Sometimes I wonder if there will be an official apology for the number of times we have apologized to various groups in recent years. It seems to be the thing to do these days, although I can't think of a group receiving an apology that they didn't deserve. The lastest came from the mayor of Halifax, Nova Scotia, to the remaining displaced residents of Africville. As the name might suggest, Africville was a community on the Bedford Basin inhabited by African Canadians until the early 1960's. The residents were evicted, supposedly to build one of the bridges across Halifax Harbour, although today a park called Seaview is on the land of the former Africville. By an act of council the park will revert to the name Africville, and a controversial settlement of $3 million dollars will be paid out for various purposes. Mayor Peter Kelly offered these words: "We are sorry. You lost your homes, your church, all of the places where you gathered with family and friends to mark the milestones of your lives. For all of that, we apologize."
It will be interesting to see what happens next. I was at a gathering on the site of Africville a number of years ago when the federal heritage minister promised the rebuilding of the church, which was the hub of the community. It was an announcement made on the spur of the moment, and the former residents in attendance were hopeful, but the promise hasn't been realized. Since Christian faith was so important to these disenfranchised folk it was a great idea to create a museum in the form of a original church. Although it seemed to be an empty promise then, part of the $3 million is to build a replica of the church at Africville.
Were you aware of the sad history of Africville? (I have written about it before.) http://archives.cbc.ca/society/racism/topics/96/ Is an apology such as this one a good thing, or "too little too late?" Should we apologize at all for the sins of the past, if we didn't commit them?
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I'm of a mind that we should make right the wrongs of our nation's past. Apologies help mend old wounds, and allow all of us to move on.
That said, we can also not demonize the decisions of the past by removing them their social context. I remember foaming with rage at one professor who haughtily told my history class in fourth year that we should condemn Sir John A. Macdonald as a racist for his role in encouraging the use of Asian immigrants as cheap labor to build the railway in the 1870s.
I pointed out that to do so was wrong, and that she was applying a 20th century label to a person in a period that wouldn't even recognize the term. Macdonald's actions were borne out of the social perspective of his times, not our own. We have certainly come a long way, I told her, from the ways of the 19th century; but we cannot apply modern revisionism to those times to judge them out of their original context.
To do so is, in my mind, both patently wrong and flippantly dangerous in historical terms.
I was aware of the sad history of Africville. I learned about it while I was researching my family history. I had discovered my own black ancestry, through my mother's line and as I began to explore my own family I naturally gravitated towards a study of African Canadians. It became a very personal journey for me. The first thing I noticed was the fact that if you aren't actually looking for the history of black Canadians, you won't likely ever bump into it. It remains invisible for the most part. I know there is a museum of black history in Amhertsburg which was one of the underground railroads stops. I would like to see it someday. We tend to remember only the more likable parts of this history such as the story of the underground railroad and the freedom offered to slaves who escaped to Canada. We did offer freedom, but mostly for political reasons having to do with war. I also came across the baptism records of slaves owned by one family name also connected to my mother's line. [They gave the slaves their last name, but clearly not their freedom.] We tend to think we were kinder than our neighbors in USA. If we were kinder, it wasn't by a very wide margin. I think many people still believe that we never had slavery in Canada. As for the apology, maybe it is a good thing, for no other reason than to bring attention to this part of our history.
I just asked my boys if Black History Month was honoured in their schools. Unfortunately, they knew nothing of it. Sad....I will have to remember this next year. Maybe we can integrate something in church. Thanks for the reminder David.
Interesting the difference in provinces. Perhaps because of the ethnic diversity in Ontario, and the fact that Ontario was a terminus for the Underground Railroad make a difference.
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