Afua in the news

https://youtu.be/Q5vHUvZv0q8

Any time there’s a big story about racism in the U.S., there’s a tendency for us in Canada to talk about our problems as distinct from the American ones; as if we’re much more evolved and things aren’t as bad here when it comes to racism. Today, we’re talking about Canada’s deep roots of anti-Black racism, and why that history is often overlooked. Read more…

https://www.cbc.ca/kidsnews/post/watch-what-canadian-kids-should-know-about-blacklivesmatter

To commemorate the life of prominent local artist, Richard Rudnicki, and to honour Nova Scotia’s black history, the Army Museum Halifax Citadel will loan and transfer a painting to the Dalhousie Art Gallery, entitled: “Freedom Halifax 1814”. Richard was the Artist-in-Residence at the Museum, from 2012 until his death in late 2019. Watch the news…

Researchers say black Nova Scotians were discriminated against by the relief commission after 1917 explosion

The morning of Dec. 6, 1917, would have started normally for Mary and Levi Lucas, as it did for every other family in Halifax. But by midday, their lives were in ruins, thanks to the Halifax Explosion.

The couple rented their home on Cornwallis Street and Levi owned a small shoe-shining business. But during the explosion, Mary lost an eye and Levi suffered a head injury while their neighbourhood was levelled by the blast.

At the end of January, a worker with the Halifax Relief Commission cut off food assistance to the family. The worker wrote of the family:

“Claim that both himself and wife were injured in the Explosion, his wife requiring operation on eye. Mentions cataract. Doubtful if it is an Explosion case. Suggest investigation.”

Two legal workers in Halifax recently examined relief given to black families, including the Lucases. Their research helps illustrate the disparity between what black families and white families received, and suggests possible ways to make amends

Katrin MacPhee, a Halifax lawyer, was inspired to research the topic by Dalhousie University professors Afua Cooper and Michelle Williams, who suggested an academic paper on the topic would be useful.

“It definitely confirmed for me what African-Nova Scotians had spoken about, a history of discrimination in the aftermath of the explosion. I think it really validates the sense in the community that an injustice was done,” MacPhee said.

MacPhee and her research partner, Mark Culligan, used files from the Nova Scotia Archives to compare the experiences of 50 black families and 50 non-black families who were all given relief funds. They found definite differences between the two groups.

For example, when the researchers examined personal effects claims, they found that on average the 50 non-black families in their study claimed $267.93. On average, those families were granted about 79 per cent of their claim.

By contrast, on average the 50 black families claimed $217.26 for personal effects and were granted about 53 per cent of their claim. Relief workers often wrote skeptically about the claims made by blacks, or did not try very hard to find the families to offer relief.

“It’s really easy to quantify the discrimination,” MacPhee said.

“The systemic issue with the way that relief was handed out was that the relief commission sought to restore the social order as it existed in Halifax before the explosion,” Culligan said.

“So that meant compensating people with property to the value of their property, and compensating for lost wages more to people who had formalized, high-skilled employment.”

Blacks in Halifax were less likely to own property and less likely to have formal jobs, and this effectively cut them off from relief.

Cooper, who is also the poet laureate for the Halifax region, said she was happy that MacPhee and Culligan acted on the suggestion to research the experience of the black community during the Halifax Explosion.

“I know some other people have written on it, but in a more general way,” she said. “I’m just thrilled.”

“For me, it’s the other half now that’s being told, the other half of the story that’s been suppressed and buried.”

MacPhee and Culligan, who are married, also examined different legal avenues today’s black community could use to seek reparations for the unfair distribution of funds.

Those included techniques like filing claims under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms or human rights law. However, the pair concluded it would be extremely difficult to win such cases.

“It’s really unfortunate for groups that have been discriminated against historically that the way the legal system has evolved has made it very difficult to actually bring these claims,” MacPhee said.

The researchers concluded that because there are so many obstacles to a legal case, reparations might be easier to win through political action.

Lynn Jones is a community activist who has been working on reparations for historical injustices for many years.

“When we talk about reparations, we need to understand that in Canada there has never been a reparations claim made on behalf of black people,” she said.

Jones feels there are many incidents in Nova Scotia where a case for reparations could be made, such as the destruction of Africville, abuse at the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children and the Halifax Explosion.

“If we had obtained what was rightfully due to us at that time, how might we be living today? What kind of properties, land, might we possess today? And by that not happening, how can we be compensated in today’s terms?” she said.

Jones said reparations could come in the form of educational programs and services, business and development support, supports for families and children, or direct financial compensation.

“There should be some way of trying to obtain some equity today,” she said.”

Source: Shaina Luck  for CBC News (Dec 06, 2019)

Sometimes, self-reflection is forced to occur with great velocity. The committee behind the 1989 Breaking Barriers report (see Breaking Barriers, 30 Years Later) was given a mere four months to engage with the community and assess the state of Black and Mi’kmaq education at Dalhousie—no easy feat. Which is why, more often than not, self-reflection takes time—especially when the historical record being reflected upon is controversial or unclear.

Afua Cooper knows this better than most. When she agreed to serve as chair of the Dal-commissioned Scholarly Panel to Examine Lord Dalhousie’s History on Slavery and Race back in late 2016, she knew it was not a project to be rushed. Still, she didn’t expect it to become a nearly three-year commitment. “But looking back, I think it was the right chunk of time for that research and this report,” says Dr. Cooper, a faculty member in the Departments of History and Sociology & Social Anthropology and former James R. Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies. “And that’s because our report is based in history and founded in historical research—research that took place locally, nationally and internationally. That takes time.”

The result of that time and effort by Dr. Cooper and a scholarly panel of experts was released in early September of this year. At more than 130 pages and roughly 50,000 words, the Panel’s report offers a thorough accounting of the various intersections—“entanglements,” as the report calls them—between George Ramsay, the Ninth Earl of Dalhousie who commissioned the founding of Dalhousie University in 1818 while serving as Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, and the institution and legacy of slavery.

