Contrast newspaper remembered and celebrated
By Neil Armstrong
It was a moment of nostalgia at the 4th annual
Black & Caribbean Book Affair on October 1, when for 2 hours former staff,
reporters and editors of the now defunct Contrast newspaper gathered to
celebrate it at 28 Lennox St., just around the corner from A Different
Booklist, organizer of the event.
The newspaper, with the tagline, “the eyes, ears and voice
of the community,” was founded by Al Hamilton, who was from Edmonton, Alberta, in
1969.
The first issue of the paper was published on February 9,
1969 and its front page was about the Sir George Williams University (now
Concordia University) race-related riot in Montreal, noted Dianne Liverpool who
worked at Contrast.
It was launched as a biweekly and subsequently became a
weekly in 1972.
The paper took a hardline on issues of racism, policing and
immigration.
Hamilton managed Contrast until he sold it to Denham Jolly in
the early 80s, who after a couple years sold it to Horace Gooden in 1983.
Gooden stopped publication of the paper in 1986 and a few
years later launched an online version.
Itah Sadu, co-owner of A Different Booklist, said Harold
Hoyte, co-founder of The Nation newspaper in Barbados, was also a member of
Contrast in its early years.
“Some great people came out of this space,” she said, noting
that Jolly called from Jamaica on Saturday to wish them a good event, that
Hamlin Grange was attending the wedding of his daughter, and that JoJo Chintoh
and Hoyte could not make it to the celebration.
The afternoon included a roster of speakers such as Toronto
councillor for Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina, Joe Cressy, Sandra Young, Patrick
Hunter, Al Peabody, Dianne Liverpool, Lorna Simms and Clifton Joseph.
“As we are aware that the Mirvish Village and the space that
we occupy in a little while will be no more, one of the good things about
stories, stories are memories, they’re like taking photographs. So despite what
we know now will not exist, at the same time, as tellers, as griots, as people
we will carry those stories and those memories with us.”
Peter Venetis, project manager, and
Alexis Cohen, architectural historian, both of Westbank, based in Vancouver and
one of Canada’s leading luxury residential and mixed-use real estate development
companies, spoke at the event.
‘The process for us started about 3
years ago and what we’ve tried to do in this process is communicate with people
as often as we can and open up and hold a dialogue. We opened a gallery up the
street where people can come and learn about the project and help influence it
in terms of the programming that it delivers. It’s a large project, it’s about
1,000 apartment units and some condominiums, it’s a public market, it’s a
daycare, it’s a park space, it’s new streets, heritage restoration, public art
– it’s a very unique offering for the City of Toronto coming all at once,”
Venetis said.
He said like anything “it’s change and
change is difficult sometimes” and “part of what we do as developers is sort of look to
the past so we can guide to the future.”
He said they have spent the last year
celebrating different chapters in Mirvish Village’s history and “today we’re
here to celebrate this chapter.”
Cohen works with ERA Architects, the
heritage architects partnering with Westbanks and many other consultants on the
project.
“Our role is about the bricks and
mortar, we’re going to be restoring the buildings but we’re also working on a
very comprehensive interpretation plan to make sure that the history of this
site is both captured in our research process and also remains legible to the
public in meaningful ways moving forward,” said Cohen.
She said she met Sadu a couple months
ago and they have been talking about “the significance of the Black community
at Bloor and Bathurst, of Contrast, of numerous businesses and important
figures that have shaped the neighbourhood, and shaped the community and
intersected with the Honest Ed’s and Mirvish Village, layered the history.”
Cohen said they are working right now
on an exciting exhibition in collaboration with Chinedu Ukabam.
‘WELCOME TO BLACKHURST STREET’
EXHIBITION ON OCTOBER 15-NOVEMBER27 AT MARKHAM HOUSE: CITY BUILDING LAB
It’s called “Welcome to Blackhurst
Street” which will open on October 15 and will be about Black heritage at Bloor
& Bathurst and “all of the deep and significant contributions that black
business owners and the community have made to shape not only this
neighbourhood but the city at large.”
She said Contrast has been one of the
key resources that they have been using to shape the exhibition.
