Between the years 1840 and 1860, white prejudice played an important role in shaping blacks’ experiences in Upper Canada. This thesis explores and analyzes the history of black anti-slavery, whites’ attitudes toward blacks and the development of mandatory and free public schooling in Upper Canada during the nineteenth century, in order to demonstrate that race-relations between blacks and whites were worst both after 1850 in general, and over issues of schooling in particular.

Between the years 1840 and 1860, white prejudice played an important role in shaping blacks’ experiences in Upper Canada. This thesis explores and analyzes the history of black anti-slavery, whites’ attitudes toward blacks and the development of mandatory and free public schooling in Upper Canada during the nineteenth century, in order to demonstrate that race-relations between blacks and whites were worst both after 1850 in general, and over issues of schooling in particular.

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In this thesis I consider the role of music in the construction of identity among West African Canadians, focusing on musical taste and performance. Drawing on themes from participant narratives, I look at how music can maintain connections with or reference identities from home cultures. Focusing specifically on popular music, I suggest that identification with genres such as hip hop and reggae does not directly imply an identification with the African American or Afro-Caribbean cultures from which they originated, rather I point to how the music refers back to West Africa. I also look at the place of music and religious identity, discussing how performance of religious music embodies multiple registers of individual and communal identity. Traditional music and dance ensembles provide another focus, and I explore how musicians transmit cultural practices and use their profession to foreground West African elements of their identity in Canadas multicultural society.

The role of the African Canadian pastor transcended the responsibilities of a religious leader of a local church to become the leader of the African Canadian community and its emissary to the larger white community. Through his exemplary Christian faith and practice, William Andrew White Jr. became a central figure in the African Canadian community. His role in African Canadian life was fluid and adaptive to the adversities of slavery, segregation, discrimination, and racism; over the years his role grew from spiritual leader providing care, self-esteem, and protection for his local church to also becoming one of polemicist, activist, and protest leader for the African Canadian community in general. Overall, this dissertation argues that the experiences gained by William Andrew White Jr. during the periods of Reconstruction and Redemption in the United States and the discrimination and racism he incurred in Canada, were foundational in shaping White’s theology. Additionally studying his influences and motivations assists in understanding White’s theology and his praxis for race relations and social justice; it is a theology that sought to foster racial harmony through black economic uplift and black socio-political engagement that laid the groundwork for the Canadian Civil Rights Movement. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that William White was a progenitor of the Canadian Civil Rights Movement and, while his national presence among the white community was not that of Martin Luther King Jr.’s, he did have a prominent presence among the black community in the Maritimes and, had he lived longer, may have become a significant national figure in Canada. Furthermore, the role he played setting the foundation for the Canadian Civil Rights Movement was similar to that of the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.

For years, critics have used Black writers' interweaving of African-derived oral textual features and European written forms to reject the concept of the Great Divide between orality and writing in literacy studies. These critics primarily see the hybridized texts of writers of African descent as a model that assists in the complex union of writing and orality. My argument is that the integrationist model is not the only way, perhaps not even the most fruitful way, to read the hybridized texts of writers of African descent. I develop a reading of Anglophone African, African-Caribbean, and African-Canadian literature that sees the synthesis of orality and writing as an emergent discourse, free of the dogmatisms of textuality and of colonial literary standards, that contributes to the cultural and political aspirations of writers of African descent. In transcribing African-derived orality into writing, Black writers emphasize the ethnic component of their African identity, thereby decolonizing their literature. Consequently, the literature functions as locus or epitome of community-created culture and counter-colonial discourse, portraying the Black writer as a self-assertive community agent with the potential for forging a new historically informed identity. My introduction identifies the scope of the study, defining what constitutes African-derived oral textual features and outlining the critical theories that will be instrumental to my analysis. I also explain why I selected the writers Wole Soyinka (African), Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Louise Bennett (African-Caribbean), Lillian Allen, Marlene Nourbese Philip, and Clifton Joseph (African-Canadian) as examples of writers who have utilized orality in writing as political and cultural expression. Chapter One provides a background to pre-colonial African oral discourse. Chapters Two, Three, and Four respectively focus on Anglophone African, African Caribbean, and African Canadian poets' uses of orality in writing to reflect an eclectic cultural heritage. A brief conclusion follows these chapters. It reaffirms my primary thesis that the dynamic union of orality and writing in Anglophone African, African-Caribbean, and African-Canadian written poetry functions as the expression of a new kind of cultural and political discourse, in search of a new audience and a critical approach that requires both Africanist and European critical perspectives.

Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine how parents of African descent understand the African-centered school concept as an alternative education to the mainstream public school in Toronto. While we cannot ignore the success stories of some Black students in the school system, the reality remains that the academic performance of some shows a downward trend. Hence, concerned educators and members of the African-Canadian community suggest the need for the establishment of a Black focused or African-centered school as an alternative to the mainstream public school. This will allow students to learn more effectively because they are culturally grounded and will be able to link issues of individual or group identities with what goes on at school. This qualitative research relied principally on in-depth interviews with twenty African-Canadian parents who have children in the mainstream public schools in Toronto. It assumes that parents are important stakeholders in their children’s education so their views on problems and the need for an alternative form of schooling have significant implications for the academic performance of Black youth. The data from my study and available literature make it evident that despite the introduction of African heritage and multicultural programs and anti-racist education, profound problems still exist for Black youth in the mainstream public schools. The findings indicate that out of twenty, a majority of seventeen African-Canadian parents support the establishment of African-centered schools as an alternative to the mainstream public school. All participants interviewed agree that discrimination, prejudice and stereotyping in mainstream public schools are major problems for their children. The parents’ narratives show that the establishment of an African-centered school as an alternative to the mainstream public school is a way to combat the discrimination and prejudice Black youth encounter at school. The parents believe Black focused schools should be a major preoccupation of educational personnel, school boards and policy makers. Finally the implications of establishing an African-centered school to address the needs of Black youth and directions for future research are discussed.

Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine how parents of African descent understand the African-centered school concept as an alternative education to the mainstream public school in Toronto. While we cannot ignore the success stories of some Black students in the school system, the reality remains that the academic performance of some shows a downward trend. Hence, concerned educators and members of the African-Canadian community suggest the need for the establishment of a Black focused or African-centered school as an alternative to the mainstream public school. This will allow students to learn more effectively because they are culturally grounded and will be able to link issues of individual or group identities with what goes on at school. This qualitative research relied principally on in-depth interviews with twenty African-Canadian parents who have children in the mainstream public schools in Toronto. It assumes that parents are important stakeholders in their children’s education so their views on problems and the need for an alternative form of schooling have significant implications for the academic performance of Black youth. The data from my study and available literature make it evident that despite the introduction of African heritage and multicultural programs and anti-racist education, profound problems still exist for Black youth in the mainstream public schools. The findings indicate that out of twenty, a majority of seventeen African-Canadian parents support the establishment of African-centered schools as an alternative to the mainstream public school. All participants interviewed agree that discrimination, prejudice and stereotyping in mainstream public schools are major problems for their children. The parents’ narratives show that the establishment of an African-centered school as an alternative to the mainstream public school is a way to combat the discrimination and prejudice Black youth encounter at school. The parents believe Black focused schools should be a major preoccupation of educational personnel, school boards and policy makers. Finally the implications of establishing an African-centered school to address the needs of Black youth and directions for future research are discussed.

<p>From what <em>specific </em>socio-cultural “positionality” are African-Canadian Muslim females living their realities? What methods do they employ to locate, (re)claim, and/or assert selfhood from these peripheral spaces within the white nation? How does their shared socio-religio-racial and gendered marginality, potentially, act as a site for inciting a sense of camaraderie towards one another? Such queries frame the content of this thesis which commissions qualitative research methods to unearth answers that rely upon the “particular”--by intimately gazing at 13 Black Muslim women’s gendered-racialized experiences in Toronto. Dividing analysis by religious status this work examines the dynamics distinct to 1. convert and 2.“life-long” Muslim participants’ cultivation of a religious/racial identity. The anti-Black <em>and</em> anti-Islamic discrimination punctuating “multicultural” Canada later collapses investigation into a unified survey of the ways African-Canadian Muslim women in general, contend with the oppressive socio-cultural forces attempting to infringe on their humanity. Research concludes that the adverse <em>or</em> hospitable responses of surrounding communities (these are: the ethnic-majority Muslim community; the non-Muslim Black population; Eurocentric secular society at large) to these women, influences how they both place themselves in their environments <em>and </em>interact with their Black-Muslim female fellows. This thesis argues that the persistent ostrasization of African-Canadian Islamic women within the religious and secular-public spheres of society establishes a necessary, defensive solidarity amongst these individuals; specifically, their communions can erect a nurturing platform to challenge or minimize the impact of oppressive forces--particularly protecting against the mental and social violence inflicted by <em>racist-sexist Islamophobic white supremacist powers</em>.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

The meaning of and motivations behind self-identification is a contentious topic within “the Black community.” The thesis examines the articulation of “Black” and/or “African” identities as means of gaining access to Nova Scotia’s Black Business Initiative (BBI), a state-funded organization mandated with “fostering a dynamic and vibrant Black presence” in the Nova Scotian business community. It is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Halifax in 2013, including interviews with a diverse representation of 36 participants who self-identified as either "Black" or "African." Viewed as a rare redress effort directed toward and run by Blacks, the BBI is a highly visible site of contestation and competition between “indigenous Blacks” and more recently arrived “African Nova Scotians” from the African continent and Caribbean islands over the boundaries of native and foreign Blackness. The thesis argues that a group historically positioned as “Black” (i.e. Other) within a lasting narrative of displacement – both in the Americas in general, and academic diaspora discourse specifically – can be seen as adopting and adapting a discourse of indigeniety as an act of political and economic empowerment. Stuart Hall’s theoretical understanding of the articulation and positioning of Black identities is used to frame a discussion on the coupling of a distinct group’s lived experiences of subjugation and marginalization in place (i.e. Blackness) with a political and juridical ideology of belonging and entitlement to state recognition and resources (i.e. indigeniety) as a means of securing racially directed resources. It therefore challenges Paula Madden’s (2009) overly simplistic critique of this community as creating a hierarchy of Blackness and performing an erasure of Mi’kma’ki through its claims of Black indigeniety.