The report’s story is focused on the experience of Black Refugees from the War of 1812, who fled slavery for freedom in Nova Scotia and formed the largest immigration group of what would become the province’s African Nova Scotian communities. It tells how the views and policies of colonial leaders of the time towards the Black Refugees helped institutionalize anti-Black racism and created systemic barriers with legacies that still resonate more than 200 years later. And though there were no slaves in Nova Scotia at the time, the report shows how deeply intertwined the province’s economy and ruling class still were to the global slave trade, and how these connections are inextricable from an understanding the history of 19th century Nova Scotia—including Dalhousie University’s earliest years.

“We cannot change the history detailed by this Scholarly Panel, nor change how it has informed our present, but we do get to decide how it shapes our future.”—Dalhousie Interim President Teri Balser

At a September 5 event to recognize the report, Dalhousie Interim President Teri Balser delivered a joint response from the university, co-signed by Senate Chair Kevin Hewitt and Board Chair Candace Thomas. She thanked the panel for its work, apologized on behalf of the university for the views and actions of Ramsay and their impact, and pledged to work to address the panel’s recommendations.

“Today, on behalf of Dalhousie University, I apologize to the People of African Descent in our community,” said Dr. Balser. “We regret the actions and views of George Ramsay, the ninth Earl of Dalhousie, and the consequences and impact they have had in our collective history as a university, as a province and as a region. Further, we acknowledge our dual responsibility to address the legacies of anti-Black racism and slavery, while continuing to stand against anti-Black racism today. The recommendations from the Scholarly Panel are important and they, along with our upcoming African Nova Scotian strategy, will be critical in informing our path forward.”

Dr. Hewitt, who commissioned the Panel in 2016 together with then-President Richard Florizone, calls it a historic document. “This is a body of work that will inform the work of scholars and activists for generations,” he says. “It allows us to move forward with the difficult but important conversations and work that will tell us what kind of people we are, what reconciliation looks like, and what world we want to live in—hopefully creating a more welcoming, just and equitable place for all.”

Shedding light on a complex history

“Slaves by habit & education… their idea of freedom is idleness and they are therefore quite incapable of industry.” 

Those words about the Black Refugees from the War of 1812 come from a letter written by Lord Dalhousie to Colonial Secretary Lord Bathurst in December 1816, less than a year into his tenure as Lieutenant Governor of the British colony of Nova Scotia.

More than any other historical document, that letter—available online from the Nova Scotian Archives—is what sparked the mandate of the Scholarly Panel. For many in the African Nova Scotian community aware of the letter, those words have long stood out as a shadow on Nova Scotia and Dalhousie University’s history. It’s those words that the Black Faculty and Staff Caucus brought to then-Dalhousie President Richard Florizone’s attention when they met with him in 2016, and which eventually led to the idea of applying scholarly rigour to a full accounting of the relationship between Lord Dalhousie and the institution of slavery.

“Our history makes this an area for considered inquiry, conversation, and respectful dialogue in exploring how we can better support a diverse and inclusive community on campus.” —Former Dal President Richard Florizone

“At Dalhousie, we should tackle this complex discussion in the same way we would address any complicated issue: through scholarly inquiry and community engagement,” wrote Dr. Florizone and Dr. Hewitt in the Panel’s terms of reference. “Our history makes this an area for considered inquiry, conversation, and respectful dialogue in exploring how we can better support a diverse and inclusive community on campus.”

To complete their work, Dr. Cooper and the research team on the panel crossed the Atlantic to comb through relevant archives in both Canada and the United Kingdom. They examined letters, formal proclamations, immigration reports and accounting documents to better understand Ramsay and his views. “When we looked at George Ramsay, and his writings and letters, we realized that it was part of a larger story, part of a larger context,” says Dr. Cooper. “From that phrase—‘slaves by habit and education’—we discovered these entanglements that Dalhousie University and George Ramsay had with slaves and slavery and anti-Blackness.”

In choosing “entanglement” to describe the intersections between George Ramsay, Dalhousie University and slavery, the Panel’s report is noting how complex this history is—that even though slaves weren’t present in early 19th-century Nova Scotia, and there’s no evidence that Ramsay himself was ever a slave-owner, there are still a multitude of connections and links that can be made (economic, political, social and cultural), directly and indirectly, to slavery and its legacies.

“I think of it as yarn of wool that gets tangled up,” says Dr. Cooper. “We couldn’t divorce the Refugees of the War of 1812 from the larger story of British imperial history and the history of American slavery.”

The first of these entanglements, and the one most directly tied to Lord Dalhousie personally, is the one illuminated by the letter to Lord Bathurst: that along with other Lieutenant Governors of Nova Scotia, Lord Dalhousie expressed views and enacted policies that explicitly and intentionally marginalized the Black Refugees of the War of 1812. These constraints, such as providing insufficient farmland and, at one point, considering deporting the settlers to former slave masters in the United States, essentially treated Black settlers as unwelcome second-class citizens. “Dalhousie, like Sir Sherbrook before him and Kemp after, embarked on policies, laws and regulations that marginalized the Black Refugee community for the next 200 years,” says Dr. Cooper.

The second entanglement is Lord Dalhousie’s participation in the Franco-British wars, where he enacted orders that enacted orders returning enslaved rebels to their masters following the overthrow of a revolutionary government on the Caribbean island of Martinique. “This experience of conquest and re-enslavement,” says the report, “helped influence [Lord Dalhousie’s] subsequent views and perceptions about African peoples.”

The remaining three entanglements are less about Lord Dalhousie, personally, and more about the broader society in which Dalhousie University was initially founded: that much of the economy and wealth in 19th-century Nova Scotia was dependent on the West India trade routes, leveraging resources harvested from continued slavery; that prominent Halifax families with links to Dalhousie University’s earliest years received financial compensation when the British government ended slavery in the Caribbean; and that some of the university’s early leaders expressed racist ideas: Inaugural President Thomas McCulloch, though a staunch abolitionist, used racist ideas at times in his satirical writing, while Hugo Reid, who served as Dalhousie College principal briefly in the 1850s, wrote a tract against abolitionism.

