Like every year, during the month of February, Canada highlights the History of Blackness Month by presenting the story of those human beings who were torn from their lands and brought as slaves from Africa to the Americas and how they have fought – and continue to do so – to be recognized as citizens with rights and dreams.
After the abolition of slavery and as the centuries passed, Canada became the place where black people found work and more security than in their countries of origin. Jamaican workers who for decades have continued to come as temporary foreign workers, in conditions that were denounced as a form of modern slavery, Haitians who fled from the Papa Doc dictatorship, from wars and internal conflicts in Somalia, Sudan, Rwanda. Canada has a history of blackness, charged with all human emotions.
Black historian demands official apology from Canada for slavery
Elise Harding-Davis, a historian and author from Essex County, in the province of Ontario, is demanding that the Canadian government, through a petition, apologize to black communities for slavery. According to Harding-Davis, a formal apology would mean recognition of a lifetime of work.
Black History Month celebrations begin in Toronto
One of the longest-running Black History Month celebrations in Canada returns to the stage throughout the month of February in Toronto. This is the twenty-ninth edition of the KUUMBA Festival that began this past February 1st at the Harbourfront Center in downtown Toronto, inaugurating a weekend in which there will be art, dance, film and poetry exhibitions featuring black artists and works focused on blackness. The word itself, Kuumba, means creativity in the Swahili language.
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