Black history, black future
Rosemary Sadlier and Dave Watkins push the boundaries of black education
BY: Amanda Robinson
Rosemary Sadlier is determined to narrow the historical gap in Canada.
For Sadlier, the historical gap is the failure of Canadian history and society to acknowledge the historical contributions of African Canadians along with the generational roots many of them have here.
“We were the first immigrant, non-European group to arrive on these shores … [but] when you’re a black person in this society, you cannot help but realize your presence, your contribution, your achievements, your definition of beauty, all of those things that other people are able to see and experience, are not for you,” says Sadlier.
Without learning about her own history during high school, Sadlier admits she lacked self-confidence and felt disconnected.
“I was turned off school. [It would have been] incredibly helpful for me to know that the people I descended from achieved so much,” she says.
It wasn’t until she started participating in informal African history discussions that Sadlier found a sense of self. Sadlier’s own family has been in Canada since the 1700s, migrating from Arkansas as Black Loyalists to Oxford County and St. John, New Brunswick. She was born and raised in Toronto and is the author of four books — one of them the bestselling and award-winning The Kids’ Book of Black Canadian History — as well as a historian and the president of the Ontario Black History Society (OBHS).
The OBHS is a non-profit charity founded by Dr. Daniel G. Hill as a way of preserving and promoting black history in Ontario. One year after its creation in 1979, the OBHS pushed for the formal recognition of Black History Month in Toronto.
More personally, Sadlier has taken up the fight to improve the historical presence of black Canadians. One of Sadlier’s greatest battles in helping to change the historical dialogue was pushing for Black History Month to be celebrated provincially in 1993 and nationally in 1996.
Says Sadlier: “Black History Month is a significantly important celebration in a place like Canada, where so much of our story has yet to be told, where the possibility that a person of African origin being Canadian is routinely challenged. Black History Month is a way to shape and change the perception of who and what a Canadian is.”
With her own books and the OBHS school presentations, conferences, heritage tours, archival materials and Black History Month celebrations, Sadlier believes that exposing youth to black history will only lead them down a positive road.
“Not that every black child is attracted to a violent lifestyle, but often you’re not strong enough to avoid negative influences because you don’t have anything to hold onto.
“Everyone that’s black in this country feels a certain level of disconnection to this country at some point … and if you have black history, that’s a way of being connected.”
Studying Our Story
EACH DAY, SCHOOL teacher David Watkins sees the disenfranchisement revealed by Sadlier acted out in his predominately African-Canadian classroom. On the walls, Watkins hangs sheets of paper with the words “ignorant,” “illiterate,” “baby mama,” “violent,” “criminal” and “poor” written out. The negative words refer to the question Watkins asked his students: “What is being black in Canada?” For him, the students’ responses are simply the results of negative reinforcement perpetuated since the days of slavery.
“A story comes down to three different components: what was, what happened to change it and the result. When we study what’s changed our story, we come to understand that it’s slavery and colonialism,” says Watkins. “In class, we’re studying ancient Africa and what I’m trying to get them to understand is the result of the story they see now is not a true reflection of our history.”
Watkins, 44, has been a teacher for 18 years and has been teaching the Canadian-African Studies course at Weston Collegiate Institute for seven years. This past October, he was recognized for his innovative teaching techniques, receiving the 2007 Governor General’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. Since then, Watkins has become a prominent voice in the media, speaking on subjects ranging from youth violence to Africentric schools, an educational transition of which he is a strong supporter.
Watkins is determined to change the mindset of his mostly black students since he believes they are constantly receiving a negative image of themselves from the media and society. He’s created three major projects that force students to analyze history and relate it to the black community’s present situation.
The first project is focused on the “Hero Deficit.” “In comic books, most of the heroes are white,” Watkins says, so he asks his students to draw a hero that focuses exclusively on fixing the problems in the black community.
“They actually have to think about what are the ills of the community and then they have to think about how they’re going to actually stop it.”
The second project deals with the “Slave Mentality,” in which students use videos and class material to write an essay on the slave trade, and how it relates to the current black experience. The final project is the “Family Tree,” which asks students to detail their own family history and explain why they might have difficulties in obtaining any information.
“Without your history, you’re in trouble,” says Watkins, who relates to that phrase on a personal level. He wasn’t comfortable with his own history because, unlike his peers in Canada, he couldn’t trace his roots to the Caribbean islands — his roots were embedded deep in the American South and slavery. However, with the help of an eccentric professor of African studies at Indiana State University, Watkins gained insight into his own history and found inspiration in the words of the helpful professor.
“He told me that I was a strong individual because of the strength my ancestors showed by escaping from slavery,” Watkins reveals. “In that second, my mind changed. It was an enlightenment … it changed who and how I thought I was, and it gave me a lot of self esteem. And from that moment, there was nothing I felt I couldn’t do because if [my ancestors] could run with dogs chasing them, hiding at night and coming into an environment that was foreign to them, then what can’t I do? Now, there’s nothing I can’t do.”
Originally published in Sway Magazine, Spring 2009.
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