Dr. Cooper says she hopes the report’s findings help show how the issues of today are built on legacies of yesterday. “The world we see now didn’t just happen by an act of magic—something came before, and often times that something that came before was wrong to certain communities, to certain to individuals. And that led to systemic barriers that continue through today,” she says, referring to the recent report on police street checks in Halifax as one contemporary example of anti-Black racism’s continued impact.

Research and recommendations

The Scholarly Panel that set about considering Lord Dalhousie’s legacy was a mix of scholars of various backgrounds: law, ethics, sociology and, of course, history. They were tasked not only with identifying the historical facts and placing them in context, but with making recommendations for Dalhousie University to address this legacy.

Those 13 recommendations fall under three broad categories: expressing regret and responsibility for the institution’s and its founder’s connections to slavery and to anti-Black racism; showing recognition for the historical realities of Black people’s lives in Nova Scotia and the valuable contributions they have made; and embarking on repair, taking concrete steps to address the legacy of slavery, particularly through teaching and research. The recommendations include encouraging renaming of campus and community spaces in honour of individuals of African descent; enhancing, expanding and supporting teaching and research of Black Studies; and strengthening Dal’s relationships with the African Nova Scotian community and building stronger educational links to the Caribbean.

“We have a responsibility to ensure that as we write our next chapter, that we embrace the values of inclusion and diversity.” —Candace Thomas, Chair, Dalhousie Board of Governors

“I think it’s important for the readers to know that the committee doesn’t want this to be another report that goes on the shelf and gathers dust,” says Dr. Cooper. “One of the objectives of this report, in a way, is to help right this broader wrong, and enacting these recommendations would be a major step in repair.”

Candace Thomas, chair of Dal’s Board of Governors, is a descendant of those early African Nova Scotian settlers, and believes the university has a moral obligation to consider this history and those who were part of Dalhousie’s story through the years of racial injustice and slavery and beyond. “We also have a responsibility to ensure that as we write our next chapter, that we embrace the values of inclusion and diversity that will make future generations proud of what we’ve accomplished and proud to be a part of this community,” she says.

Much of this work will take time; “systemic change does not happen overnight,” as Dr. Balser notes. But some of it is happening with higher velocity, like the university’s apology, the in-development African Nova Scotian strategy and the recent naming of a street on Sexton Campus after Mathieu DeCosta, a colonial-era French translator who was the first named African in Canada—exactly the sort of recognition and celebration of individuals of African descent called for in the report.

Nor is it work starting from a blank slate: Dalhousie has a long history of initiatives—sparked by calls to action from the community—that seek to live up to its obligations to African Nova Scotian communities. Several of these, like the Indigenous Black & Mi’kmaq initiative, the James R. Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies, the Black Student Advising Centre and the Transition Year Program, directly intersect with the legacy of the Breaking Barriers report 30 years ago.

Dr. Cooper hopes this new report will lead to a similar legacy; that rather than an admonishment for what happened 200 years ago, the report shows how Dal—through its efforts in teaching, research and community engagement—can make a big difference in helping right the wrongs of the past. “Dalhousie is a major influencer in the Atlantic Provinces. Universities can, and do, make a difference in the lives of individuals and in communities. You don’t necessarily have to be a student in that institution for that institution to make a difference in your life, and our recommendations focus on the positive difference Dalhousie can make.”

An interview with Afua Cooper, poet laurate and senior academic by Sandra Erika Gómez Osorio for Nexus magazine. In 2015, Dr. Cooper was in Cali as a guest speaker in the Feria Internacional del Libro y la Cultura, FILCA. This interview has been updated and edited for this 25th issue of Nexus magazine (January – June 2019). The article available here…

At the urging of researchers who spent more than two years piecing together Dalhousie University’s historical entanglement with the Atlantic slave trade and North American slavery, the school has offered an apology to Black Nova Scotians.

The research panel, lead by Dalhousie history professor Afua Cooper, released its final report into the university’s founder and namesake on Thursday night. The 132-page tome details how George Ramsay, the ninth Earl of Dalhousie, actively tried to expel Black refugees from Nova Scotia, and used the proceeds of slavery to establish what is now the province’s largest university.

The report makes 13 recommendations, including an apology, “with the aim of fostering reconciliation between the university and the African Nova Scotian community and people of African descent more generally.” Read more…

Asserting Black Life, Insisting on Black Freedom, Imagining the Decolonial: Demanding Reparations and State/Institutional Accountability The fifth meeting of the Black Canadian Studies Association (BCSA) will take place June 3-4, 2019 as part of the national Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of British Columbia, on the unceded territories of the Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations which are otherwise referred to as the city of Vancouver. Read more…

Recording from an event at 4TH SPACE, Concordia University, on February 11, 2019. Part of the Protests and Pedagogy programming: https://bit.ly/4thSpaceProtestsPedagogy. The last few minutes of audio have unfortunately been lost. Our apologies.

Groundings: The Way Forward with Dr. Afua Cooper – Towards a reparative framework: How do we think through reparations and reparative work (in a practical, implementable sense, where past traumas and inequities are addressed and material restitution is made) in light of 1969?

This weekend’s weekend video is of Dr. Afua Cooper reading a version of her poem, ‘Negro cemeteries.’

Afua Cooper is a poet, educator, and historian, and currently the James R. Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies at Dalhousie University. She is also the current Halifax poet laureate.

Her groundbreaking book The Hanging of Angélique: Canada, Slavery and the Burning of Montreal, focuses on the historical events surrounding Angélique, a Canadian slave woman who was hanged in Montreal in 1734 for setting her owner’s house on fire and burning down a large part of the city as a result.

Negro Cemeteries is from Coopers fifth book of poetry, Copper Woman and other poems, published in 2007 by Natural Heritage Books.

