B.C. Black History Month Is Here!

By Margaret Hunt 

"Clap your hands, oh, ye people; clap your hands with the sounds of triumph!" I am sure many old hymns to God started with these words. Now we have the chance to celebrate and be part of the B.C. Black History and Heritage Day in our city of Victoria. This will be taking place on Saturday, February 5, 2011. 1-4 pm; at the James Bay New Horizons Centre, 233 Menzies St. The featured guest speaker is CRAWFORD KILLAN, author of Go Do Some Great Thing; the story of BC's Black Pioneers. Tables and information will be available about local and BC Black History.

DID YOU KNOW?

• Nearly 800 free Black people left the oppressive racial conditions in San Francisco and settled here? Our Governor at the time, Sir James Douglas, invited them here. They still suffered a lot of discrimination and hardships in every area of life. Political, religious, and economic. Sir James Douglas overcame a lot of hardship himself? He knew what it was like to overcome prejudice. His father was Scottish, and his mother, Guyanese. He later became a hard-nosed fur trader, married a part-Cree wife, was accused of murder, and nearly provoked a war over the San Juan Islands?

Many from that initial group are now well-known as part of BC History. For instance, Mifflin Gibbs, a prominent politician;

Charles and Nancy Alexander, who began the Shady Creek Methodist Church; and John Dees, who established a salmon cannery. This group also formed one of the earliest colonial militia units, the Victoria Pioneer Rifle Corps.

• Then there was Seraphim "Joe" Fortes in the late 1800's , who passed away in 1922. Born in Barbados, he eventually settled in Vancouver. He worked as a porter, and bartender; but, even more importantly, saved many lives and taught children to swim after becoming English Bay's first official lifeguard in 1901. The city gave him a public funeral when he died, attended by hundreds of friends and admirers. A fountain was erected in his honour, using funds raised by the children of the city.
• Harry Jerome, (1940-1982), one of Canada's leading athletes, became an Olympic athlete, winning a bronze medal at the 1964 Tokyo Olympic games, a gold at the Commonwealth Games in 1996, and a gold at the 1967 Pan Am Games. A statue to him was built on the seawall facing Coal Harbour.

Emery Barnes was elected to the BC Legislative Assembly in 1972, and that was only the beginning of his career.

• What about ROSEMARY BROWN, the first Black woman to become a member of a Canadian legislative assembly here in BC? She was elected as a BC NDP MLA in 1972, and she didn't stop there. In 1996, she received the Order of Canada.

Valin Marshall reminds me that it isn't just where we've been.

It's where we are now, and where we are going: Amen to that!