CollingwoodToday has partnered with Sheffield Park Black History museum for Black History Month. This is the first of four weekly columns featuring local and Canadian Black History thanks to research provided by Sheffield Park museum.
*****February is known as Black History Month across Canada, thanks to the efforts of Dr. Jean Augustine.
She was elected as Canada’s first Black female Member of Parliament (MP) in 1993 and in 1995 she introduced a motion to declare February as Black History Month.
In 2002 Augustine became the first Black woman in cabinet and she was named Fairness Commissioner by the government of Ontario in 2007. In 2009 she was named to the Order of Canada.
Last year, Augustine came to Collingwood at the invitation of Heritage Community Church and Carolynn and Sylvia Wilson. The church hosted a meet-and-greet with Augustine where she advocated for anti-racism.
Also last year, Augustine spoke to a group of students at the University of Guelph about laying the groundwork for her eventual motion to create Black History Month.
“If we are a mosaic, then you can shine one part of the mosaic and give one part of the mosaic opportunities but neglect other parts of the mosaic, then you don't have a mosaic that we can all be proud of," Augustine said during the Feb. 2020 event.
In Collingwood, the Wilson sisters carry on their family’s work shining lights on the Black history of the area and Canada-wide.
At the Sheffield Park Black History Museum in Clarksburg, the sisters maintain a collection of stories and artifacts and share both with willing audiences.
This month, Sheffield Park Black History Museum is sharing posts to the museum’s Facebook page to mark Black History Month.
This week, the museum featured the Underground Railroad. Though not actually a train or rail system, the Underground Railroad helped freedom seekers cross the US border to Canada where they found refuge throughout the province.
Conductors were abolitionists who would receive “parcels, dry goods, or packages,” which were Black men and women, and transport them to safe houses.
“Various means of escape were used,” writes Sylvia for the Sheffield Park Facebook page. “By foot or in wagons with false bottoms, or with physical disguises.”
She said there’s no place in the area that stands out as a hiding place as Collingwood was assumed a safe haven.
The safe places and Black communities were called Terminals, they included Ontario locations such as Amhertsburg, Puce, Sandwich, Dresden, Chatham, North Buxton, Fort Erie, Niagara Falls, St. Catharines, Ancaster.
Collingwood and Owen Sound were the furthest north terminals.
You can follow Sheffield Park’s Facebook page here for more posts about local and Canadian Black history.