See also: Confessions of a woman who burnt down a town, a poem by Afua Cooper

In January of 1792, 1,100 Black Loyalists sailed in 15 ships from Halifax Harbour to Sierra Leone where they founded Freetown. These people were the first large group of former slaves ever to return to Africa. Many descendants of these families still live in Freetown and are proud of their Nova Scotian roots. Visit Black Halifax to see the performance…

Written and performed by Dr. Afua Cooper (visit Black Halifax web-site for the full performance video)

2nd International conference of the Black Americas Network October 17-19, 2018, Center for InterAmerican Studies (Bielefeld University)

Organizers: Afua Cooper, Wilfried Raussert, Matti Steinitz

50 years after the assassination of Martin Luther King, the raised fists of African American athletes John Carlos and Tommie Smith at the Summer Olympics in Mexico City, and the release of James Brown’s seminal “Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud”, the upcoming international conference “Black Power: Movements, Cultures, and Resistance in the Black Americas” pays tribute to the long-lasting legacy and continued relevance of the Black Power Movement. Reaching beyond US borders, Black Power inspired the emergence of new movements, styles, musical genres, and transnational networks of solidarity among Afro-descendants in the Caribbean, Latin and North America. Read more…

Afua Cooper’s childhood in Kingston, Jamaica, was idyllic. She lived deep in the midst of an oral culture, surrounded by storytellers and music. Life was a mix of school, running races in the streets with neighbourhood children and watching films at the Institute of Jamaica.

Children had their own world, separate from the adults around them, but kids weren’t oblivious to the world of grown-ups. Despite the distractions of the nearby beach and music lessons at the institute down the street, young Afua was consumed by a curiosity about politics and history.

Her political education began at about age 10, hanging around her uncle’s corner store. The shop sat on a side road that lead to the town’s main street. People would stop in all day long to buy cans of soda and sweets. The old men would gather at the tables and chairs along the sidewalk to play dominoes, gossip, and discuss world events.

They talked about South Africa under apartheid and the executions of black activists, about the injustices visited on black people by a regime that was upholding white supremacy. Afua says it was in that moment, exposed to the brutality faced by black South Africans, she realized she was connected to a broader global history.

Afua says, “It was a real shock to my system to think (apartheid) was happening. So it was a kind of coming of age or coming into consciousness of the plight of black people worldwide that such a system existed. It changed my world.” Read more…

The seven collections featured in Under a Northern Star speak to critical themes in African-Canadian history and are connected to each other in more ways than seemed possible at first glance.

What is brilliant about these collections is that each one speaks to the historical experience of African Canadians in different parts of the country at different time periods. Moreover, each one tells a story of the important contributions Blacks made to Canada as pioneers, enslaved persons, explorers, citizens and settlers. Of great import is that these collections lay to rest the myth of Black people just “came off the boat,” but reveal that they were a part of what became known as Canada from its very inception. The collections reveal the multi-layered history of Black Canadians, and explore, in depth, Black people’s vast achievements and their contributions to Canadian society…. Read more at Library And Archives Canada site

Afua Cooper, one of Canada’s most versatile poets, is of Afro-Caribbean origin. Hers is an oracular voice. She comes in the tradition of the shamaness, the warner, the four-eye woman chanting flaming words. This poet incorporates African riddims and the musical vibes of the Black diaspora in her poetry which has a strong sense of history and place, underscored by a feminist sensibility. She has published four books of poems including Memories Have Tongue, one of the finalists in the 1992 Casa de las Americas literary award. Her poems have been included in numerous anthologies worldwide, and have also been recorded on cassettes and CD’s.

Afua has read at universities, schools, libraries, churches, community centres, and daycare centres, and performed at music and poetry festivals nationally and internationally. She also read in the Harbourfront Reading Series. Afua is now working on a manuscript of poetry ‘Oracles’ and a CD ‘In Motion.’… Read more at Canadian Poetry Online | University of Toronto Libraries

In addition to her literary work, Afua has completed a doctoral thesis in Canadian history at the University of Toronto. Her dissertation is a biographical study of Henry Bibb, a 19th century African American abolitionist who lived and worked in Ontario. She is the co-author of We’re Rooted Here and They Can’t Pull Us Up: Essays in African Canadian Women’s History University of Toronto Press, 1994, which won the prestigious Joseph Brant award for history. Her scholarly endeavours have made a vast contribution to gender studies in African North American history and historiography. Afua lives in Toronto with her family, and teaches sociology at Ryerson University.

Afua Cooper’s works copyright © to the author.

Historian Afua Cooper is on the show this week to talk about racism, slavery and Lord Dalhousie, the university’s namesake. She’s the James R. Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies at Dal. She has a few things to say about the statues coming down. Plus, Tim and Terra discuss the latest rally at the Cornwallis statue, the Bloomfield property and the Chronicle Herald.

Visit Halifax Examiner to listen to ExaminerRadio 125: Rally ‘Round The Statues…

Canada’s 150th birthday has prompted much looking back at our history. And one of the things Canadians have long been proud about is our status as the final stop on the Underground Railroad, a safe refuge for American slaves fleeing bondage.

This is true, and we should be proud. But let’s not be too proud — after all, the colonies that became Canada also had slavery for more than two centuries, ending only 30 years before U.S. President Abraham Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.

When Britain took over New France, about 7 per cent of the colony was enslaved, or around 4,000 out of a population of 60,000. Two-thirds were indigenous slaves, known as Panis, and the other third African, who cost twice as much and were a status symbol. The British did not set them free. Read more… by Joshua Ostroff

How much do we know about black history in Canada? Who were the key figures? What do we lose when we don’t include black stories in our history?

Tuesday, May 16 at 7 p.m. ET. – A live roundtable discussion moderated by Amanda Parris, host of Exhibitionists on CBC Arts and Marvin’s Room on CBC Radio.

Panelists

Nikki Clarke
President, Ontario Black History Society

Afua Cooper
James R. Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies, Dalhousie University
President, Black Canadian Studies Association

Andrea Davis
Chair of Department of Humanities, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, York University
Associate Professor of Black Cultural Studies

Karen Flynn
Associate Professor, Departments of Gender and Women’s Studies and African-American Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

ADDRESSING A COMPLEX HISTORY

Foundation: Several U.S. colleges have uncovered links to slavery and racial oppression in their institutional histories and Dalhousie’s story has its own uncomfortable chapters. Although Lord Dalhousie founded the university with a philosophy of openness, his legacy also includes documented statements supporting the return of freed slaves, who he deemed “incapable of industry,” to their masters.

