Hidden Histories: The Local Impact of Slavery on Contemporary Society
Channel: West Vancouver Memorial Library
Date: 2022-07-29

Recorded on July 27, 2022.

In February 2022, a North Shore News article, “North Vancouver built on profits from the slave trade, founding family says,” told the story of how the “early settlement of the North Shore, its continued development, and the formation of the City of North Vancouver as we know it today all flow from a family fortune amassed in the transatlantic slave trade.”

In this session, SFU Associate Professor Dr. June Francis will explore how public and private institutions and corporations continue to benefit from the role they played in transforming Black labour (through enslavement), imperial expansion, and colonial dispossession into intergenerational wealth and privilege. Dr. Francis will address why racist practices and racial inequality persist despite generations of Black resistance, the enactment of civil rights, anti-racism laws, and declarations, and a range of public and private responses.

This session will also examine the role of redress, reparations, and other reparative approaches, including examples from the City of Vancouver’s reparations for Hogan’s Alley. We will discuss what libraries can do as curators of knowledge, and what individuals can do to create inclusive and equitable societies in which we can all thrive. Black contributions have been hidden in Canadian history. We all have important roles to play in correcting these injustices.

We hope you can join us for this inspiring and illuminating event in anticipation of Aug. 1, Emancipation Day, which marks the day in 1834 that the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 came into effect in Canada.

This presentation is a collaboration between North Vancouver City Library, North Vancouver District Library, and West Vancouver Memorial Library.