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Celebrating Black History Month 2023

22 Mar 2023

On Sunday, February 26th, Immanuel celebrated Black History Month at it's Sunday morning worship. Many members of black heritage from the congregation took roles in the service, such as readers, leaders and communion assistants; and retired priest, Rev. Canon Blair Dixon preached.

Music was an uplifting part of the service, including By The Rivers of Babylon, which is a paraphrase of Psalm 137, Down by the Riverside, Go Tell it on the Mountain (the revision by Peter, Paul and Mary in 1963, which refers to Exodus and American civil rights struggles), the Black or Negro National Anthem originated in Jacksonville, Florida – Lift Every Voice and Sing, and two South African freedom songs, Masithi – the Great Amen and We are Marching in the Light of God.

The scripture readings had secondary meanings relating to black history. Exodus 3:7-12, where God tells Moses to go to pharaoh and tell him, “Let my people go” contains many images referring to abolishing slavery. Psalm 137 was paraphrased in By the Rivers of Babylon. Rev. Canon Blair Dixon read the gospel from John 17:20-26, where Jesus states his wish that all peoples may be one.

Dixon began his sermon saying that Google can give more information on all the facts, so he was going to preach about the scriptures. “Right from the beginning, God had a problem with people, so we had the flood, and the tower of Babel. … Then God told Moses to go to Pharaoh and tell him, ‘Let my people go!’ and then there were troubles in the desert.” Dixon said that God was teaching his people to be a family so the world would see God’s love, “but they still didn’t get it, so God sent his son … so that all people would be as one.

“We’re still not doing so well – ask the people in Ukraine, ask people coming from refugee camps. …Only a few years ago, relatively, the government gave permission for people like me to go into a restaurant. That wasn’t the case when I was a boy. Here in Canada!” said Dixon.

Read the whole story in the April edition of The Saskatchewan Anglican.

Pictures are courtesy of Joanne Shurvin-Martin.

Before the service began, Bert Clarke gave an introduction of Black History Month. The full text of his presentation is copied here.

As all of you now know, February is recognized as Black History Month in North America. The idea of setting aside some time for us and the larger community to reflect on and review our history and for us to chart our future originated as far back as 1926. The man, to whom credit should be given for this idea, was Carter G. Woodson, the dean of African American scholars and historians. It was not always the entire month of February. It began as a week and was called Negro History Week. He chose the week in February which included February 12th, the birthday of President Abraham Lincoln, whose actions led to the end of slavery in the United States and February 14th, the birthday of Frederick Douglass, the greatest African American leader of the twentieth century. Through the course of time, as the word “Negro” fell into disuse, and as the need grew for more than a week to focus on the history of Black People, the occasion for recognition and celebration became Black History Month.

Black History Month was not formally recognized anywhere in Canada until 1979. That was 44 years ago. Most of you were in your thirties or forties then. It is noteworthy to mention that there was some celebration of Black History Month in Toronto as far back as 1958 under the auspices of the Canadian Negro Women’s Association. However, it was in 1979 that the Ontario Black History Society successfully petitioned the City of Toronto to do so. It was not until 1994 (15 years later) that the same society succeeded in getting the Ontario Provincial Government to declare February as Black History Month.

A year later, December 14th, 1995 to be exact, due to the initiative of the Ontario Black History Society and Grenadian-born Toronto MP Jean Augustine, the Federal Government formally proclaimed February as Black History Month across Canada. The motion, which was unanimously passed, read: ‘That this House take note of the important contribution of Black Canadians to the settlement, growth and development of Canada, the diversity of the Black Community in Canada and its importance in the history of this country, and recognize February as Black History Month.’ It was officially proclaimed in this city in 1996, 27 years ago, mainly due to the efforts of the late Dora Christopher, whose husband Dr. James Christopher is among us today.

The immediate question that invariably gets asked is ‘why do we need Black History Month?’ The answer to the question, in my mind, is very much connected to the word “history”. The white race knows very little about our history and what is far more frightening, a vast majority of the black race knows very little more beyond their personal experiences. In the words of Carter G. Woodson, the founder of Black History Month, “the knowledge and dissemination of African history would not only build self-esteem among blacks, but also help eliminate prejudice among whites so that ‘the Negro may enjoy a larger share of the privileges of democracy as a result of the recognition of his worth’.” That statement was as true in the first half of the twentieth century as it is today.

He further stated that we have a wonderful history behind us, but if we are unable to demonstrate to the world that we have this record the world will say to us: ‘You are not worthy to enjoy the blessings of democracy or anything else. Who are you, anyway? Your ancestors have never controlled empires or kingdoms and most of your race have contributed little or nothing to science and philosophy and mathematics.” Some time ago a Cornel University Professor has acknowledged that: “Eurocentric history as taught in schools and universities has had a very large ego-boosting, if not therapeutic, purpose for whites”. We are not stretching it when we say the teaching of ‘Black History’ will build confidence among blacks. If our history is not taught or read, we will always be thought of as an inferior people and believe me, we are not.

We have and are still struggling to have our history included in school curriculums. I am sure that some of you have heard that Governor Ron Desantis of Florida is making it a crime to do so and he is not the only one in the United States of America with that mindset. I have read and was taught from books which treat colonialism in Africa and the Caribbean as a blessing and something for which we should be thankful and proud.

While Canada never had extensive national laws advocating racial segregation, it was widely practised. It was not unusual for African Canadians not to be allowed to attend the same schools, play on the same sports teams, join the same unions and, in some cases, be in the same public spaces as white Canadians. It is in this latter context that Viola Desmond, a Nova Scotian, in refusing to move to the black section of a movie theater, challenged segregation in Canada in 1946. She was arrested and put in jail. She died in 1965, was pardoned in 2010 and became the first African Canadian to be commemorated on a Canadian bank note, the ten-dollar bill in 2018.