Dr. Cooper is investigating the founding ideologies of higher learning institutions and how they were informed by contemporary ideas about race. With the Lord Dalhousie panel, she aims to establish the historical context behind the university’s founding ideology and Lord Dalhousie’s views on race, as well as advise the institution on how to address its complex history in the present day. She serves as chair of the panel of distinguished scholars, which will publish a report with recommendations on future actions in August of 2017.

“We are in a time when people want to learn the whole story.”

Inspiration: “We’re looking at how academies helped to further racial and gender inequality. This is what propelled us to look at Lord Dalhousie’s legacy, because he was a man who didn’t want Black people in the province and a school was established in his honour.”

Why it matters: With Dal’s bicentennial on the horizon, Dr. Cooper and the panel are conducting a vital exploration into the history of the university and the ideals that have shaped it. A complete and clear-eyed understanding of what inclusiveness meant to Lord Dalhousie in the 19th century will, as the panel’s terms of reference state, inform how the university responds to this legacy “in order to build a stronger, more inclusive university that fully reflects our history, our values and our aspirations.” As Dr. Cooper says, “We are in a time when people want to learn the whole story.”

Here’s My Canada \ Voici mon Canada

Here’s My Canada was a multilingual, nation-wide contest inviting Canadians to express what Canada means to them in a 30-second video. Here’s My Canada was a project of Historica Canada and was a Canada 150 Signature Initiative. Here’s My Canada was made possible through funding from the Government of Canada and the Bank of Montreal.

https://youtu.be/ck3UdFNGqis

Afua Cooper appointed Editor of the Henry and Mary Bibb Series of Black Canadian Studies, University of Regina Pres

Dr. Afua Cooper, Associate Professor in Dalhousie’s department of Sociology & Social Anthropology and the James Robinson Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies has been appointed Series Editor for the Henry and Mary Bibb Series of Black Canadian Studies at the University of Regina Press.

This is the first series of its kind in Canada.

In 1851, Henry and Mary Bibb founded Canada’s first Black newspaper, The Voice of the Fugitive. In honour of the Bibbs’ invaluable contributions to print culture, education and social justice, this first-ever Black Canadian Studies Book Series seeks established and emerging scholars who wish also to leave an indelible mark. Multi-discilplinary in scope, the series will be published and widely promoted by University of Regina Press.

Congratulations to Dr. Cooper on being selected for this new role!

‘Hanging of Angelique’: Untold story of slavery in Canada

Afua Cooper discusses slavery in Canada. CTV National News (Feb 2017).

https://www.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=1057562&jwsource=cl

Black lives matter—at settlement, Confederation and 150 years later

At Ontario Underground Railroad Sites, Farming and Liberty: Slaves fleeing the American South established new lives in Canada

New York Times, 24 Feb. 2017 by Afua Cooper

Why are politicians passing the buck as black men are killed?

Prof. Afua Cooper of Dalhousie University pens an open letter to the mayor and premier.

Dear Mayor Savage and Premier McNeil:

The frequency of shooting deaths of black men in the city of Halifax has left members of the black community traumatized, shaken, distressed, bereaved, angry and afraid.

These feelings are, of course, compounded for the families of the victims and shooters.

Yet the response from officialdom is vexing and alarming. For example, Mayor Mike Savage — a senior and seasoned politician — seems at a loss. He’s stated he is looking to the black community for the answer.

Then the media descended upon newly elected north-end Coun. Lindell Smith to provide the answer! For sure, Smith represents a ward in which several of these homicides have taken place and he himself is a young black male.

But surely, if Savage does not have the answer, why would and should Smith have it?

It takes action, not just listening

Premier Stephen McNeil has also taken the same road as Savage, stating that the solutions are in the community. He also noted that his minister of justice is trying to “deal with the root causes.”

Both these politicians are passing the buck.

They are saying that a besieged, bereaved and under-resourced black community must know how and why its young male members are being killed, and must provide the solution for the shootings.

It is not simply about listening and knowing what’s on the mind of African Nova Scotians. It takes courage and commitment to address the root cause of the violence in the Halifax black community. And there are several causes.

End job market discrimination

Black Haligonians have difficulty finding a job, even a cleaning job. Even black youths with diplomas find it difficult to gain employment. I teach African Nova Scotian undergraduate students and many of them cannot even find a summer job.

Jobs are difficult to come by, and it seems to me that those that are available are reserved for whites. Just ask the premier why so many immigrants of all stripes leave the province.

Black people in Nova Scotia, especially young black males, are massively disenfranchised. They have very little access to basic opportunities. The mayor knows it, the premier knows it, the black communities know it. For these two white officials to pretend that they do not have a clue as to what is going on is disingenuous.

 

What would happen if the victims were white?

The African Haligonian community is now hemorrhaging, and yet it is called upon to solve its own problems. We do not see that happening to other communities when they are hit by a crisis.

Where are the counsellors and psychiatrists that should be called in to counsel the grieving families and children?

Where is the outcry from society at large?

Where is the outrage at the tremendous loss of life and potential?

Is it because the victims and perpetrators of the shooting are black that society has turned a blind eye to this tragedy?

Is it because black people are thought to be of no value and hence disposable?

If these acts were taking place in an affluent part of Halifax and the victims were white boys, would there have been more attention paid to this crisis, and preventative measures put in place?

Black Lives Matter

We see that Canada, both at the provincial and federal levels, is bracing for the devastation that they believe the drug fentanyl will cause among young people. Health authorities are now taking steps to implement preventive and rehabilitative measures to save the potential victims.

I wonder — are governments bracing for the fentanyl assault because these future victims are presumed to be white, and therefore of value?

I call on the mayor and premier to assume some responsibility for the loss of these African Nova Scotian men. I call on them to commit to improving health, financial, educational and employment resources to the African Nova Scotian community so that folks can once and for all banish this violence from their lives.

