Pioneers

Promoting the book

I've been really busy promoting the book these last few days. On Friday I took part in a reading at Book Warehouse in Yaletown, along with David Odhiambo reading from The Reverend's Apprentice.

On Sunday I heard Alan Twigg of BC Books plug the book on CBC Radio's North by Northwest. (The link will take you to a downloadable podcast that includes Alan's comments.)

Then I flew to Kelowna to take part in the Kelowna Immigrant Society's first Black History Month Celebration. David was there also, along with Kevan Cameron, Olive Senior, and other writers.

I could stay for just a couple of days, but they were a lot of fun: hearing a concert with Teena Ree Gowdy and the Gospel Praise Choir, meeting Chris Ellom of Smile Africa, attending a very pleasant reception, and talking with grade 10 social-studies students at Okanagan Mission Secondary. The visit also involved a couple of videotaped interviews for local TV, and an interview with Marion Barschel on CBC Radio's Daybreak.

Wellington Moses solves a murder

The Tyee has published another excerpt from the book under the title The Barber Sleuth of Old Barkerville.

Celebrating Black History Month

I had a good time this morning at a brunch sponsored by the Centre of Integration for African Immigrants, at the Joe Fortes Chop House in downtown Vancouver. The event honoured Joe Fortes in particular and the black pioneers in general, and lots of politicians were present. I couldn't stay for the whole event, but left a copy of Go Do Some Great Thing as a door prize.

BC's Black Pioneer Women

The Tyee has published my article BC's Black Pioneer Women.

The Freeing of Charles Mitchell

This week The Tyee is running some excerpts from the book, including this one: The Freeing of Charles Mitchell. It will also run a new article based on the book, about the women among the black pioneers.

A mention in the Globe and Mail

Via the Globe and Mail, a good article by Tom Hawthorn about Rosemary Brown: Postal honour for a woman who put her own stamp on Canada. And the story mentions the pioneers:

This province has a rich lore of black history, a story well told in Crawford Killian's Go Do Some Great Thing, which was released in a revised edition in November. Among the earliest settlers was a prosperous merchant named Mifflin Gibbs, who was elected to town council in Victoria. 

He also financed the Victoria Pioneer Rifles, British Columbia's first militia unit. Imagine the sight greeting American prospectors coming north to seek their fortune in the gold fields - a militia of free black men. This land would be different than that to the south.

The book is launching

On Thursday, November 13, we'll launch Go Do Some Great Thing at the Brickhouse Bistro, Main Street at Union, between 8:30 and 10:00. I hope you'll be there.

Where the black pioneers started

This photograph from St. Louis has more significance than you might realize. The courthouse in the distance is where Dred Scott in 1846 began to his campaign to be a free man and a US citizen. When the US Supreme Court decreed in 1857 that no black person, even a free one, could be a US citizen, the blacks of California began to think of emigration to a really free country.

For details about Barack Obama's speech: Obama HQ Blogger: 100,000 in St. Louis, MO: "All I can say is, wow.".

'God-sent Land for Colored People'

The Tyee has published the first of several excerpts from the book: 'God-sent Land for Colored People.'

Writing the Black Canadian West

Yesterday I attended a colloquium at SFU Harbour Centre on "Writing the Black Canadian West." It was great fun, and a showcase for some remarkable people: Cheryl Foggo, who writes about the black experience on the Prairies; Karina Vernon, who responded to Cheryl's presentation; Michelle La Flamme, who writes (and performs!) about the "mixed-race body" in literature; Chantal Gibson, who responded; and C. S. Giscombe, a writer and teacher who has been exploring BC in search of his maybe-ancestor, the miner John R. Giscome.

My contribution was to talk about the new edition of Go Do Some Great Thing and how this blog has made the production of the new book much easier. (So if you're here because you were at the colloquium, welcome and make yourself at home.)

All in all, it was a stimulating and thought-provoking afternoon and evening, with talented people and good conversation. Thanks to Wayde Compton, Sophie McCall, and everyone else who organized and took part in the event.

Wayde has also given me the manuscript with his editing questions and suggestions, so I'll be busy with that for the next little while.