“I believe that our history is a
continuum so as interested as I am in doing this project about what Bathurst
was in the past, I’m also very interested in knowing what Bathurst is now but
also where the people who were influential on what Bathurst was, what they’re
up to right now,” said Ukabam, a designer and curator.
He said he wants to make sure that no
matter what happens with the neighbourhood, “whether it’s being rebuilt or
revamped, or whatever, that our stories are not erased.”
Ukabam wants to capture in the
exhibition the intersection of black activism through Contrast, entrepreneurs
like Lloyds Barbers where he has been going for the past 15-20 years or whether
it is A Different Booklist and learning from Sadu about Third World Bookstore.
Councillor Cressy said he will be working with Sadu “to find
a way to have a space for black history and heritage, a permanent space, to
continue here.”
“When we look back in time, it was the black history of this
community that shaped this neighbourhood. And, as we look to change in the
future I have to tell you it forces us all to think about where have we been
and where are we going,” he said.
He said when one thinks about “where we are today in the
history of Contrast, we’re struggling today.”
He said a permanent space will help “to remember Contrast,
to remember the contributions of those who wrote to Contrast, to remember the
history of this community but its also going to provide us that space to
organize.”
“Because I have to tell you if we’re going to have the
change that is so necessary, if we’re going to tackle that growing inequality,
it’s not by remembering the past. It’s by standing on their shoulders and
organizing to change the future,” said Cressy who described himself as an
activist.
Veteran journalist, Norman Otis Richmond,
host of the evening, said Hamilton took over The West Indian News Observer
newspaper, which was around from 1967-1969.
Along with Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange, now
Jamaica’s Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Hamilton started
Contrast in 1969.
Richmond said when Hamilton came to Toronto in the 1950s he
started working as a porter with Canadian Pacific Railway.
Someone called him a racial slur – the ‘N-word’ -- and
Hamilton retaliated.
“Al Hamilton decked the guy and let’s say Al had to find
alternative employment and he ended up in prison. And when he went to prison,
he reformed himself, came out and started a publication, Junior Achievement
Awards and so on and so forth,” said Richmond.
He said he has a soft spot for Denham Jolly because anytime
he needed anything and still need anything he can always go to him.
Horace Gooden took over the paper from Jolly and ran it
until it closed.
Sharing a thumbnail sketch of the history of the Black
Press, Richmond noted that Henry Walton Bibb founded “Voice of the Fugitive” in
1851, and Mary Ann Shadd founded “The Provincial Freeman” in 1853.
She was the first black woman publisher in North America and
the first woman publisher in Canada.
He said the first black newspaper in America was “Freedom’s
Journal” which was started by Peter Williams, Jr. on March 16, 1827.
Richmond referenced “The Canadian Negro” which was started
by Jack White of Nova Scotia.
The veteran journalist underscored the importance of the three
biggest black newspapers: Marcus Garvey’s “The Negro World,”(published in
Spanish, French and English), the Nation of Islam’s “Muhammad Speaks,” and the
Black Panther Party’s “The Black Panther.”
Sandra Young highlighted the connection between Contrast and
The Ashanti Room, which she co-owned with her husband, Patrick Hunter, and was
located at 28 Lennox Street years after Contrast relocated.
She had fond memories of Third World Bookstore, Joyce’s and
Wong’s businesses along the Bathurst Street strip.
“As a publication, Contrast championed African liberation,
social justice and social change. Contrast spoke to the social issues that
dominated the life of Toronto’s Black community such as racism, education,
youth issues, justice issues, and really when you compare 1969 to 2016, it
really hasn’t changed that much,” she said.
When the newspaper left 28 Lennox St., Young said the
building appeared lifeless and unoccupied.
Young said her mother owned a bookstore and that it was
probably what birthed the idea in her head in 1994 of The Ashanti Room to focus
on the “excellence of our community and African heritage.”
She was driven by the idea of positive Afrocentric, positive
black images, “greeting cards with black themes were unavailable in Toronto at
the time, black dolls and African textile equally so, except during Kwanzaa
markets.”
She listed nine black businesses that operated from 28
Lennox St. including: Identity Toys and Island Dolls, Jambayaya, Origins,
Soulful Reflexology, Lorraine Scott, and Enid Lee, a race relations consultant
had an office there as well.
