Take a look at my picture. Can you tell what race I am? It is clear I am mixed with something, but what?
My mother was a blonde Latvian who had escaped the country as the Russians were crossing the border and laying claim to Latvia during the war. She made her way to Canada, became pregnant, had me out of wedlock and eventually settled down with my stepfather, a nice Jewish fella. We lived in various neighborhoods in downtown Toronto before moving to a Jewish suburb. Like many people of that generation she kept her secrets. One of them was who my genetic father was.
At the age of 29 I left Toronto, moved to Los Angeles and received a huge shock. I moved to a neighborhood that was on the divide between white (north of Olympic, mid-city going east) and black (south of Olympic). And not just black for a few neighborhoods, but for miles and miles! "Wow," I remember thinking. I was speechless in a way. "They take segregation seriously down here."
My next "wow" moment came when people I started to make friends with, progressive, white liberals all of them, told me to watch out, be careful, stay safe because I was in a black community. But I walked my dog everyday and saw only lovely historic homes, well manicured lawns, expensive cars in driveways and wondered what my so-called "liberal" friends were talking about. I felt completely safe. (I have lived in this community for half my life and only felt unsafe when I moved to Hollywood for a few years, the speed-freak capital of the world). So this element of knee-jerk prejudice existed even in the liberal community.
My next "wow" moment came as I made friends with my black neighbours and they asked me about my racial background. I would tell them I wasn't sure and they would invariably tell me I looked like a family member or a good friend who was considered "high yellow." High yellow blacks often pass for white.
But no doubt about it, according to the brothers and sisters, I had some black blood in me. So at the age of 29 my identity as a white person ended. I accepted that in all likelihood I was mixed race with black heritage, which meant, according to some, that I was black. My reaction? I thought, "Wow the race issue really is irrelevant. Who I am, my sense of self, has nothing to do with the colour of my skin."
I was still the same person black or white. I saw how, in America -- in truth -- issues of race had been used to manipulate reality because in real reality, skin coloufr is irrelevant to the soul, the human needs, of a person. To paraphrase Dr. King, it's about character, stupid. Period. This is not to dismiss or marginalize the unique qualities of black culture or it's unique struggle in America but rather to make the point that at the essence of us all, we really are the same.
Growing up in Toronto during the 50s and 60s, I was unaware of any kind of "us" and "them" when it came to the black people in our community. Most of the African-Canadian families had deep roots in our history either from early slaves who were emancipated when slavery was abolished in Canada in 1833 or from the thousands of slaves who, with the help of the underground railroad, escaped from America to Canada.
Between 1850-1860 the numbers of blacks in Canada ballooned due to the enactment by US Congress of the infamous Fugitive Slave Act, which overturned previous decisions to grant freedom to escaped slaves who had reached "free" states. The act allowed slave "masters" (or jailers which is what they really were), to claim the return of the enslaved. Canada became a safe haven. Many brought skills and sufficient means to buy property and start businesses.
From Black History in Early Toronto by Daniel G. Hill:
"John Dunn, Receiver General for Upper Canada during the 1840s, stated in a letter to an American abolitionist that, 'Negroes ask for charity less than any other group and seem generally prosperous and industrious' and "This observation was certainly justified, for in Toronto alone-to say nothing of Windsor and Chatham where coloured communities also flourished-Blacks owned and operated three hotels and taverns, two livery stables, three restaurants, a hardware store and a women's dress shop."
Here is another interesting tidbit:
one of the most significant contributions of those early Canadian Blacks who settled in Upper Canada was the establishment of two newspapers: The Voice of the Fugitive, published in Windsor by a famous refugee named H.C. Bibb, and another refugee newspaper called The Provincial Freeman, founded in Toronto and later moved to Windsor.
This latter abolitionist newspaper was very competently edited by a most remarkable and highly literate black woman, Mary Ann Shadd, well known for her sharp tongue and biting editorials. Shadd was born of free parents in Wilmington, Delaware on October 9, 1823 and fled with her family to Canada. Shadd is acknowledged as the first black newspaperwoman in North America and the publisher of Canada's first anti-slavery newspaper. Perhaps she was the first woman publisher of a newspaper in Canada.
My point being that Canada had a history of early support for black people and provided an environment that allowed for acceptance and integration, so by the 1950s the idea of a segregated culture between blacks and whites did not appear to exist in Toronto. A black person wasn't a "black" person but just another neighbor or schoolmate. At least in my youthful perception this is what I remember.