On CBC.ca: Uncovering B.C.'s Black history: Who is Mifflin Gibbs? This is the video version of the website mentioned in the post just below. Click through to watch a 7-minute video. The blurb:
Gibbs was the first Black person elected to public office in B.C. and helped guide the colony into joining the Confederation of Canada. CBC reporter Ashley Moliere, who is part-Black, decided to learn about him for Black History Month.
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CBC British Columbia has posted a remarkable website to commemorate Black History Month: Who is Mifflin Gibbs? Uncovering B.C.’s Black history. I had the pleasure to take part in this project, which was done with style, imagination, and accuracy.
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Via CBC Radio's Day 6: Four decades on, a book about B.C.'s centuries-old Black history is updated for the 21st century. Click or tap through to hear the interview this report is based on. Excerpt:
Crawford Kilian admits that the first edition of his book, Go Do Some Great Thing: The Black Pioneers of British Columbia, feels outdated.
"I cringe a little bit because I was quoting some pretty crude language verbatim in that text that I didn't need to," the Vancouver-based author and former educator told Day 6 host Brent Bambury. "It was archaic and beside the point."
In the new third edition, Kilian says "I worked very hard to make the language respectful to all concerned."
Go Do Some Great Thing chronicles the stories of B.C.'s Black pioneers, a group of migrants who left their homes in San Francisco and nearby communities in 1858, for the promise of Vancouver Island.
Fleeing legislated racism, the threat of slavery and dwindling prospects in California, the Black pioneers settled in what was then the colony of British Columbia.
Forty-two years since it first hit bookshelves, the book — which is considered a foundational text on B.C.'s Black history — has been re-edited and re-released complete with a foreword by Adam Rudder, a Black activist and instructor at the University of British Columbia. The crude language written in the first edition has now been changed or removed.
In his foreword, Rudder reckons with the language used in Kilian's original version. While he understands why some may be offended by the terms used more than a century ago, they didn't come as a shock to him.
"It was refreshing to have someone reveal this history in the form that it was actually in, and to just confront it and to challenge it," he said.
"To expect people to be different, or to somehow come up with language that's appropriate from today, is an unreasonable expectation, I think."
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On February 9 the San Francisco Historical Society posted my taped Zoom lecture about the situation that BC's Black pioneers faced in gold-rush California in the 1850s. You can see it here.
And if you have any questions about it, please post them in the comments section and I'll be happy to try to answer them.
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An interview with Charlle Smith, editor of The Georgia Straight: B.C.'s Black pioneers' story told in Crawford Kilian's Go Do Some Great Thing. Excerpt:
Most British Columbians don’t think of Salt Spring Island as a centre for Black culture in this province. But back in the late 1850s, some Black settlers asked the first governor of colonial British Columbia, James Douglas, for permission to form a colony there, according to the memoirs of long-time Salt Spring Island resident Sylvia Stark.
North Vancouver author Crawford Kilian mentions this in his book, Go Do Some Great Thing: The Black Pioneers of British Columbia. According to Stark, Douglas preferred that the island remain multiracial. “It’s an intriguing story,” Kilian writes, “but we have no confirmation of it.”
Stark, who was born into slavery in Missouri, also wrote in her memoir that six other Black families were living on Salt Spring Island when her family moved there around the start of the U.S. Civil War. She lived to the age of 106, and her daughter, Emma, became the first Black teacher on Vancouver Island.
“I kind of fell in love with Emma Stark, who was just a baby, a toddler, when they first arrived on Salt Spring around 1861,” Kilian tells the Straight by phone. “Judging from her photograph, she was a beautiful young woman, and she died at 33 of tuberculosis.”
The Starks are one of many pioneering Black B.C. families featured in the third edition of Kilian’s 1978 book, which was published last year by Harbour Publishing. Another key figure in the book is Mifflin Gibbs, a politically active businessman who became the first Black person elected to public office in B.C. as a Victoria city councillor in 1866.
“He was such a live wire and he always had three projects on the go at any given time,” Kilian says.
His wife, Maria Gibbs, attended Oberlin College before they moved to B.C. Eventually, she decided to return to Oberlin, Ohio, with their five children, leaving Gibbs alone in Victoria.