We want these youth and future generations to have a chance to grow up and grow old. And I want to remind our politicians that black people vote, and Black Lives Matter!

Light up city hall and the legislature to acknowledge the deaths of these men.

Afua Cooper, Ph.D., is the James R. Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies at Dalhousie University

In the wake of Black Lives Matter, Dalhousie University’s African-Canadian studies course emerges: 400 years of African-Canadian history in a Dalhousie minor

A journey through Black Canadian history and beyond: Dal launches new minor in Black and African Diaspora Studies

By Matt Reeder – Dal News (June 20, 2016)

Dr. Afua Cooper says new minor fills in ‘huge chunks’ of missing education

An apology — and advocacy — that echoes: JRJ Chair Afua Cooper part of coalition involved in ROM apology

by Matt Reeder   |  Dal News (November 18, 2016)

Newfoundland in the Black imaginary

When we think about Newfoundland history we typically don’t think slavery.

“It’s not a topic that most people are aware of,” says Afua Cooper, a Halifax-based historian and poet who will deliver the keynote talk at the New-Found-Lands exhibition at Eastern Edge Gallery in St. John’s on Saturday. “I think the thing with Newfoundland is that it has been left out of the black studies world. When people think black history, we think Nova Scotia and then we think going west.”

New-Found-Lands, which runs until Oct. 18, explores historical and contemporary connections between Newfoundland and the Caribbean diaspora. And that means exploring, among other things, black history in Newfoundland and the island’s connections with slavery.

“Newfoundland and blackness is a field that’s open to research,” Cooper explains. “Some of us know the story of the dried cod being sent down to the West Indies—and even after slavery that still continued, so much so that cod is Jamaica’s national dish—and then Jamaica sending rum to Newfoundland. I think many of us are familiar with this narrative. But other snippets are not known at all.

“I’m not saying that Newfoundland was a slave society as such. I’m looking at the place of Newfoundland in the black imaginary.”

That place took many forms. Newfoundland’s economy has in recent centuries been shaped by the fishery, and some of those brought to do the fishing off the Grand Banks were slaves.

“They fished so efficiently, and they would come to St. John’s to dry the fish, but they were so good at it that the whites banned them from coming to fish locally,” Cooper explains. “Because they were so excellent at it — and these were slave fishermen.”

Cooper has uncovered other tantalizing hints about Newfoundland’s role in black history as well. A purported conspiracy to launch a slave rebellion in New York in 1741, prior to the American revolution, led to the arrest of hundreds of slaves. While some of those accused were executed, others were transported to exile in Newfoundland.

“What did they do there?” Cooper wonders. “Were they in forced labour? Did they have to build public works?”

Much of Cooper’s work as a historian has focused on slavery in Canada. Her 2007 book The Hanging of Angelique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montreal explored that legacy. The book examined the life and death of Marie Joseph Angelique, a 29-year old slave who was blamed for a fire in Montreal and eventually hanged for it, despite her protestations of innocence. The story of Angelique offers a moving and powerful depiction of a woman who resisted her life-long enslavement, but uses it as an entry point to explore the reality of slavery in Canada and the experience of black slaves. The hitherto little-known first-person accounts provided by Angelique and recorded during the 1734 trial, Cooper notes, constitute the oldest slave narrative in North America.

It’s raising awareness about these forgotten and suppressed histories that drives and inspires the work of scholars like Cooper.

“I think it’s important because we want to produce an inclusive history, not just the usual white-dominated narratives,” says Cooper. “When we produce an inclusive history, and if we look at the black experience in particular, we see that it’s a very long historical presence that black people have had in Canada.

“It’s a long history and it has been a history of oppression, a history of injustice, and it goes against the traditional understanding of Canada and Blackness. Usually when we talk about Canada and Blackness we just talk about the underground railroad, and slaves coming to Canada and finding freedom—hip hip hooray! But when you look at the full spectrum of history, the underground railroad is just a small part. But it’s been exaggerated. That’s not been the experience of most black communities across Canada.”

Coming to terms with racism

In recent years there’s been a gradual if grudging acknowledgement of some elements of Newfoundland’s racist past. In 2010 the provincial government issued an official apology to the Chinese community for the head tax imposed on Chinese entering the then-Dominion of Newfoundland prior to Confederation; a monument was erected off George Street to acknowledge the shameful practice and its legacy. The $300 head tax—the equivalent of about three years’ wages—was introduced in 1906 and charged to at least 334 people. The policy was abolished in 1949—two years after it was abolished in the rest of Canada—as a result of the province joining Confederation.

The dominant narrative one hears when it comes to Newfoundland and black history is the feel-good story of Lanier Phillips, a member of the American navy who experienced racism in the U.S., survived a shipwreck off the coast of Newfoundland during the Second World War, and spoke widely about the kind and friendly treatment he received at the hands of the outport Newfoundlanders who took him in and nursed him back to health. It’s an uplifting story, but does its widespread promotion to the exclusion of other narratives risk suppressing other very real experiences of racism?

 It’s a long history and it has been a history of oppression, a history of injustice, and it goes against the traditional understanding of Canada and Blackness. — Afua Cooper

It’s kind of like the underground railway story: the slaves came to mainland Ontario and lived happily ever after,” says Cooper, referencing the 2012 Artistic Fraud play Oil and Water. “It’s a lovely play and I like it but it does leave you with that feeling, that message, that everyone was so nice; for the first time in his life [Phillips] never felt any racism. But our slave fishermen were chased out of Newfoundland by the British and the Newfoundlanders.”

When it comes to learning of Canada’s role in slavery, and the oppressed histories of black communities in this country, Cooper says “most people react with shock” and “simply do not know”.

“People are more familiar with the underground railroad, with Canada as a refuge, as a safe place,” she continues. “People have told me that I’m wrong, that Canada had no racism here. Or that there was slavery here but it was mild, it was not like American slavery. So I get that shocked response. In order to rescue the country’s reputation they say [slavery] was not that bad.

“It’s incredible that you can go to school, finish a university degree and never know that there was slavery in Canada.”

