"Backhouse presents detailed narratives of six court cases, each giving evidence of blatant racism created and enforced through law."--BOOK JACKET.

In a winning new book, Pearleen Oliver: Canada's Black Crusader for Civil Rights brings to life a compassionate and passionate African Nova Scotian, the story of her growth and activism--a book that shows how one woman's voice changed the course of Nova Scotia's history. Pearleen Oliver pushed open doors that blocked Black girls from nurses' training. She kicked Little Black Sambo out of public schools. She was spokesperson for Viola Desmond's appeal of her 1946 conviction for challenging racist customs. A founder of the Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, the Black United Front and the Black Cultural Centre, she was the first female moderator of the African United Baptist Association, and a founder of the AUBA Women's Institute. Editor Ronald Caplan weaves Pearleen's voice from her interviews and speeches. We experience Pearleen's awareness of injustice as she grew up in segregated New Glasgow schools. A married woman, we see her outrage re-kindled by a bewildered teenager at her door who was barred from nurses' training by her skin colour. Pearleen began to speak out before civic and religious and community groups?Boards of Trade, Rotary luncheons, B'nai B'rith and Baptist services and nuclear disarmament conferences. Newspapers carried her voice?a voice of reason and determination and common sense?across the province, and then across Canada. While raising five sons and carrying on the duties of a minister's wife, Pearleen mentored young girls and women in summer camps, church groups, continuing education, and women's groups. She was the organist in her churches, and she wrote histories of Black communities. In this eye-opening book Pearleen Oliver tells stories of activist journalist Carrie Best who published Nova Scotia's first Black newspaper, of successful businesswoman Viola Desmond who was sidetracked by petty racism, of Black soldiers who fought Nazi racism in the Second World War and then came home to racial discrimination in Canada. This book keeps alive a determined fighter for social justice who should not be forgotten. Pearleen Oliver demonstrated what one person, one voice, can do.

In 1946, Viola Desmond was wrongfully arrested for sitting in a whites-only section of a movie theatre in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. In 2010, the Nova Scotia Government recognized this gross miscarriage of justice and posthumously granted her a free pardon. Most Canadians are aware of Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat on a racially segregated bus in Alabama, but Viola Desmond’s act of resistance occurred nine years earlier. However, many Canadians are still unaware of Desmond’s story or that racial segregation existed throughout many parts of Canada during most of the twentieth century. On the subject of race, Canadians seem to exhibit a form of collective amnesia. Viola Desmond’s Canada is a groundbreaking book that provides a concise overview of the narrative of the Black experience in Canada. Reynolds traces this narrative from slavery under French and British rule in the eighteenth century to the practice of racial segregation and the fight for racial equality in the twentieth century. Included are personal recollections by Wanda Robson, Viola Desmond’s youngest sister, together with important but previously unpublished documents and other primary sources in the history of Blacks in Canada. NEW: Teaching Guide Available Here

The African Canadian Legal Odyssey explores the history of African Canadians and the law from the era of slavery until the early twenty-first century. This collection demonstrates that the social history of Blacks in Canada has always been inextricably bound to questions of law, and that the role of the law in shaping Black life was often ambiguous and shifted over time. Comprised of eleven engaging chapters, organized both thematically and chronologically, it includes a substantive introduction that provides a synthesis and overview of this complex history. This outstanding collection will appeal to both advanced specialists and undergraduate students and makes an important contribution to an emerging field of scholarly inquiry.

Surviving in the Hour of Darkness: The Health and Wellness of Women of Colour and Indigenous Women addresses the health issues - physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual - of black women, First Nations women, and other women of colour. The book is a collection of scholarly essays, case studies, personal essays, poetry, and prose written by over 45 contributors. It illustrates, through the voices of many women, that gender, religious, cultural, and class background strongly influence how one experiences illness, how and when one is diagnosed, and how one is treated within the healthcare system. The book also focuses on the need for cultural sensitivity and inclusiveness in the delivery of health services. Surviving in the Hour of Darkness: The Health and Wellness of Women of Colour and Indigenous Women aims to promote and generate knowledge with and about minority women while identifying key strategies for promoting their health, thus contributing to a broader understanding of how the experience of being a minority woman affects one's health and well-being. With Contributions By: Byllye Y. Avery Dr. Wanda Thomas Bernard Dr. Ana Bodnar Shirley Brozzo Nora Burrell Bishakha Chowdhury LindaCornwell Charmaine Crawford Karen Flynn Randa Hammadieh CiajDiannHarris Layla Hassan Troy Hunter Rolanda C. Kane Rosamond S. King Heather MacLeod Kristine Maitland Marisa Marharaj Notisha Massaquoi Naomi North Sima Qadeer Talata Reeves Carla R. Ribeiro Ingrid Rivera Anakana Schofield Beldan Sezen Farah M. Shroff Neeta Singh Lorraine Thomas Roxane Tracey Wendy Vincent Vera M. Wabegijig Ingrid Waldron Pitche Wasayananung Crystal E. Wilkinson Gitane Williams Judith K. Witherow Valerie Wood

"Originally published, with appendix, in the Greenwood Press series, Contributions in Afro-American and African studies, no. 36, Westport, CT, c1979"--T.p. verso.

