The Incredible Black Canadian Women You Should Know
For years, I’ve had a complicated relationship with Black History Month.
This year, “complicated” isn’t strong enough of a word. It’s more like I’m prematurely exhausted and annoyed. I’m mentally preparing myself for 28 days of #BlackoutTuesday, aka performative, hollow gestures masquerading as allyship. At the same time, I’m also — call it naive optimism — hopeful.
My boss, Chelsea Sanders, the VP of Unbothered, described her feelings on this month as “anxiety-tinged enthusiasm” and I think that perfectly sums it up.
On one hand, as a Black woman in media, I’m never more in demand than I am in February. I’m asked to speak on panels (now, it’s the virtual kind). I’ve been asked to give talks to impressionable teenagers at my old high school, where I was once a confused young girl surrounded by kids who didn’t look like me. In the moments when I’ve gotten to look out at a 16-year-old Black teen and make her feel less alone, I’ve loved Black History Month.
But this year, after a worldwide racial reckoning, the brutal killing of Black men and women by police, and terrifying displays of white supremacy, I just know this Black History Month is going to hit different. For better or for worse.
The month has almost always been about paying tribute to the history of Black people in North America — a history that is full of pain or stories of extraordinary human beings whose contributions to the fabric of this nation are overlooked and ignored (Black trauma or excellence — no in between). So, in the past, while it was nice to feel wanted every February, I wondered why I didn’t feel as wanted every other month. I wondered why I wasn’t worthy enough to speak to Black girls who were just like me in September or October. I wondered why the achievements of Black people, specifically Black women, weren’t lauded every month. They should be, but the truth is that in many classrooms and publications, they still aren’t. Every February, Black women take on the emotional labour of making sure the women who came before us are recognized because the Black women who have shaped this country — and are moulding its future — have been continually discounted for the stories of problematic old white men.
This is where the hope comes in. I hope all the “listening and learning” and feigned wokeness of last summer starts to pay off in tangible ways this month. This is the time for allies to prove they’ve actually been listening. It’s their time to pick up the burden. I hope this month is different not just because non-Black people are promising to do better, but because they are actually following through.
This Black History Month, we’re showcasing Canadian Black women who deserve to be known — past and present. And I’m asking, and hoping, that as we make sure we continue to celebrate the achievements of Black women long after February 28, you do too.
Mary Ann Shadd Cary
If you’re sick of seeing slavery stories in movies and pop culture, I feel you. Black pain has been used for entertainment, as the only depiction of Black history, for too long. I get it. But the reality in this country is that not enough people know the history. Slavery wasn’t just an American problem. The Underground Railroad reached its peak in the 1850s, after The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed, and that’s when Mary Ann Shadd Cary moved to Windsor, ON. She sought refuge in Canada like so many other free Blacks and escaped slaves, opened a school, and established a newspaper with the still-relevant motto, “Self-Reliance is the True Road to Independence.” BRB, getting that tattooed on my face. Shadd Cary went on to become an anti-slavery feminist activist and Canada’s first Black newspaper publisher.
Mairuth Sarsfield
"Mairuth was a door-opener." That’s how Mairuth Sarsfield’s friend Rita Deverell described her to theGlobe and Mailafter her death in 2013. As diplomat, author, and activist, Sarsfield opened the door for so many of the Black women still to be featured on this list. She was born in Montreal, and in her 88 years of advocating to tell the stories of Black Canadians, there are many moments that prove why she’s a woman you should know. I could go on about her gorgeous autobiographical novelNo Crystal Stair,or her epic response when the book was criticized for its hopeful depiction of life in her black Montreal neighbourhood: "Being Black is a lot of fun – or can be. You don't have to bellyache to write a good book." Sarsfield was pushing for #blackjoy before it became a hashtag.
But, there’s a Sarsfield story I want to tell you because it’s one Black women know too well. When she was working for the Department of External Affairs at the Expo ’70 in Osaka, Japan, a Japanese official asked the Canadian delegate to come forward at a ribbon-cutting ceremony. As the Globe tells it, the official looked past Sarsfield as she advanced, not believing a Black woman could be the Canadian representative. Sarsfield ignored the slight and stepped forward to do her job. This story makes me think of all the Black women, every day, who are doing their jobs in spite of these kinds of microaggressions. Mairuth Sarsfield came before us, banging down doors and staying unbothered in the fact of prejudice. If she could do it, so can we.
