Black History Month celebrates 'important contributions,' say speakers at online event

Black History Month marks a "special time of remembrance, reflection and recommitment," according to the creator of the Pan-African holiday called Kwanzaa.

Dr. Maulana Karenga, an Africana Studies professor at California State University, Long Beach, said the month honours the past, grounds the present and enriches the future. He said is a time to celebrate in "meaningful ways" the history of African people in the world.

Karenga was the keynote speaker at a Canadian online event, "25 Years of Black History: Then, Now and The Future," organized by a Toronto non-profit organization. The event included a tribute to Dr. Jean Augustine, Canada's first female Black MP who championed the unanimous vote to designate February as Black History Month in Canada in 1995. 

"We take history very seriously as African people and we engage it for good reasons," Karenga said on Tuesday. "We as an African people honour the moral obligation to remember those who opened the way for us, who created place for us to walk and live in freedom and dignity in the world."

The event, hosted by the Transformation Institute for Leadership and Innovation, in partnership with Afroglobal Television, was part of a six-part web series exploring the history of Black Canadians, the current climate and the work that still needs to be done.

It is important to study Black history to learn its lessons, absorb the "spirit of human possibility," extract and emulate its examples of human excellence and achievement, and practise the "morality of remembrance," Karenga said.

"This is our duty: to know our past and honour it, to engage our present and improve it, and to imagine a whole new future and to forge it in the most ethical, effective and expansive way."

He said Black History, a record of Black people, can be separated into three defining periods: the classical period; what he called the holocaust of enslavement; and the struggle against colonialism, imperialism and systemic racism.

In Canada, every February is Black History Month.

Retired MP says month arose out of 'paucity' of information

Twenty-five years ago, Augustine, now a retired Liberal MP, put forward a motion in the House of Commons to designate February as Black History Month in Canada. Augustine represented Etobicoke-Lakeshore from 1993 to 2006.

The actual motion asked for the Canadian government to take note of the "important contributions of Black Canadians to the settlement, the growth and the development of Canada, the diversity of the black community in Canada and its importance to the history of this country," she said. It was not debatable, she added.

At the online event, Augustine described the struggle to win support for Black History Month. She said it was difficult to speak about social issues at that time because talk about debt and deficit dominated discussions.

"It was not an easy question to put to individuals whose thinking was not really in that direction," she said. "To a certain extent, I was almost, in some instances, laughed out of the room."

Augustine said she had to deal with "provocateurs" trying to distract her from her goal. She said the month arose out of a "paucity" of information about people of African descent in Canada. 

Augustine added: "I thought it was important to support the call for the history of African-Canadians."

Her campaign to designate Black History Month in Canada in 1995 came just two years after the Grenada-born Augustine became the first African-Canadian woman elected to Parliament.

Black History Month now celebrated across Canada

Twenty-five years later, the result has been surprising, she said. "What did I expect? I expected that educators would sit up, that historians would write, that some things would be done in schools," she said.

"Little did I visualize that, 25 years later, Black History Month would be celebrated all across Canada, coast to coast to coast, in small places and large urban areas, that we would find celebrations year after year in entertainment, in media, in boardrooms, in schools, in churches, just about every place in the country."

Later, in response to a question, she said Black history should not be limited to one month. That history should be celebrated, recognized, brought from the past to the present and instructive for the future. And it's not just for Black people, she said.

"What is that history? That history is Canadian history," she said. "We reach back to bring it to the present and it's almost like a launching pad for the rest of the year. This is something that we have to do for 365 days of the year."

Augustine added that the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted gaps in society, who the essential workers are and the issues around anti-Black racism and systemic racism. She said her hope for the future is that society is as inclusive as it can be.

Mayor thanks Jean Augustine for anti-Black racism work

Toronto Mayor John Tory, who also spoke at the event, thanked Augustine for her work in Canada to address racial inequality. He said Black History Month may not have existed in Canada had it not been for Augustine.

"She's iconic. She's an original. She is a somebody who is respected. She's loved. She's feared a little bit just because she's tough and strong in that way I say is the ultimate compliment. Most people who get great things done are strong and tough and resilient in that way," Tory said. 

Tory noted that Augustine, before she got into politics, was a respected educator who rose to the position of principal and she was chair of the Metro Toronto Housing Authority, responsible for thousands of tenants living in its buildings.

"It is absolutely 100 per cent impossible not to love Jean Augustine at the same time you respect her."

For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.