“His wife must have found she was very lonely, because there was almost no socializing between the white and black women in Victoria,” Kilian notes. “As far as I can tell, she was the only woman in the colony who had any postsecondary education at all.”
Kilian feels that the new edition is far stronger not only in the research but also in the way he’s written about others who have been marginalized in Canadian history.
“Since the Chinese and Indigenous people are major figures in the story of the Black pioneers, they needed to be treated with a little more respect as well,” Kilian says.
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NVMA 7613
Via the North Shore News, a story about a person I wish I'd known about a year ago—not only a BC Black pioneer, but a Wobbly! TIME TRAVELLER: North Van longshoreman a major force in early labour battles.
This photo shows William Fitzclarence “Fitz” St. John in front of the cottage he built at 2421 Western Ave. in North Vancouver in 1911.
Originally from Barbados, Fitz was an early longshoreman and secretary for the Industrial Workers of the World Local 526, a.k.a Bows and Arrows Local 526. He worked as a longshoreman for 51 years and was an active participant in the fierce labour battles of the 1920s and ’30s. After a 40-year fight for union recognition, St. John was one of the 46 union members to first receive a pension.
Calling him “a longshoreman’s longshoreman,” his longtime friend Sam Engler once observed: “Fitz was dedicated to helping his fellow man. He always stood firm on his principles, which included unionization and doing unto others as you would have them do to you.”
His son, Clarence St. John, was a well-known barber and hairstylist on Lonsdale Avenue in North Vancouver. Fitz St. John died in 1970 at the age of 94.
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Via News 1130, John Ackermann reports: Remembering secret history of B.C.'s Black pioneers. Well, we didn't try to keep it a secret! Excerpt:
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — The Black Lives Matter movement, and especially the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis last year, have shone a new light on the issues of systemic racism in our society.
Here in B.C., the history of Black people in this province remains little-known. In the 1850s, native-born Black Americans were disqualified from becoming U.S. citizens following the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision. As a result, several hundred Black residents left California in search of a better life. Many ended up here, playing a vital role in the survival of B.C. as a British colony and a Canadian province.
“They decided to find another place to live and they had the courage and the determination to move to Vancouver Island and then to the British Columbia mainland,” explains author and journalist Crawford Kilian. “And, really, they did do some great things that helped shape the whole province.”
More than 40 years ago, Kilian’s Go Do Some Great Thing: The Black Pioneers of British Columbia detailed this history. Decades later, it remains a foundational work on the subject. Now, a third edition of the book has been published, in the hopes of finding a new audience.
LISTEN: Go Do Some Great Thing
Dr. Adam Rudder, co-chair of the Hogan’s Alley Society in Vancouver, wrote the foreword to this new edition. He discovered the book more than 20 years ago as a History undergrad at Simon Fraser University.
“It was impactful because it was really the first historical document on Black history in British Columbia that I’ve ever come across. In fact, it was my introduction to a lot of history that I had no idea about, even though I had grown up here in British Columbia and went through the school system here. There’s never been any mention of a Black history in British Columbia. It’s shocking.”
Kilian says now seemed like an appropriate time for Go Do Some Great Thing to reappear.
“The last year has seen a real intensification of our understanding of the position of racialized groups in North America as a whole. And so the publisher of the original edition got in touch with me and we did a blindingly fast job of revising and editing the book, bringing in a great deal of new material and effectively rewriting the whole thing,” he says.
“Some revisions were simply a matter of the fact that we are not quite as backward as we were in 1978. You don’t use terms like Indians anymore except when you’re talking about people from India,” Kilian adds. “And there were some uses of things like the N-word. So, those are gone.”
Kilian admits writing the book was a tough task, given the lack of primary sources and documentation. Still, he felt it was a story that needed to be told.
“I think there is, in general, still an attitude that it’s a very minor story and therefore isn’t worth much attention. There is this general attitude that the Black pioneers are outliers, minor players in the story of the province. And so who cares? I care, for one, and a lot of other people turned out to care.”
Rudder agrees, adding he hopes a new generation of readers discovers Go Do Some Great Thing as he did.
