Today@Dal

Published May 21 in the Chronicle Herald:

Thomas Peter, Richard Preston, Clement Ligore, Marcus Garvey, Carrie Best and Viola Desmond are all holy names in the pantheon of black Canadian leaders, but with the exception of Garvey, and now Desmond, most people outside the black Canadian and African Nova Scotian communities do not know these names or how the bearers of these names transformed the communities in which they lived and, in so doing, transformed the world.

That is why the Second Biennial Black Canadian Studies Association Conference, Community, Empowerment and Leadership in Black Canada, opening today and continuing until May 24 at the Schulich Law School and Ondaatje Hall, Dalhousie University, is important.

The conference is held under my auspices as the James R. Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies at Dalhousie. The conference’s honourary patron is Hon. Mayann Francis. The first Black Canadian Studies Association conference was held in 2013 at Brock University and was organized by Brock’s professor and BCSA executive member, Tamari Kitossa.

Why a conference on black leadership? The black Canadian community as a whole is at a crucial juncture. Despite vast gains in some arenas, most Canadian black communities are plagued by economic disadvantage, disproportionate rates of incarceration for black youth, and a crisis in the education of their young. This has caused some commentators to say that there is a crisis in black leadership. Others describe the situation as a result of systemic anti-black racism in Canada.

With this in mind, the conference was called with the idea to ignite black leadership in Canada and to further assess how leadership was realized historically. The conference will examine leadership in education, the arts, business and entrepreneurship, sports, law and medicine, and other areas.

Read the rest of this article online.