This accessible and engaging book introduces readers to key historical events, and the women who were central to them, in the struggle for women’s equality in Canada. Four and a half decades after the report of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women, the feminist struggle is as necessary as ever — but thanks to the hard work of activist women, many forms of discrimination are a thing of the past. Beginning before the colonization of Canada by European settlers, Penni Mitchell explores gender roles within First Nations societies, where women often brokered peace agreements, oversaw property and advised leaders. She also examines the struggles of First Nations women to challenge Indian Act discrimination against women and children. Exploring the early days of colonial settlement, Mitchell notes that women were among Canada’s first administrators, and they started its first schools and hospitals. Later, women were among the first to oppose slavery, internment and racial segregation. Demanding a greater say in their country, women fought for the right to vote, attend university and divorce. They fought for child protection laws, public health clinics, minimum wages, equal pay and better working conditions. About Canada: Women’s Rights considers the ways in which women’s lives have been transformed by the legalization of birth control and abortion and the removal of patriarchal privilege from family law. About Canada: Women’s Rights introduces readers to some of the many women who changed Canada through their efforts to secure greater equality. While a few are well known, many of these women and the battles they won have been forgotten. They deserve a greater place in Canada’s history.

Key Selling Points This book celebrates Canada's civil-rights struggles, a chapter of history that often goes unmentioned. This book is co-authored by and uses rare firsthand interviews with Wanda Robson, Viola Desmond's youngest sister, as well as with civil-rights expert Dr. Graham Reynolds, professor of history and Viola Desmond Chair in Social Justice at Cape Breton University. This book goes beyond Viola's pivotal moment in the movie theater to tell the story of her childhood, her career as a teacher in a segregated school and her role as a pioneering entrepreneur in Black beauty culture. It will inspire readers aged 9 to 12 and show how one ordinary person can overcome obstacles and make a positive difference in the world. Viola's legacy is commemorated on the Canadian $10 bill. She's the first woman other than Queen Elizabeth II to appear alone on a bill in Canada.

For one hundred years women fashioned different dreams of equality, autonomy, and dignity; yet what is Canadian feminism? In Demanding Equality, Joan Sangster explores feminist thought and organizing from mid-nineteenth-century, Enlightenment-inspired writing to the multi-issue movement of the 1980s.She broadens our definition of feminism, and – recognizing that its political, cultural, and social dimensions are entangled – builds a picture of a heterogeneous movement often characterized by fierce internal debates. This comprehensive rear-view look at feminism in all its political guises encourages a wider public conversation about what Canadian feminism has been, is, and should be.

Odysseys Home: Mapping African-Canadian Literature is a pioneering study of African-Canadian literary creativity, laying the groundwork for future scholarly work in the field. Based on extensive excavations of archives and texts, this challenging passage through twelve essays presents a history of the literature and examines its debt to, and synthesis with, oral cultures. George Elliott Clarke identifies African-Canadian literature's distinguishing characteristics, argues for its relevance to both African Diasporic Black and Canadian Studies, and critiques several of its key creators and texts. Scholarly and sophisticated, the survey cites and interprets the works of several major African-Canadian writers, including André Alexis, Dionne Brand, Austin Clarke, Claire Harris, and M. Nourbese Philip. In so doing, Clarke demonstrates that African-Canadian writers and critics explore the tensions that exist between notions of universalism and black nationalism, liberalism and conservatism. These tensions are revealed in the literature in what Clarke argues to be – paradoxically – uniquely Canadian and proudly apart from a mainstream national identity. Clarke has unearthed vital but previously unconsidered authors, and charted the relationship between African-Canadian literature and that of Africa, African America, and the Caribbean. In addition to the essays, Clarke has assembled a seminal and expansive bibliography of texts – literature and criticism – from both English and French Canada. This important resource will inevitably challenge and change future academic consideration of African-Canadian literature and its place in the international literary map of the African Diaspora.