Canada Also Has a History of Black Oppression: The Story of Africville

One Canadian city destroyed an entire Black community for their land

Africville: Photograph courtesy of The Africville Genealogy Society (Facebook)

I have been trying to come up with the right words to say to comfort my Black brothers and sisters in this turbulent time.

I wish I could take their pain away.

I don’t have the ability to do that but I can help by using my privilege and platform to tell the stories of Black oppression, stand up against racism, and watch out for People of Color in any way I can.

I am proud to be an ally.

I usually use my Medium account to tell the stories of true crime cases involving marginalized people and self-help topics.

Today, I will be telling you a different story about oppression in Canada. Canada is looked at as the United States’ calmer, nicer sister. However, I live here and I can tell you that Canada has its’ own dark history of oppression and racism.

Canadian history books commonly do not tell us about the residential schools Indigenous people were kept in, or the “Sixties Scoop” when Native children were hauled out of their homes and placed in White foster homes. I will be covering these stories at a later date, but I mention them here so people will realize that Canada has its own dark history with People of Color.

The demolition of Africville is one of the worst stories of Black oppression in Canadian history.

A Community Built From the Ground Up

After the American Revolution, in the late 1700s and early 1800s, large groups of Black settlers began to arrive in the ocean-port city of Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Many of these Black settlers had lived through and escaped slavery. They were promised land and civil treatment and instead encountered racism and hate from the White colonizers who had settled on the land already.

The Black settlers were forced to make their own communities on land that was leftover. This land was not ideal for growing food, basically, it was inhospitable at the time.

Despite this, the communities thrived due to everyone working together to build a better tomorrow.