Contrast moved up Bathurst St. and then eventually to the
Oakwood Avenue and St. Clair Avenue area.
Richmond had memories of Horace Campbell and Walter Rodney
walking through the doors of Contrast arguing about singer, Roberta Flack.
Campbell was not impressed with Flack but Rodney loved her.
Clifton Joseph did not work with Contrast but was a student
at York University and a reporter for the student paper, Excalibur, who
interviewed Hamilton to write a story about the fierce black community
newspaper.
“Al was a sweet dude, talk nice, you’re in a trance when Al
is talking, I mean, and a sharp dresser. Of course, Al had the pimp about him
too. Al Hamilton had a kind of pimp style,” said Joseph.
He said the Microfiche Section of the Toronto Reference
Library was where he went to research information about Contrast and Spear
magazine.
Joseph described Contrast as “a radical paper that dealt
with the issues that gave you an explanation of the world” that he met when he
came to Canada in 1973.
“Contrast was a radical, black Third World, international
struggle-oriented newspaper,” he said.
Richmond, who is a historian and Internet radio program host,
said he worked for Contrast for about 9 years but was underground.
He remembered that Maurice Bishop, a revolutionary and
politician who later became Prime Minister of Grenada, used to layout the paper
upstairs the building.
“The last thing about Maurice Bishop, at one time if you
went to Grenada they had billboards with ‘Contrast supports free Grenada.’
There was a link between Contrast and Maurice Bishop,” said Richmond.
Al Peabody said Harold Hoyte and Arnold Auguste, publisher
of Share newspaper came out of Contrast and became successful media owners.
Hoyte founded The Nation newspaper in Barbados in 1973 and
Auguste founded Share in Toronto in 1978.
Peabody mentioned others who worked there such as the late
Austin Clarke, Royson James, Hamlin Grange and Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange.
Cecil Foster was an editor there from 1979-1981, Dan Hill
and Cameron Bailey also wrote for the paper.
He described Al Hamilton as a “suave debonair gentleman” and
“a professional conservative playa.”
“When I first met him back in ’66, he wore like an
undertaker suit and he was working for Corrier Canadese, an Italian paper,”
said Peabody who noted that Hamilton worked in advertising.
Several speakers mentioned that Contrast was more than just
a newspaper and one said the newspaper at one time founded a consortium to take
over Doctor’s Hospital, which hired many Black Canadians, and whose employment
became precarious at one point.
The newspaper also founded a support group to help
immigrants.
Lorna Simms, the last editor of Contrast, who eventually
founded her newspaper, Dawn, said she had a good job at the Gleaner in Jamaica
and although her children were living in Canada, she had no intentions of
leaving Jamaica.
The kids would be home for the holidays so she saw them
often.
But her decision to stay here changed when she was making
plans to fly back to Jamaica and Denham Jolly, new owner of Contrast, called
her to offer the job of editor of the paper in the early 80s.
She said she learned a lot of stuff there, especially from
people like the late community leader, Harry Gairey, and John Brooks, who would
walk in and talk to her things happening during that time.
“I was very grateful because I had a new enlightenment about
world issues,” she said.
Simms said the last issue of Contrast was never printed
because Horace Gooden told her the same day it should have been printed that
there would be no issue – the paper was closed.
She was very appreciative of the generosity of the Jamaican
community that helped her to start her own biweekly publication, Dawn, founded
in July 1991.
Lawyer, Courtney Betty, gave her two rooms at his office,
small businesses that used to advertise with Contrast said they wanted to
continue with her, the printer for Contrast printed her first issue for free
and she was offered a free computer.
There were lots of memories in the room and also there was
author and publicist, Dalton Higgins, who later that night received the 2016 My
People Award for outstanding work in writing nonfiction.
Also receiving an award was PanMan Pat Mc Neilly for
outstanding work in arts education. He is celebrating 50 years of creating Pan
music.
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| A cake to celebrate Contrast newspaper at a reunion event for many who worked at the groundbreaking publication. |
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| 28 Lennox Street in Toronto -- former home of the now defunct Contrast newspaper. |
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| Itah Sadu, co-owner of A Different Booklist, speaking at an event to celebrate the legacy of Contrast newspaper at 28 Lennox Street in Toronto. |
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