Semaji Black Community Resource Centre Supporting Youth, Building Communities, A Holistic Approach Volume 11, Issue 2 December 2015 Inside This Issue 2 A Word From The President 3 YOUTH -Standing on Their Shoulders 4 YOUTH -Meet the Participants!! 5 COMMUNITY -The Inuence of Little Burgundy on the Development of English-Speaking Black Montreal Happy 6 HISTORY -Following the Roots Holidays!! 7 LEISURE CLUB -Cozy up with these Winter Reads!!! -Stay Tuned for these Movies!!! The Inuence of Little Burgundy on the Development of English Speaking Black Montreal By Dr. Clarence Bayne Presently, the area of Little history of English speaking Blacks in cance. One such event was the Burgundy is located in the Montreal extend well beyond the Caribbean style street Carnival. It Sud-Ouest Borough of Montreal. The geographic and civic boundaries of rst took place in Little Burgundy in Atwater Market marks the boundary Little Burgundy. This can be seen 1972, which was the 65th Anniver- where St-Henri ends and Little through the Union United Church, sary of the Union United Church. Burgundy begins. From there, it the NCC, the Sir George Williams Although it was sponsored by the stretches to Mountain Street in the Crisis, and the Negro Theatre Guild. Union United Church, the English east and is delineated by the Caribbean speaking immigrant Lachine Canal to the south and In the late sixties-early seventies, the communities also collaborated. It Saint-Antoine in the north. Although radical Black student leaders came was a plan by Reverend Gabourel, Notre Dame West functions as the to the Union United Church himself an immigrant from Jamaica, neighbourhood’s main artery, for basement to promote their “revolu- to attract new Black immigrants the Black community St Antoine tionary” strategies and seek support from the Caribbean and the diverse Street was a centre of Black life and from the resident and rapidly cultures of the Black Diaspora to the culture. However, it would be a emerging immigrant Black commu- fold of the Union United Church mistake, indeed impossible, to draw nity leadership. One such leader was (Maranda Moses, Proud Past: Bright lines around some territory, like the spiritual head of the Black Futures). Little Burgundy, or dene its social Community of “Little Burgundy”: and economic growth and develop- Reverend Charles Este. Later, in the mid-seventies, the ment as embodying all the relevant Negro Community Center (NCC), history of English Speaking Blacks in The UUC also went on to sponsor located in the heart of Little Montreal. The signicance and other events of historical signi- Continued on Page 5 the support of Sir George Williams Fine Arts (specically Norma Springford) and Professor Bayne (Commerce and Administration, Concordia University) the Negro Theatre Guild facilitated the use of space over extended periods of time at Sir George University for the rehearsal and production of plays and cultural events, and meetings of Black community organizations. Professor Roland Wills played a major role in helping to resolve the conict Burgundy, became the place chosen by the young, immi- between the students and the Administration during and after grant scholars of the sixties and seventies from which to the Sir George Williams Crisis. He also carried out signicant launch the Black Community Council of Quebec and its fundraising among his colleagues at Sir George Williams Univer- outreach programs. These programs were based on new sity to support programs in the English speaking Black commu- social approaches to Black Community development and a nity and to nance building repairs at the NCC. As part of the determination to reposition the Black Community on the transition (late sixties to early seventies) of NCC from an organiza- evolving tness Landscape of Montreal. It was from within tion with a signicant White governance body and presence to a NCC that the Pan-Black movement of the English speaking Black governance and management, Professor Roland Wills acted Black Community was born, and expanded into NDG, as the Black Father Christmas for the NCC Christmas holiday LaSalle, West Island, Cote des Neiges, LaVal, the South Shore community celebration. This was part of a social strategy of and, through its full participation in the National Black empowerment to raise the self-esteem and pride of Black Coalition of Canada, on to the larger Canadian canvass. The children in Little Burgundy and the surrounding territories. It was Sir George Williams Crisis also gave urgency to that devel- during those transition years of the late sixties and early seventies opment. But essentially this movement was well on the way that Professor Clarence Bayne, along with a team of Black McGill before the Sir George William Crisis erupted from the and Sir George William graduates, became a member of the University Campus and became a lightning rod for change Board of Directors of NCC. It was also during