TASK FORCE ON ANTI-BLACK RACISM FINAL REPORT

Foundation of Loyola College, an extension of an English program at the Jesuit Collège Sainte-Marie de Montréal.

The Montreal YMCA evening adult education program becomes Sir George Williams College.

Montrealer Harold Herbert Potter is hired to teach at Sir George Williams College, becoming the first Canadian-born Black sociologist to be hired by a post-secondary institution in the country. Potter is promoted to assistant professor in 1949 and to full professor in 1963.

Sir George Williams College is officially chartered as a university and becomes Sir George Williams University (SGWU).

The West Indian Society is founded at SGWU.

The number of students from the Caribbean at SGWU increases, partly due to changes in immigration legislation.

April: Six Black students make a formal report to the Dean of Students, Magnus Flynn, about their experiences of racism in a biology course at SGWU.

October 4 – 6: A conference entitled “Problems of Involvement in Canadian Society with Reference to Black Peoples” is held at SGWU. It is organized by the Canadian Conference Committee (formerly Caribbean Conference Committee), which includes SGWU lecturers and students.

October 11 – 14: A conference entitled “Congress of Black Writers: Toward the Second Emancipation–The Dynamics of Black Liberation,” is held at McGill University. It is organized by students from McGill University, SGWU and community members.

December: An article by Phil Griffin entitled “Black Students’ Association initiates studies program” appears in The Georgian, a SGWU student newspaper. The article describes the initiative and the scheduled program for lectures from guest speakers.32 The proposal for an informal Black Studies program is presented to the co-curriculum committee by Professor C. Davis, Leroy Bucher, and Phil Griffin.

The West Indian Society becomes the Caribbean Students Union.

January 17: The first informal Black Studies program is launched by three Black professors in collaboration with Black students in which Black lecturers from the United States are invited to discuss Black identity from the viewpoint of various disciplines.

January 29 – February 11: Students occupy the University’s computer centre and faculty lounge in protest of alleged racism at the University. Police are called in on February 11; students are violently arrested. This is followed by lengthy legal trials for those arrested. The day prior to the occupation, The Georgian devotes its entire publication (12 pages) to the position taken by Black students and the university’s response to that position.

February 7: An article by Phil Griffin is published in The Georgian. It is entitled “SGWU and the Black Studies program ‘… unresponsive, apathetic”

November 5: An article in The Georgian reports on a racist cartoon published in the student journal, The Paper, by its editor and publisher Wayne Gray. The cartoon was termed “the most offensive example of racism ever published at SGWU” by the Executive Committee of the Students’ Association, who formally brought code of conduct charges against Gray. The cartoon depicts two barefooted Black men with spears and a sign that says, “Pack your kit bag, Alfred, they are about to start a Black Studies Program in Sir George.”

November 5, 11: A questionnaire is published in The Georgian by the Caribbean Students’ Society of Sir George to determine the interest of students in a Black Studies program at SGWU.

November 12: A letter to the editor in The Georgian features a derogatory comment by student John Sedley on Black students’ demands for a Black Studies program.

The Black Students’ Association is founded.

January: A report is prepared by James H. Whitelaw (Coordinator of Academic Planning, Sir George Williams University) entitled “Ethnic Groups at the University.” The report delineates the various groups at the university and pays particular attention to the subject of Black Studies. It also lays out the evolution and description of Black Studies programs at other North American universities.

January 30: An event is held at SGWU featuring Professor Nathan Hare from Howard University (Washington, D.C.) and Dr. C.L.R. James from SGWU to discuss Black Studies, various types of Black Studies programs and the Black Revolution.

February 4: An Afro-American seminar is held at SGWU with Professors Chris Lash, John Swede, Leon Jacobs and Norman Cook discussing Black history and culture.

January: The Black Studies Centre is founded by Dr. Clarence Bayne, an assistant professor of quantitative methods, and by Adrien Espinet and Leighton Hutson. It is initially housed at Concordia University. This initiative develops from a group involved in the Research Institute of the National Black Coalition between 1971 and 1974.

Loyola College and Sir George Williams University merge to found Concordia University.

February 4: 125 students, faculty and administrators from across the university come together in a special seminar series, Roadblocks to Education, to discuss major problems impacting students in university. Among many of the requests, students stress the need for a Black Studies program.

March 26: An article by Rob Clément is published in The Link, a Concordia student-run publication, on “Racism at Concordia.” The article denounces various instances of racism experienced by Black Concordians.