Cooper, who holds the James Robinson Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax and is a recipient of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Award, is launching an interdisciplinary minor in black and African diaspora studies at Dal this fall. She says she regularly experiences the surprise and skepticism of her students when she exposes them to black history in Canada.

Cooper, who is also the founder and chair of the Black Canadian Studies Association, is a strong advocate of the importance of expanding awareness of black history in the educational curriculum and integrating it at all levels. It’s not suitable to simply make it the topic of a single class or a small unit in a course, she says; it’s a complex history that needs to be given its proper space and explored in its full scope. Above all, she says, it’s a living history and demonstrates the importance of knowing and understanding history and its impact on the present.

“We’re in this period where some people don’t think the past is relevant, that we can just go along with our cellphones and internet, and we really don’t need to hear about the past. And so humanists like myself are constantly waging this battle every day to say the humanities are important, the humanities humanize us.

 The ghost of slavery is still in our consciousness. It’s still in all of our consciousnesses, and we may not know it’s there but it’s there. — Afua Cooper

“History is important because when we know history as much as possible then we can make more informed choices, we can have more empathy, and so on. We see history now coming back to bite us, gnawing at our ankles. We just had the Truth and Reconciliation Commission with respect to Indigenous people in our country, so it’s history coming back to us. And it’s living history, because there’s people alive who were resident in those schools. So history is relevant to us,” Cooper explains.

“Every day there’s a college or university in the U.S. who’s confessing that [their] school was built by slave money. Georgetown University is the latest one — the Jesuit college in Washington. They sold 272 of their slaves to keep their institution afloat. Talk about institutions being built on the backs of slaves. In this kind of public discourse you see where history is more relevant than ever.”

In addition to her work as a scholar, Cooper is also a poet and spoken word artist. For her, the creative world of the stage and the educational world of the classroom and academy are deeply connected.

“I think the research world and the academic world is a creative endeavour…it makes the world more accessible, more readable. And I use a lot of my historical research in my poetry. I have whole bodies of work about history,” she explains.

“I love poetry, I love performing. It keeps me sane and it gives me another way to think about things, to think through things. Let’s say you plan to sell a slave, and you don’t know what happens to that person, the woman who was sold across the river. What happened to her? Did she die? Did she live?

“II think the arts gives me that entry point into this person’s world that just straight research does not and cannot and should not.”

“We need the research, we need the facts, but we also need fiction.”

“Power becomes obvious when you fight back. When you resist you can see what’s working on you. And if you start fighting back, then you can see it at work in its full might.”
— Serbulent Turan, PhD candidate

Click to listen to the podcast

Source: CBC News Radio ( **This episode originally aired April 14, 2015

There are 50,000 PhD candidates in Canada, toiling away on things few people  understand. As part of our continuing series turning a young scholar’s work into radio, Tom Howell and Nicola Luksic profile Serbulent Turan, an emerging political scientist at the University of British Columbia. He is asking why people willingly put up with oppression and — on the flip side — what’s needed to spark a revolution. 

​Serbulent Turan – PhD Candidate at the University of British Columbia

Steven Lukes – Political and social theorist at New York University. Author of Power: A Radical View (1974)

Afua Cooper – Historian and Chair in Black Canadian Studies at Dalhousie University

Mohamed Abdelfattah –  Freelance video journalist based in Cairo. 

Click here for footage of the original Milgram experiments (Yale University, 1961)

Studying black Canadian leadership

By Ryan McNutt for DAL NEWS (June 5, 2015)

Last month, nearly 300 scholars, community members, activists, artists and others congregated on campus to discuss community, empowerment and leadership in black Canada.

The occasion was the second biennial Black Canadian Studies Association conference, hosted at Dalhousie by the James R. Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies. The event welcomed participants from across Canada, and from as far away as Germany and the United Kingdom.

Afua Cooper, the current James R. Johnston Chair, says the conference’s theme was meant to explore the question of black leadership, and at least in part to address the question of whether there’s a so-called “crisis” in black leadership in Canada.

“I think it’s fair to say the answer is a resounding ‘no’,” says Dr. Cooper. “We had leaders from all walks of life, around the world, and there is such an excitement about leading, whether in the academic sphere, the artistic sphere, the political sphere.”

Over the course of four days (May 21-24), dozens of presenters spoke about research into everything from community activism and political engagement to history and archeology, all centered on the experience of black Canadians.

Engaging keynotes

The conference also featured six different keynote speakers offering a wide variety of perspectives. Among them were Wesley Crichlow of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, speaking to sexual politics and black leadership in Toronto; community advocate Munira Abukar on her experience running for council office in Toronto; Jamaican sports leader who lead the Jamaican delegation to six Olympics games; and Montreal’s Délice Mugabo on anti-blackness in Quebec islamophobia.

The conference’s opening keynote was Gervan Fearon, current president and vice-chancellor of Brandon University in Manitoba.

“He’s the first black person in Canada to head a post-secondary institution,” explains Dr. Cooper. “He talked about his own trajectory as a researcher, a professor and then going into administration. It was one of those moments that summed up what this conference was about. Here, embodied in this person, is what I was hoping to achieve: discussing leadership and blackness and Canada, the possibilities and challenges.”

For Dr. Cooper, among the most powerful moments was Saturday’s plenary on “Reconstituting African Canadian Identity.” The panel, which Dr. Cooper moderated, featured George Elliott Clarke (poet and playwright), Michelle Williams (Dalhousie Law professor and director of the Schulich School of Law’s Indigenous Black & Mi’kmaq Initiative) Handel Kashope Wright (director of the University of British Columbia’s Centre for Culture, Identity and Education).

“That was just magical,” says Dr. Cooper. “The turnout was amazing — over 100 people in the room — and the discussion and atmosphere was simply awesome. That’s the only word I can really think of. It was back and forth, great ideas were explored and people really appreciated it.”