that transition in the University and the City. period that Carl Whittaker, a Sir George William sociology gradu- ate, proposed and got the Board’s acceptance to launch what he NCC was also responsible for bringing the English speaking described as the “Comunaulogy” approach to community Black immigrant communities and the Canadian born development. It was essentially a Pan-Black approach to organiz- Blacks together, not as Islanders, feminists, ideologists, or ing and managing the diversities in the Black community towards members of any specic spiritual denomination, but as a broadly dened self-autonomy within a Federal multicultural Blacks to engage in a struggle to end the exclusion of Blacks Canadian citizenship. This ushered in a period of Black unity from the social, political and economic decision making among its leadership voices and social inuence in Montreal and processes of Montreal and Canada. To accomplish this, the Canada that lasted from 1974 to 2000, and which has not been new leadership, who lived mostly outside the physical experienced since. boundaries of Little Burgundy, set up a network of organiza- tions that together with specialist community based It is in this larger context that the history of the English Speaking organizations (BSC, QBBE, BTW, the Victor Phillips Organiza- Blacks of Little Burgundy must be understood. And to get a sense tion for the Welfare and Development of the Black Children, of its importance and social and historical vitality we must follow etc) linked Blacks throughout the Island of Montreal. These the tentacle of its inuences through its exemplars out into the Black Community Associations formed the core agencies of far reaches of the surrounding areas on the Island of Montreal the Black Community Council of Quebec. and beyond the boundaries of Quebec. I speak of the contribu- tions of Oscar Peterson and Oliver Jones to the distinctiveness of There is also a link between the history of Black Montreal Canada’s contribution to World Jazz; the way that Rockhead and Sir George Williams University that needs to be Paradise connected Montrealers and the English speaking Blacks, explored. It is a connection which was dramatized by the Sir immigrant and Canadian born, to the Black legends of the new George William crisis in 1969. But it was operating through music cultures that have reshaped many Western and American the presence and the activism of Clarence Bayne cultures; and the inuence of the Coloured Women’s Club that (https://vimeo.com/74153552), Richard Leslie, Dorothy extended throughout the Island and into the rest of Canada (the Wills, and a group of students (Carl Whittaker, Winston Black Women’s Congress). I am talking of the role that the Union Nicholls, Don McFee, Kenny Knights) that worked with the United Church and the NCC played in the creation of new Montreal Citizen Association to publish the Magazine: dynamic Black institutions in Montreal as a whole. These two Expression. “Expression” became an important Black institutions tied the diversities of the English speaking Black academic voice in the Community and in the discourse communities of Montreal together. They embodied the soul and around the Sir George William Crisis (Special Conference memories of the early Black Montreal Community. Issue, Winter 1968), and the Black dialogue on Black liberation and development in Montreal and Canada. The Negro Theatre Guild also has a role in the Sir George Williams Crisis. Under Victor Phillips Directorship and the Trinidad and Tobago Drama Committee, later BTW, and with Presently, the area of Little history of English speaking Blacks in cance. One such event was the Burgundy is located in the Montreal extend well beyond the Caribbean style street Carnival. It Sud-Ouest Borough of Montreal. The geographic and civic boundaries of rst took place in Little Burgundy in Atwater Market marks the boundary Little Burgundy. This can be seen 1972, which was the 65th Anniver- where St-Henri ends and Little through the Union United Church, sary of the Union United Church. Burgundy begins. From there, it the NCC, the Sir George Williams Although it was sponsored by the stretches to Mountain Street in the Crisis, and the Negro Theatre Guild. Union United Church, the English east and is delineated by the Caribbean speaking immigrant Lachine Canal to the south and In the late sixties-early seventies, the communities also collaborated. It Saint-Antoine in the north. Although radical Black student leaders came was a plan by Reverend Gabourel, Notre Dame West functions as the to the Union United Church himself an immigrant from Jamaica, neighbourhood’s main artery, for basement to promote their “revolu- to attract new Black immigrants the Black community St Antoine tionary” strategies and seek support from the Caribbean and the diverse Street was a centre of Black life and from the resident and rapidly cultures of the Black Diaspora to the culture.