In late July of 1967, a procession of dancers, dressed in robes and bright plumage, departed Varsity Stadium and proceeded down University Avenue to the beat of steel drums. It was the kickoff to the first Caribana, known as “Caribana ’67 Week,” a Caribbean-Canadian spin on Expo ’67, and mainly took place on the Toronto Islands. The week’s events, including variety acts, water-skiing, and a Caribbean Queen contest, were so wildly popular that an extra day of music and dance was granted the following week. With the support of the Caribbean Cultural Committee, and the insistence of Toronto’s then-mayor William Dennison. Black culture had, after over a century of conflict and struggle in cities across central and eastern Canada, finally found a foothold in Toronto.
At the time, Toronto was quickly becoming a rally-point for black activism, culture, and human rights. Daniel G. Hill (father of Book of Negroes author Lawrence Hill) directed the Ontario Human Rights Commission since the early 1960s, and became Commissioner in 1972. Bromley Armstrong, union activist and civil rights advocate, not only helped desegregate restaurants in Dresden, but pressured former Ontario premier Leslie Frost to introduce the Fair Employment Practices and Fair Accommodation Practices Acts. Toronto’s embrace of black culture and activism had the potential to lead Canada in ending an ugly history of segregation and violence against Black Canadians.
Eighty student demonstrators marched on the U.S. Consulate on University Avenue in 1966 to back Civil Rights workers in Alabama
IMAGE: © GERRY BARKER/TORONTO STAR-GETTY IMAGES
50 years later, that history has not ended. It’s become an evolutionary strain that’s just as damaging to its victims, yet more difficult to detect. It manifests itself in the mythology of the “culture of violence” in the black community, which white politicians and police chiefs in Toronto have come to accept as settled fact rather than grapple with systemic racism. It emerges in the startling rate at which black Canadians are incarcerated, even though crime has decreased overall – including in those neighbourhoods in which black Torontonians are heavily concentrated. It can be found in the black youth who make up more than 40% of children under care of the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto, even though black youth themselves only comprise 8% of Toronto’s under-18 population.
It can be found in the conflation of the name “Caribana” with “gang violence.” That a handful of incidents over the course of five decades (many of which did not take place on or even near the parade), while hosting tens of millions of attendees, coupled with the eagerness to believe in the myth of black violence, has marginalized the very event that birthed Toronto’s multicultural movement.
It can be found in the killing of Andrew Loku, and the controversial SIU investigation into his death.
When we talk about the problem of racism getting “better” since the Civil Rights era, the implicit suggestion is that black Torontonians ought to be thankful for being served in the same restaurants, and allowed to swim in the same pools. It is to wave away our stark realities and take comfort in fairy tales. 50 years later, this is why we march.
Because it was not enough when we danced.
In our June issue we took a look at how much Toronto has changed since the 1960s — and at the remarkable similarities and parallels. We’re publishing all of these stories online today. For more, follow along on Twitter and Facebook with the hashtag #Post60s.
