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Black Canada and Why the Archival Logic of Memory Needs Reform

There is no definitive national Black archive in Canada to preserve, promote, and protect the historical books, documents, and artefacts of Black Canadians. Instead, Canada’s Black archive comprises disparate collections, spread across the country, that aim to preserve the histories of African Canadians who live(d) in specific provinces and/or cities and/or towns. 1 By contrast, […]

Black Canada and Why the Archival Logic of Memory Needs Reform

There is no definitive national Black archive in Canada to preserve, promote, and protect the historical books, documents, and artefacts of Black Canadians. Instead, Canada’s Black archive comprises disparate collections, spread across the country, that aim to preserve the histories of African Canadians who live(d) in specific provinces and/or cities and/or towns. 1 By contrast, […]

Blackface in the Kodak Archive, Ryerson’s Special Collections: Context for Reading ‘Racist’ Images

Advertisement from the Ladies Home Journal, 1912. Image from the Duke Universities Library, John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History, Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920 digital collection. Item number 429898. Introduction In 2019, I exhibited my SSHRC-Insight Development Grant-funded research, “Newspapers, Minstrelsy and Black Performance at the Theatre: Mapping the Spaces […]

Marcus Garvey’s Place in Toronto’s History

This article originally appeared on Spacing.ca on August 17, 2018. For the past several years, 355 College Street has been home to Thymeless Bar, a reggae nightspot situated just steps from Kensington Market. What many people forget or don’t know is that for 57 years — from 1925 to 1982 — this building was home […]