A groundbreaking, four-part sequence is ready to air on the Historical past Channel this weekend, exploring the untold tales of Black historical past in Canada.
BLK: An Origin Story takes Canadians on a nationwide journey of discovery into the individuals, communities, and never-before-heard tales of Canada’s Black inhabitants.
Govt producers Jen Holness and Sudz Sutherland crossed the nation, listening to tales and placing collectively a sequence “that resets the understanding of Black historical past in Canada,” mentioned Holness.
Viewers will study Canada’s unfiltered Black historical past in 4 hour-long episodes that concentrate on communities in Nova Scotia, Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec.
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The present’s narrative is helped alongside by acquainted names: George Elliot Clarke, Lawrence Hill, Charmaine Nelson, El Jones, Might Q Wong, and Stephanie Allen all assist inform the tales.
Omission and erasure
The present’s first episode is ready in Nova Scotia, uncovering among the myths and misconceptions concerning the historical past of Black communities on the East Coast.
Viewers are in for some stunning revelations once they notice how a lot of this historical past was omitted from their faculty curriculum.
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“Once we have been children, the one point out of Black historical past was throughout Black Historical past Week — it wasn’t even a month then, only a week,” Sutherland instructed International Information.
“At the moment academics instructed us: ‘Black individuals used the Underground Railroad to get to Nova Scotia after which they lived fortunately ever after.’ That was it. It was like a real-life fairytale, when that wasn’t even near the reality. There was no company, no resistance in these tales. It was simply this story that Black individuals have been liberated by Canadians.”
And that’s simply the tip of the omission iceberg.
Holness factors to a phase within the first episode that shines a lightweight on the horrible remedy of Black individuals in Nova Scotia, which they ultimately escaped by the boatful to return to their house international locations or, in lots of instances, the place they have been first enslaved.
“The situations should have been so unhealthy,” she mentioned. “And you may’t chalk it as much as: ‘Properly, these individuals have been going again to be with their households’, as a result of why would anybody go away a possibility? Why would anybody go away land, and property, and area to return to a rustic that, for essentially the most half, had Jim Crow and much more entrenched segregation?”
Surprising historical past, even for the creators
Sutherland says he and Holness have been shocked — and even shocked — at among the discoveries that got here to gentle throughout their analysis for the present.
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“One of many issues that shocked us was studying that one of many first non-Native settlers on Vancouver Island have been Black,” mentioned Sutherland.
“The truth that James Douglas (the primary Governor of the Colony of British Columbia) was bi-racial was very shocking, even to us. We had no thought about these things, nobody talked about these things.
“I didn’t know that the Black Loyalists and the Black refugees have been two solely completely different teams altogether. Individuals conflate them,” added Holness.
The sequence additionally seems to be on the bonds between Black Canadians and the Indigenous individuals residing on the land.
“At a sure level in our historical past it turns into not possible to simply speak about Black contributions with out acknowledging and exploring how Indigenous individuals labored with Black individuals,” mentioned Sutherland.
Black and non-Black Canadians will profit
Sutherland and Holness instructed International Information their present is for all Canadians, and anybody who watches will be taught one thing information.
“Sure, there’s a lot within the sequence that non-Black Canadians will likely be shocked to study, however there’s additionally numerous info that even Black Canadians don’t know,” mentioned Sutherland.
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“So many individuals assume Canadian historical past is so boring, nevertheless it isn’t — it’s simply been sanitized for 200 years. A lot of this historical past occurred in our lifetimes, it’s not that way back. ”
The time is now
Holness says the docuseries comes at an ideal time.
“Whereas there have been different movies and exhibits that deal with Black historical past, what makes our sequence so necessary, I consider, is it’s now the time,” she mentioned.
“It’s the time when the nation of Canada is definitely prepared to just accept its historical past, its complacency. It’s the proper time to start out questioning what we’ve understood and present among the erased historical past — these are details, we’re not creating narratives. These are erased or marginalized details.
“For the on a regular basis Canadian, these sequence present you the way this nation has harmed Black individuals, regardless of Black individuals being so instrumental in serving to to construct this nation.”
BLK: An Origin Story, premieres Saturday, Feb. 26, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on The Historical past Channel.
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