Dr. Esmeralda Thornhill develops and teaches the first university accredited course on Black women’s studies in Canada at Concordia. The course, entitled Black Women: The missing pages from Canadian Women’s Studies, is offered at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute and is given with the support of the Montreal Regional Committee of the National Congress of Black Women in which Thornhill is an active member.

October 3: The Concordia University Students’ Association (CUSA) launches a human rights lecture series, with the first two weeks being devoted to talks on racism. Dr. Harry Edwards, an Olympic medal winner who led a Black protest during the 1968 Olympic Games, opens the series. This is followed by a talk featuring guest speaker Professor Leonard Jeffries, the director of Black Studies at City College of New York. As part of the women’s rights portion of the series, a lecture is offered by Betty Shabazz, human rights activist and wife of Malcolm X.

The Congress of Black Women of Concordia University is created.

September: The Black Women’s Coalition partners with the Simone de Beauvoir Institute to organize a conference on the Black experience within a feminist context with special guest Dr. bell hooks.

November 21: Four Concordia student groups take part in the march to denounce the killing of an unarmed 19-year-old Black man, Anthony Griffin, by police officer Allan Gosset outside a police station in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood of Montreal.

February: Task Force on Multiculturalism is set up by Vice-Rector Maurice Cohen.

The African Students Association of Concordia is founded.

September: The report entitled “Balancing the Equation: Cultural Diversity at Concordia” (hereafter referred to as the Cohen Report) is released. This report stems from the Task Force on Multiculturalism established two years earlier.

The joint Chair in Intercultural and Race Relations Studies, between Concordia University and the Université du Québec à Montreal, is established.

About the image: Article on Black Studies in The Link, (February 18, 1992, p.7).

February 18: An article by Colin Dennis is published in The Link, “Concordia Black Studies far from being programmed.”

March 13: A second article by Colin Dennis is published in The Link, “Fighting for Black Studies.”

May: An Ad-hoc Committee on Multiculturalism and Issues of Equity is created. This committee is a follow-up to the Balancing the Equation report (1991).

February 5: An article by Brady Leddy is published in The Link,
“Lots of talk, little action to begin black studies courses at Concordia.”

An Advisory Committee on Multiculturalism is convened by the Dean of Graduate Studies, Dr. Martin Kusy, and co-chaired by Dr. Clarence Bayne.

This is the start of the Black Community Initiative with the hiring of David McKenzie, the founder and coordinator of the Community Service Initiative, JMSB. The project seeks to initiate and coordinate efforts to recruit and retain undergraduate and graduate students from Montreal’s Black community.

A report entitled the Black Community Initiative Pilot Project: A Partnership for Excellence and Advancement, is prepared by David McKenzie and is presented to Donald L. Boisvert, Dean of Students, Chair, Advisory Committee on Multiculturalism and Issues of Equity.

February 9: An article by Shannon Gittens-Yaboha in The Link is entitled “Black Consciousness at Concordia: Why this University Needs an Interdisciplinary Black Studies Minor.”

Mobilization begins for a Black Studies program through the Black Studies at Concordia Collective.

A Black perspectives project is created by Concordia student Annick Maugile Flavien through the Critical Feminist Activism and Research (C-FAR) initiative at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute.

The Black Feminist Futures working group is created.

Concordia’s Black Alumni Network is created by Temi Akin-Aina, Associate Director of Alumni Relations, as a network to connect and support Black alumni, friends, faculty and staff.

December: Paul Joyce, Associate Dean of Academic Programs, in the Faculty of Arts and Science, rejects the proposal for an interdisciplinary minor in Black Studies purportedly due to a lack of specialized Black faculty.

Fall: The fall saw the start of Concordia’s multi-year efforts to consult broadly with the university community on issues of EDI in order to draft recommendations and implement an action plan to address forms of marginalization, discrimination and racism experienced by students, staff and faculty.

January – February: Protests and Pedagogy presents a series of 19 events commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Sir George Williams affair at Concordia’s 4TH SPACE venue. These events were organized and curated by a collective of university and community partners. The events include an archival exhibition on the student protests of 1969.55

A theatre production by Concordia alumni entitled Blackout: the Concordia Computer Riots is presented. The production reimagines the Sir George Williams affair 50 years later. (Organized by the Concordia Student Union, the Fine Arts Students Association and Tableau D’hôte Theatre.)

March 15 – 16: The conference entitled “Living Black Studies: Reimagining Black Canadian Studies” takes place.

April: There is a follow-up event on the Black Studies curriculum report.

July: The position of Special Advisor to the Provost on Black Integration and Knowledges is created. November: The preliminary report of the President’s Task Force on Anti-Black Racism is published.