Inspiring takeaways

Attending the conference on its final day, I found attendees eager to engage with the panelists’ thought-provoking papers. Particularly engaging was a session featuring Wilburn Hayden (York University) on the Canadian ethos of race, Ted Rutland (Concordia University) on geography of anti-blackness in policing in Montreal, and Christopher Stuart Taylor on his own work in diversity and inclusion within the Ontario Public Service.

The weekend closed with its final keynote from Lynn Jones, who shared lessons from her 30-plus years in the labour movement and her experiences as a community activist in Nova Scotia. The passion of the Dalhousie Transition Year Program graduate was infectious as she lit up the room with engaging stories and a call to action focused on reparations for black Canadians. With each personal milestone in her story, she repeated, “social progress,” a way of noting that it was only by believing she could enact change that change actually happened.

It was a lesson that is echoed in Dr. Cooper’s takeaway from the conference as a whole: that individuals who are wondering, “Can I do this?” — particularly in the academic sphere — need to know they can, and there’s support available to meet their goals.

“Sometimes as black scholars, our topic of choice isn’t really appreciated,” says Dr. Cooper, recalling experiences in her own PhD studies in which she was told outright that her work was not important because of its focus on black Canadians.  

“We want to make it an area of scholarly importance. We want to centre this discourse to make it part of the intellectual thought of the mainstream curriculum. All these people who came — whether they’re senior scholars or someone who are thinking of doing an MA — they’re studying black Canada, and we want people to know this is important.”

Four centuries of history: Black Halifax interactive website launches

by Marie Visca for DAL NEWS (April 27, 2015)

Four centuries, one community, fourteen stories.

That’s the tagline for Black Halifax, an innovative, interactive multidisciplinary project that celebrates Halifax’s vibrant Black community. Through a collection of stories, poems, photographs and films, Black Halifax brings the African Nova Scotian heritage that has flourished since the 1700s to life.

“To explore Halifax’s black history, culture and heritage over the course of 300 years, it’s a very grand and ambitious project,” says Afua Cooper, one of the project’s founders. Dr. Cooper is also the James Robinson Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies at Dalhousie, founded and chairs the Black Canadian Studies Association, and is a celebrated author and dub poet.

A visual tour

Along with Valerie Mason-John (award-winning author of eight books), Jacob Sampson (an actor from the Annapolis Valley) and El Jones (a spoken word activist and teacher), Dr. Cooper was part of a residency at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic during African Nova Scotia Heritage Month in February 2014. The positive response from the weeklong exhibit, which featured interactive workshops and presentations, prompted the four poets to memorialize the event with Black Halifax.

“When we ended that week’s residency, we had this feeling that it was kind of ephemeral,” says Dr. Cooper. “We kind of thought, how can we extend this project? How can we make it more tangible and far-reaching? And so this idea of Black Halifax was born.”

With the help of John Hennigar-Shuh, president of the Canadian Maritime Heritage Foundation, the team began to fundraise for and develop the project. They hired professional storytellers, writers, actors, website developers, and employed the help of Halifax-based film company Pink Dog Productions to create 13 video vignettes, each one speaking to a particular personality, event or location. The videos tell stories about the lives and accomplishments of various human rights activists such as Rocky Jones and Viola Desmond, individuals who changed race relations in Nova Scotia and gave rise to the Canadian civil rights movement.

Moments of history

The project also used artifacts from the Maritime Museum itself to influence stories. For Jacob Sampson, the museum’s William Hall corner was a source of inspiration. Hall was a black Nova Scotian who served as a marine in the British Navy, fought in countries such as Turkey and India, and went on to win the Victoria Cross, the British military’s highest honour, in 1858.

“Here’s this black man from Nova Scotia, and he was the first black to win the Victoria Cross, the third Canadian to win the Victoria Cross, the first Nova Scotian to win the Victoria Cross, and yet his story is relatively unknown,” says Dr. Cooper. “One of our objectives with this project was to take these invisible stories of Canadian history and of Black Nova Scotia, and make them visible.”

Dr. Cooper herself performs in one of the videos, telling the story of 1,100 Black Loyalists who sailed from Halifax Harbour to Sierra Leone to found Freetown. They represented first large group of former slaves ever to return to Africa.

In partnership with the Delmore Buddy Daye Learning Institute, the Halifax group responsible for sponsoring and hosting the website, Black Halifax is continuing to raise money to bring more stories to life through film. Their next story will be on Portia White, the first Black Canadian concert singer to receive international acclaim despite being discriminated in her bookings.

Aside from Black Halifax, Dr. Cooper is looking ahead to hosting the upcoming 2015 Black Canadian Studies Association Conference in May. The national conference will discuss themes of black leadership and support the understanding of diverse Black communities in Canada, furthering the strides that Black Halifax has made towards itsmission.

“These weeks and months for African heritage are nice, but how I’m seeing it is that Black history should be for the 12 months of the year, not something that we celebrate for a moment and then forget about.

“All across Canada is this rich history that we haven’t really tapped into, and we want to put that history out there so that people can know, so that people can be proud, and so that we can see how we’ve all contributed to the development of this country. That’s my idea of celebrating history and celebrating Canada. So when you think of history, it’s not just Black history or white history or Chinese history — it’s our history.”

Learn more: Black Halifax website

Heritage, leadership and pride: The work of Afua Cooper, the James R. Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies

By Ryan McNutt for Dal News (February 13, 2015)

 

Jamaica 50

‘How are we going to bring such a branch of knowledge to the forefront?’

by Katie McDonald for Dal News (May 16, 2011)

 

First lecture features “Rocky” Jones, Halifax lawyer and human rights advocate

By Ryan McNutt for Dal News (November 17, 2011)

 

The rabble podcast network offers an alternative take on politics, entertainment, society, stories, community and life in general. All opinions belong to the podcaster; however, podcasters are expected to adhere to our guidelines.

Amanda speaks with Dr. Afua Cooper on the histories of African, Caribbean, and Aboriginal people in Canada. The Canadian education system offers little representation of the history of these populations and what little information is offered erases any perspectives from women. Following the interview is Dr. Cooper’s dub poetry piece titled “Negro Cemeteries.”

Originally aired February 28, 2009. Listen to the podcast here…