NDP's First Black MP Remembered for His Fearlessness in Fight Against Injustice

By Neil Armstrong

Howard McCurdy wearing his Order of Ontario insignia at the investiture ceremony in 2012. Photo contributed

The late Howard Douglas McCurdy Jr., a pioneer in civil rights activism, politics and education in Canada, is being remembered for championing the concerns of the African Canadian community.

Born on December 10, 1932, in London, Ontario, the former New Democratic Party (NDP) Member of Parliament for Windsor, Ontario and first Black MP for the party died from cancer on February 20 at the age of 85.

After Lincoln Alexander, he was the second African Canadian elected to Parliament. 

A memorial service to honour his life was held on March 3 in Windsor.

Before entering federal politics where he was elected to represent Windsor for the NDP from 1984 to 1993 (Windsor-Walkerville 1984-1988, Windsor-Lake St. Clair 1988-1993), he started his political career at the municipal level by being elected to city council in November 1979. He was re-elected in 1982.

Jagmeet Singh, Leader of Canada’s NDP, tweeted that he was very saddened to hear about the passing of McCurdy.

“He was a trailblazer - a powerful civil rights activist, our party's first Black MP, and a role model from my hometown of Windsor. My condolences go out to his family, friends, and community during this difficult time.”

McCurdy arrived in the Amherstburg area at the age of nine and he later admitted that the overt racism that he encountered in those early years motivated him throughout his life.

“I think in each of these areas, I think what he was first and foremost was a teacher,” says Leslie McCurdy about her father’s feats in civil rights, as a politician and as a university professor of microbiology and chemistry.

Having studied at the University of Western Ontario, Assumption University, and Michigan State University, where he earned a doctorate degree in microbiology and chemistry, he joined the University of Windsor’s science department in 1959.

Eventually, he became the country’s first African-Canadian tenured university faculty member and rose to head the department from 1974 to 1979.

His academic career included more than 50 scientific papers and positions with several scientific associations and editorial boards.

At Michigan State, he was the founding president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Leslie said her father mentored a lot of students at the university and in politics he taught Canada about accepting and reveling in its diversity.

In 1962, McCurdy co-founded the Guardian Club, a civil rights organization dedicated to fighting racial discrimination in Windsor. 

He was also a founding member and the first president of the National Black Coalition of Canada, which was formed in 1969.

Jean Augustine, former Member of Parliament and the first African Canadian woman to be elected to the House of Commons, met McCurdy in the mid-1970s and worked closely with him on the National Black Coalition of Canada and other initiatives. 

“Howard was smart, bright and articulate.  He was passionate about Black community issues and did not mince words. He was fearless at challenging injustices and always spoke truth to power,” she said.

Like Jamaica-born Rosemary Brown - Canada's first Black female member of a provincial legislature -- who ran for the leadership of the federal NDP in 1975 but came a close second to Ed Broadbent, McCurdy sought the party leadership in 1989 but Audrey McLaughlin won the selection.

Zanana Akande -- a former Ontario NDP Member of Provincial Parliament and the first Black woman elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario -- described him as a “brilliant man, a scholar, who taught at the university in the states; but of greater significance to me, he was a person who identified injustice and worked against it.”

“He was involved in the “sit-ins” in Amherstburg and Windsor to make the restaurants and social venues open to Blacks. He spoke about the segregated school system in the Windsor area, and so helped to expose it and eventually eliminate it.”

Irene Moore Davis, president of Essex County Black Historical Research Society, met him twenty-five years ago when she was in her third year at the University of Windsor and he was invited to be the keynote speaker at a students’ event.

After her university years, she had an opportunity to serve on the Underground Railroad Monument Committee of Windsor with him from 1999 through 2001, a committee her late mother chaired.

While serving as secretary of the Windsor and District Black Coalition (which he had founded fifty years earlier) when he returned to its presidency from 2000 through 2005, she had many opportunities to observe him and to learn from his example.

He was a charter member of the Essex County Black Historical Research Society which was founded in 2001.

“Howard was courageous, brilliant, passionate about people and fairness, equality and justice.  He was outspoken, eloquent and cared very much about the development and upliftment of people in general,” said Gwyn Chapman, a community organizer.

For his outstanding achievements in science, civil rights, community service and politics, he was also awarded the Order of Ontario and the Order of Canada in 2012, amongst many other accolades.

McCurdy was the husband of Dr. Brenda Lee Wright McCurdy for 41 years and father of Leslie Lorraine McCurdy, Linda Louise McCurdy LLB, Cheryl Lauralyn McCurdy Ducré and Brian Douglas Howard McCurdy Sr.

He had eleven grandchildren; three great- grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild. 

[This story has been published in the North American Weekly Gleaner, March 8-14, 2018.]