Dr. Daniel Hill III and His Pursuit of a Respectable Black Canadian Community Daniel Mcneil
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Document generated on 09/28/2021 3:52 a.m. Ontario History Ushering children away from a “light grey world” Dr. Daniel Hill III and his pursuit of a respectable Black Canadian community Daniel McNeil Forging Freedom: In Honour of the Bicentenary of the British Article abstract Abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade This paper is about Dr. Daniel Hill III, the first director of the Ontario Human Volume 99, Number 1, Spring 2007 Rights Agency. Paying particular attention to Dr Hill’s work with the Committee for the Adoption of Coloured Youngsters and the Ontario Black History Society, URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1065799ar I argue that he fashioned himself as “Negro race man”, a masculinist term DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1065799ar assigned to people who sought to lead a Black community in North America and lay to rest the infantilised and feminized image of the “tragic mulatto” trapped in a “light grey world”. See table of contents Publisher(s) The Ontario Historical Society ISSN 0030-2953 (print) 2371-4654 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this article McNeil, D. (2007). Ushering children away from a “light grey world”: Dr. Daniel Hill III and his pursuit of a respectable Black Canadian community. Ontario History, 99(1), 96–106. https://doi.org/10.7202/1065799ar Copyright © The Ontario Historical Society, 2007 This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/ This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ ONTARIO HISTORY shering children away from a“light grey world” Dr. Daniel Hill III and his pursuit of a U respectable Black Canadian community by Daniel McNeil My interest in sociology has always been in the community. The social organization & development of group life…the Toronto Negro community, group dynamics, social psychology. [Daniel Hill III, letter to parents (1957). Emphasis original.] For months, considerable effort was expended trying to locate a “Negro community” and to analyse its social organisation … Increasingly, the most important finding was that Toronto Negroes existed outside the orbit of formal race organizations and were somehow or other related to the general soci- ety without a Negro sub-culture affecting their major activities – work, social life, religion … Those individuals supporting Negro organisations spoke of a community, but were at a loss when questioned regarding the community’s leaders. [Daniel Hill III, Negroes in Toronto: A Sociological study of a minority group (1960)] I don’t see any collective anger in the Negro community in Toronto. [Daniel Hill III, quoted in The Toronto Star (1968). Emphasis added.] begin this essay with a trinity of models. His father not only followed quotes that convey a desire to under- his grandfather’s work as a prominent stand, label and manage a Black com- theologian and a minister in the African Imunity. As such, they effectively intro- Methodist Episcopal Church; he also be- duce the reader to Daniel Hill III, a social came the Dean of the School of Religion worker, bureaucrat and historian, who is at Howard University and one of the few probably best known for becoming the Blacks to hold a commission in the US first full-time director of the Ontario Hu- army during World War I.1 Yet despite his man Rights Commission and a trusted religious heritage, Daniel never consid- source of information about Blackness ered joining the clergy. By the time he was for Toronto-based media outlets. drafted into the American army for serv- Born in 1923 in Independence, Mis- ice during World War II, he was already souri, Daniel Hill III had impressive role well on his way to becoming an atheist. 1 Archives of Ontario F2130-1-0-2 (hereafter cited as AO), “To you dad, I thank you for such a rich family heritage and the greatest Dad in the world. You have given to me by your life, a goal to strive for. That is why someday you’ll be proud of me.” Daniel Hill III to Daniel Hill II, 6 July, 1943. Ontario History / Volume XCIX, Number 1 / Spring 2007 7 Nor did he have any intention of mak- ing a career for himself in the military. Absract His stint in the army from 1942 to 1945 only heightened his disillusionment with This paper is about Dr. Daniel Hill III, the first director of the Ontario Human Rights Agency. Pay- American society and, as an impressiona- ing particular attention to