“My hope is predominantly that it reaches young people of all backgrounds, but particularly those of African descent, because I think one of the things that young people are struggling with here in our community is the sort of sense of not having not having a sense of belonging at all and dismissed that we don’t have a sort of history here that roots us here.”
Kilian is disappointed that more that 40 years later, no-one has continued his work and written a more detailed and scholarly history of the Black experience in B.C.
“I’m an amateur,” he admits. “I just picked up the story because it was a great story. So, I’m still hoping that someone’s going to turn up and say ‘Boy, did he get that wrong’ and do the job right. But it was also a matter of just reminding people that the Black pioneers were here. They played a critical part in our development as a province and as a country in the 1850s and ’60s. And we should remember that.”
Rudder, who is an academic and a lecturer, agrees.
“That work needs to be done. And it’s complicated by a number of things. There’s not a lot of interest in that history or hasn’t been. I would assume that there’s going to be more now and I think actually probably right now is a great time for someone to really start to dig into that.”
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Via News 1130, a report by John Ackermann: Black History Month begins, but more could be done: expert. Excerpt:
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Monday marks the start of Black History Month, an event that is all the more timely given the Black Lives Matter movement and the struggles of racialized communities around the world. It was first observed in Canada 25 years ago. However, one expert says celebrating Black history, or anyone else’s history for that matter, should not be left to just four weeks of the year.
“You know, it’s part of our human history,” explains Dr. Adam Rudder, co-chair of the Hogan’s Alley Society in Vancouver. “The contributions and experiences of Black people as well as Chinese people and South Asian people and Indigenous people…we should be acknowledging all of these histories, all of the time.”
Rudder is a lecturer and a historian who is currently working on a book about Hogan’s Alley, Vancouver’s historic Black enclave, which was cleared out with the building of the Georgia Viaduct in the early 1970s.
“It’s actually based on my Master’s thesis and what I’m hoping to do is a little bit more archival research interviews and really contribute to the process of putting the Hogan’s Alley Black community onto the map in a way that is respectful, not only to the history of Black people, but the history of all folks that were in the Strathcona area and contributed to the vibrancy and the growth of Hogan’s Alley.”
He says Black History Month is a good first step in raising awareness, but more must be done to support the research that goes into projects like his.
“I think that what we don’t sometimes realize is how much work it is to do this research in the archives and to do these interviews and to get out there and try and dig and figure out and to discover these sort of histories. This is work and it needs to be paid,” he explains.
Rudder also admits he didn’t even know how much of a role the Black community played in the development of B.C. until he was out of high school.
“Even though I had grown up here in British Columbia and went through the school system here, there’s never been any mention of Black history in British Columbia. It’s shocking.”
“One of the things that young people are struggling with here in our community is the sort of sense of not having a sense of belonging at all, and dismissed that we don’t have a sort of history here that roots us here.”
Rudder recently wrote the foreword to the new edition of Go Do Some Great Thing: The Black Pioneers of British Columbia, a book he first discovered as a History undergrad at Simon Fraser University. Journalist and historian Crawford Kilian wrote it more than 40 years ago and it remains a foundational work on the subject decades later
“It’s pretty incredible what he did, you know, with his spare time, putting this document together, just because he wanted that story to be out. And I think we owe him thanks for that, but at the same time, I don’t think that we can really rely on that sort of generosity.”
Rudder says Go Do Some Great Thing would be a fine teaching tool for young adults, but admits including more Black history in our public schools is no easy task.
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A big box arrived today with my author's copies of Go Do Some Great Thing: The Black Pioneers of British Columbia. Official publication will be sometime later this month. It was a great pleasure to revisit the lives of these remarkable people, and to introduce them to a whole new generation of readers.
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I'm very happy to say that 42 years after the first edition, Douglas & McIntyre is bringing out a third edition of Go Do Some Great Thing: The Black Pioneers of British Columbia. Publication is scheduled for late November; the manuscript goes to the printer on September 16.
It's been a wonderful experience to work with D&M and its editors. The text has undergone meticulous fact-checking, revision, and copy-editing, and I've been able to add considerable new material, including photos. D&M will also issue an e-book version for the schools, where I hope it will find a lot of readers.
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