Ernest Withers’s photograph of the sanitation strike in Memphis in 1968 is similarly well known today. It is often interpreted as an imagined future. It records Black workers’ mass walkout in February 1968 and their infamous placards that read “I AM A MAN” in protest against discriminatory treatment and life-threatening working conditions. With their disparate clothing and physiques, the men were united by their race and their declaration of shared identity – as men.
Read moreBlack Canadian Media (Digital and Film) Is Having a Glow Up Moment
The fields of digital humanities, media studies, journalism, image and visual culture studies, and communication studies often ignore Black Canadian perspectives. In many instances, engagement with race, digital technologies, media production, culture, and history is also absent.
Read moreBlack History Month: How to Make February Matter
As a Black Canadian scholar, writer, and public speaker, I participate in Black History Month every year. At the end of 2023, I started to receive invites to speak at 2024 events. Some I agreed to, and some inviters declined once I presented my fee — an issue I address later.
Read moreThinking Beyond 'Black Excellence'
I completely understand the logic of Black Excellence — Black people, especially students, are underrepresented, under acknowledged, and often feel like outsiders at universities, especially in Canada where campuses are still predominantly White.
Read moreImages and Sounds from MOBA's Artists and Archivists in Dialogue
On September 21 and 22, 2023 the Mapping Ontario’s Black Archives (MOBA) Team co-produced Artists and Archivists in Dialogue (AAD), a Social Sciences Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Connection Grant-funded two-day speaker series and creative showcase that was held at Toronto Metropolitan University’s ILC and Toronto’s Tranzac Club.
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