, because with awareness comes a better understanding of how race shapes our institutions and the experiences of Black people today.
Black people have been instrumental in the progress of racial, women’s, 2SLBGTQIA+, and disability rights. In the 1977 504 sit-in, which aided “disability rights in America and helped pave the way for the Americans with Disabilities Act” — Brad Lomax, “a Black man with multiple sclerosis” was praised for connecting activists to The Black Panthers and their “commitment to feed each protester in the building one hot meal every day.” Despite being an activist in the ‘70s, The New York Times didn’t report on his story until 2020. Marsha P. Johnson was also integral to queer liberation and co-founded STAR, “a group committed to helping homeless transgender youth in New York City.” Unfortunately, her death remains a cold case, and her legacy didn’t come into the mainstream until 2017, when Netflix featured a documentary on her life. Though the research for the documentary was allegedly stolen, this was debunked by independent investigations, one of them being The Advocate, which covers 2SLGBTQIA+ rights. These are only two examples of the work that is necessary to remember historical Black figures.
As previously noted by C Icart, our current Humour Editor, Black history is history. It isn’t separate from American or Canadian history, yet is something that is frequently left behind in the collective consciousness of our governments and education. It is Black people — notably Olaudah Equiano, Toussaint L’Ouverture, Samuel Sharpe, and Frederick Douglass — who spearheaded the abolition of slavery. While we remember the white men in history who fought for the same, Black men are too often not given the same affordance. You can easily learn more about Black history if you look for it: the Government of Canada has a list of noteworthy Black Canadians on their website and the BC Black History Awareness Society features an online learning centre. Additionally, the Black Arts Society and the Vancouver Black Library have partnered to digitize and “present unrecorded histories of Black peoples’ participation in Surrey and Vancouver’s social, economic, political, and cultural spheres” this Black History Month. Black history should be taught alongside the history of Canada, and we must continue to be mindful of how much we owe to the Black activists before us.