Dr Hill’s work with the ble 19-year-old soldier, he wrote of his ex- Committee for the Adoption of Coloured Youngsters perience in a segregated army, describing and the Ontario Black History Society, I argue “white trash,” “crackers,” and “selfish…ne- that he fashioned himself as “Negro race man”, a groes who were a detriment to their race, masculinist term assigned to people who sought to 2 lead a Black community in North America and lay as well as to [American] society.” Instead to rest the infantilised and feminized image of the of staying in the United States, Hill went “tragic mulatto” trapped in a “light grey world”. on to pursue his graduate studies in To- Résumé: Cet article s’intéresse au Dr Daniel Hill ronto during the 1950s where, along with III, premier directeur de l’Agence ontarienne pour Donna Hill, his White American wife, he les Droits de la Personne. M’attachant plus particu- believed that racial discrimination could lièrement au travail de Dr Hill au sein du Comité be fought with greater facility.3 Donna pour l’adoption d’enfants de couleur et auprès de was a grass-roots activist with the Con- « Ontario Black History Society », j’avance que Dr Hill se définit comme étant « l’homme de la race gress of Racial Equality (1952-53) and noire », un terme masculiniste attribué à ceux qui with the Toronto Labour Committee cherchaient à diriger une communauté noire en for Human Right (1953-54), and her ex- Amérique du Nord et à effacer l’image infantilisée periences as a White woman committed et féminisée du « mulâtre tragique », prisonnier to anti-racist work in North America is dans un « monde gris pâle ». worthy of more attention than this brief paper can provide. Moreover, the ways in which the Hill children – Dan Hill IV, more specific, I use the Children’s Aid Lawrence Hill and Karen Hill – have all Society papers at the City of Toronto Ar- fashioned creative work that can appeal chives, as well as the Daniel Hill papers to a mainstream audience deserves greater at the Archives of Ontario, to explore Dr. critical analysis. Hill’s work with the Committee for the With that said, my focus here is large- Adoption of Coloured Children after he ly limited to Dr. Daniel Hill who, despite completed his doctoral dissertation in co-founding the Ontario Black His- social work at the University of Toronto torical Society (with his wife and some in 1960. As I show, Dr. Hill sought to ed- friends) and completing several books ucate middle-class members of Canadian and articles that serve as study guides society about race and racism so that his for students in Ontario high schools, has children and other young people of Af- also been ignored by academics. To be rican descent could assert a “respectable” 2 AO F2130-1-0-2. Daniel Hill III to parents, 18 February 1943; 21 June 1943; 9 May 1943. 3 AO F2130-1-0-3. Daniel Hill III to parents, 2 July 1951. ONTARIO HISTORY The Canadian Hills. From left to right, Daniel III, Dan IV, Karen, Larry, Donna.Archives of Ontario, F2130-9-2-11 Black identity rather than just try to fit of research because of news reports in the into a predominantly White nation as twenty-first century that announce, “light grey” subjects. Put more bluntly, The wait for a white baby can be years, if he wanted to obtain a degree of justice ever, and the cost can approach $40,000 for children of African descent when it (U.S.). The wait for a mixed-race baby is was clear that his adoptive nation valued shorter, and the price about $20,000. The White babies above Black babies.4 And, wait for a black baby is even shorter and 5 as most readers are no doubt aware, the costs about $10,000. ways in which children are treated as In the late 1950s and early 1960s, so- commodities remains a significant area cial planners in Canada echoed the fears 4 Evidence of racism and romantic racism is evident in the following extract from Our Children: the Journal of the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto: “Steven was not the easily placed blond blue eyed son of a professor. He is of mixed race, black and white … He is a man of extremes … He is as capable of hard cold angry: ‘I hate you’, as he is of warm gentle hugs and ‘I love you, you’re MY mom!’ … We’ve met the odd person who has objected to Steve on the grounds of colour but many more who share our delight in him … If some day Steve should decide to join Black Power, I’ll remind him that I always thought he was beauti- ful even when he was brown.” Sue Ann Leather, “Letter from an adopting mother,” Our Children (1973).