This year, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History chose Black Women in American Culture and History as their theme. In their description of the theme, they wrote, “in slavery and freedom, [Black women’s] struggles have been at the heart of the human experience, and their triumphs over racism and sexism are a testimonial to our common human spirit.”
Black history, especially Black women’s history, has historically been overlooked.
“Black women’s history has been in the shadows for too long,” said Audrey T. McCluskey, Professor of African-American and African Diaspora Studies at Indiana University-Bloomington. “While the work by noted historians such as Darlene Clark Hine and Deborah Gray White, is helping to move it into the mainstream, so much more needs to be done to bring this history of struggle, courage, disappointment, and overcoming—continually overcoming—to a broader audience. Black women’s history needs to be engaged beyond Black History Month, and become a part of the curriculums of schools everywhere. Students lives will be fortified and enriched by its telling.”
The story of Mary Ann Shadd Cary, a pioneering Canadian black woman, is one that has been sadly overlooked. Like many free Blacks and fugitive slaves, she came to Canada shortly after the U.S. passed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The Act meant that fugitive slaves were no longer free in the North. The vague language meant that even free Blacks were threatened. Many saw Canada as a place where they could escape the clutches of slave-catchers and the laws that empowered them.
Shadd, a young teacher from Delaware, moved to present-day Windsor, Ontario in 1851 to teach the poverty-stricken children of fugitive slaves. The parents and community leaders in Windsor wanted to create a school exclusively for Black students. Shadd spoke against this form of segregation. Black schools and settlements, Shadd argued, were a product of the rampant oppression in the United States. She felt that these institutions had no place in the British-Canadian system, where equality was guaranteed under law. She also felt that segregation fostered prejudice. At the risk of losing her only means of support, Shadd wrote to the school’s funders, and declared “[I] would consider such an attempt to enlist the sympathy of your Society in favour of a project of the kind, decidedly reprehensible.”
Shadd won her battle and was allowed to run an integrated school. In the end, through no fault of her own, it seems that Shadd’s school was only attended by Black students. She maintained, however, that the school was not exclusive, and would welcome White students. Shadd was arguing against segregation more than a century before an official stance against caste schools was finally reached in 1964.
Canada made an immediate favourable impression on Mary Ann Shadd. “I have been here for more than a week, and like Canada. Do not feel prejudice,” wrote Shadd in a letter to her brother. Because of the threat posed by the Fugitive Slave Act, Shadd wrote a pamphlet urging African-Americans to immigrate to Canada, where the laws made no distinction of race or colour and offered opportunities that didn’t exist in the United States. A Plea for Immigration; or, Notes on Canada West aimed to secure Canada’s position as a country where Blacks could find equality and prosperity. It was meant to help potential emigrants seeking information about Canada, when few first-hand accounts existed.As a piece of literature, Notes on Canada West offers a unique view of our country from a newly settled Black woman who wanted to secure and maintain racial equality in her new country.
Finally, Shadd launched her own paper in 1853 called the Provincial Freeman. Much like Notes of Canada West, it promoted Canada as a promising land for African-Americans. The Provincial Freeman was very progressive for its time; it featured articles that aimed to advance the gender equality cause by empowering women and it reported on the women’s rights movement. While historians credit Shadd as being the first Black female editor of a newspaper in North America, it is evident that she also created a unique medium to further racial and gender equality causes in Canada. Shadd eventually left Canada and became the only woman to recruit troops during the American Civil War and the first female law student at Howard University.
In her last editorial, she left the paper with these words: “To coloured women, we have a word – we have broken the editorial ice, whether willing or not, for your class in America; so go to editing.”
The Union of National Employees would like to extend its kind thanks to Professor Audrey T. McCluskey for providing the introductory quote for this piece. Professor McCluskey’s published works include: Mary McLeod Bethune: To Make a Better World (with Elaine M. Smith); Richard Pryor: The Life and Legacy of a “Crazy” Black Man; and The Devil You Dance With: Film Culture in the New South Africa. Her forthcoming book is, A Sisterhood Like No Other: Black Women School Founders of the Early 20th Century.