Kathleen "Kay" Livingstone
I swear I didn’t pick this woman just because we share a name. I am bursting with pride to have the same name as someone as influential and integral to the advancement of Black Canadian women in this country asKathleen“Kay” Livingstone.She devoted her life to empowering and networking with Black women so, of course, I stan. Livingstone went from being one of Canada’s leading Black actresses in the 1940s (when theOscars were still SO WHITE) to becoming a popular broadcaster, humanitarian, and community organizer. In the 1950s, Livingstone worked to ensure Black students received scholarships, and after moving to Toronto from London, Ontario, she joined a social club of Black middle-class women living their best life drinking tea and throwing garden parties. (Um, can someone please make this movie?) But Livingstone wasn’t satisfied sitting around socializing. She quickly changed the club’s name to the Canadian Negro Women’s Association, went to work, and shifted the focus to educating Black youth and fighting for the wellbeing of visible minorities. She’s even credited as coining the term“visible minority.”
In the ’70s before her unexpected death, Livingstone formed the Congress of Black Women (CBW) of Canada. She did all that while being a wife and mother of FIVE.
I’ll leave you with one of Livingstone’s favourite phrases, which became the CBW’s mantra and sums up her legacy: “Onward and upward lifting as we climb.”
Marci Ien
Marci Ien has been gracing our television screens for almost three decades. Full disclosure: for a few of those years, I worked with Marci on the daytime talk show The Social.Before I was her producer, I was a just a little girl who believed in my dream to work in television a little harder because Marci Ien made it seem possible for a Black woman to excel in that space.
She’s an award-winning broadcast journalist who started as a reporter for local news, went on to cover a diverse array of important Canadian stories for CTV, and found the perfect balance between hard-hitting journo and charming morning-show host onCanada AMbefore landing atThe Social.Ask anyone who has had the privilege of spending more than a second in Marci’s orbit and they’ll tell you that she has about a million special qualities, but the most impressive one to me is her empathy.
When she was reporting on the tragic story of the school shooting in La Loche, Saskatchewan, which devastated the mostly Aboriginal community, Marci set up a GoFundMe and organized a four-day trip to Torontofor the students. She used her platform to help a community in need.
This year, Ien took that commitment to community a step further when she left her job at The Social to become the Liberal MP of the Toronto Centre riding. She's the first Black woman to hold this position. From speaking out in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, to organizing for Indigenous students in La Loche, to sharing her own story of “driving while Black,” Ien has never been afraid to pull up for the causes that need her.
Marci Ien is one of the most inspiring people I’m fortunate to know, and this month especially, I think her incomparable influence on broadcasting, and on this country, should be celebrated.
Carrie Best
Print media is going through an interesting time. It seems like we’re just counting down the days until newspapers become something we tell our grandchildren about, like cassette tapes or Blockbuster. But even if physical newspapers die, technology can never kill the importance of journalism and telling the truth, no matter what iteration of the iPhone we’re on. Before smart phones and even VHS, Carrie Best founded The Clarion, the first Black-owned newspaper in Nova Scotia. She fought to share the truth at a time when the voices of Black women were suppressed and ignored.
In 1941, after finding out that a group of Black teen girls had been forcibly removed from a movie theatre, Best went to the movies to stand up for those girls. Best and her son were arrested and charged with disturbing the peace for sitting in the “whites-only” section of The Roseland Theatre in New Glasgow, N.S. Yes, the same theatre Viola Desmond defiantly sat in protest of segregation. After Desmond was arrested, Best featured her on the cover of The Clarion. The Halifax Examiner calls Best pivotal “in bringing Desmond’s saga out of the shadows.” Best is the reason this country remembers and is finally celebrating a trailblazer like Desmond.
A pioneer herself, Best started her own radio show, The Quiet Corner, in 1952 on CBC Radio. The show amplified the music and poetry of Black Canadians and was on the air for 12 years. The other Black female journalists I have featured on this list, and those who are still to come, owe so much to Best. We all still do. Even when the future of print journalism feels bleak, let’s remember Carrie Best. Her legacy lives on through the tireless work of journalists today.