Black History Month is our vehicle for reminding ourselves and others in the general community of the work that has been done and still has to be done. James Walker in his book, A History of Blacks in Canada, states: “the study of black history can give blacks a sense of the positive achievements of their people, and provide self-confidence and self-pride which are essential to any program of assertiveness.” Here in Regina, the Saskatchewan African Canadian Heritage Museum Inc. (SACHM for short) is doing their best with limited resources and support to make that possible.

As stated a couple of minutes ago, we are not an inferior people. A better knowledge of our history will support that. We have made great contributions to civilization, contributions which have gone unnoticed. For example, how many of you know that the preserving technique used in blood transfusions was developed by an Afro-American? His name was Dr. Charles Drew. He also set up the first blood bank in England in the 1940s.

How many of you know that the invention of the gas mask and the automatic traffic light were done by the same man? He was the Afro-American Garret A. Morgan, born in Kentucky in 1877. Unfortunately, because of the times in which he lived, he had difficulty demonstrating and getting recognition for his inventions. At his death in Cleveland in 1963, the city awarded him a gold medal for his devotion to public safety. If you rely on your GPS (Global Positioning System) for directions, thank Dr. Gladys West, born in 1930 in a rural Virginia community of sharecroppers. On December 6, 2018 she was inducted into the U.S. Air Force’s Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame as one of the leaders of the early years of the Air Force space program.

The lights which enable you to see me and enable me to see you were also discovered by another black man. Lewis Latimer born in 1848, an African-American inventor, a son of fugitive slaves, invented the long-lasting carbon filament inside the light bulbs above. His invention is a major reason why all of us have affordable electrical lighting not only in our homes, businesses and places of worship but also on our streets. These are but a few of the many black contributions which Black history month tries to highlight.

I have no doubt that some of you know about the origin of “The Real McCoy” - a device which lubricates moving parts in locomotive trains, ships or other heavy-duty machinery, the forerunner in perfecting the overall lubricating system used in large industry today. This was the invention of Elijah McCoy, an Afro-Canadian, born in Colchester, Ontario in 1844. The expression “the real McCoy” is still used today to signify genuine quality.

I would be remiss if I did not mention some of our other contributions to Canada. Apart from Elijah McCoy, there were many more. Blacks have contributed to Canadian society from as early as 1603 when Samuel De Champlain sailed up the St. Lawrence. His interpreter to the MIC MAC was Mathieu Da Costa, a black man from the Azores who had already established links with the Aboriginal people and knew their language and customs. Incidentally, the Department of Canadian Heritage in 1996 began an award in his name for arts, essays and short stories to be competed for by students across the country.

Black soldiers helped defend upper Canada against invading Americans in the war of 1812. One of the first three Canadian sailors to receive the Victoria Cross in 1857, was a black man, Mr. William Hall, a son of former American slaves, who was born in 1827 in Nova Scotia. In the first world war between 1914 and 1918, blacks had to fight Canada to be allowed to fight for Canada and they were not allowed to fight alongside whites but instead became part of a construction battalion. Prime Minister Trudeau recently, last year 2022, apologised to the descendants of this battalion for the treatment of their ancestors, among whom was the father of Reverend Blair Dixon.

The first woman to publish a newspaper, The Provincial Freeman, in Canada was a black woman who was also an educator and a lawyer. Her name was Mary Ann Shadd and this took place in 1853. Another Shadd, Alfred, her nephew, became one of the leading citizens in Melfort, making his name as a doctor, journalist, farmer, politician and educator. He is depicted in a children book called Li’l Shadd, a story of Ujima, written by Miriam Korner and Alix Lwanga under the auspice of the Saskatchewan African Canadian Heritage Museum, the organization here in Regina having as one of its goals the recognition of contributions that African descent individuals made or are making in Saskatchewan. There are a few copies of this book on a table in the hall for any of you who may be interested in having a copy for a donation of any amount. They will be available until the middle of next month.

Another Saskatchewanese, forgive me if that is the incorrect description, born in Prince Albert, was Harry Jerome, the first and only runner to ever hold the world record in both the 100 meter and 100 yard race. He was a black man with a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in science. He moved to British Columbia where he created the Premier Sports Program, still in use today in some British Columbia schools. To recognize his contribution to the country, he was awarded the order of Canada in 1971. A three-metre bronze statue of him currently stands in Stanley Park in Vancouver.

Blacks, both French and English, worked to build Canada. They built railways, they worked on the trains. They were inventors, farmers and scholars. They were elected representatives like William Peyton Hubbard, an influential Toronto alderman or city councillor from 1894 -1914, whose parents were refugee American slaves who had escaped their plantation in Virginia and came to Canada via the underground railroad or Mifflin Gibbs, who in 1868 was a part of the Yale convention which helped to shape British Columbia’s entry into confederation. More recently elected representatives were Rosemary Brown, Lincoln Alexander, Howard McCurdy, Alvin Curling, Ovid Jackson, Hedy Fry, Jean Augustine and Marlene Jenning, just to name a few. They were also appointed Senators, the Honourable Donald Oliver and The Honourable Anne Cools to name a couple and Heads of State, most recently Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michelle Jean, the 27th Governor General of Canada.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we do not wish to dwell on the past, yet the past is our foundation and we cannot build or move forward without it. It is that which give us strength, wisdom and knowledge. Our youth need to know about the achievements and contributions of their ancestors. It will build their confidence and self-esteem and most of all their sense of pride in themselves and their ancestors. That is the goal of Black History Month. Thank you and have a blessed day! Keep the faith!

Read the whole story in the April edition of The Saskatchewan Anglican.