“‘See Son, We Do Have a History’: The Roy States Black History Collection” - Christopher Lyons
Channel: Bibliographical Society of Canada
Date: 2021-06-25

Christopher Lyons, Rare Books & Special Collections, McGill University

Roy Wellington States was born in Nova Scotia in 1919 and spent his professional life with the Canadian Armed Forces and McGill University, where he was a supervisor for special events.  He was also a life-long community activist and amateur historian.  At age 15, he began collecting books and other material on Black history and contemporary events, eventually amassing one of the largest private collections in Canada.  Donated to McGill University after his death in 1980, the Roy States Black History Collection contains over one thousand items, including monographs, community newspapers, offprints, articles, ephemera and some photographs from Canada and beyond.  The paper uses the Roy States collection as a case study of an effort by a member of an underrepresented Canadian community to preserve and promote their history and the social and political context of the times.