Wes Hall Urges Graduands to Go Change the World

 By Neil Armstrong

Photo credit: York University     Wes Hall, recipient of the honorary degree, Doctor of Laws, honours causa, at York University's Fall Convocation

Wes Hall, the executive chairman and founder of Kingsdale Advisors, a shareholder advisory firm, has urged graduands at York University to dream big and to know that they can accomplish anything they aspire for in life.

 

Addressing them at the Fall Convocation where the university conferred on him an honorary degree — Doctor of Laws, honoris causa — he told them that they have untapped potential “so change I want to be to, I will become.”

 

The philanthropist and author told them their fellow graduands represent their community and they are all starting from the same place. “You’re going to get into the workforce together and I want you to behave as a community. And, when you see injustices happening to a member of your community, stand up, say something, do something, stop it.”

 

“See the opportunities others do not see, do what others won’t dare to do. My formula for success — have a curious mind, work hard and smart, and be a changemaker. Do not take no for an answer. When you’re knocked down, get right back up. Don’t let anyone stop you, and if the establishment challenges you when you’re trying to make positive change in our society, keep going. Change will happen but it takes persistence, it takes time, it takes commitment,” said the founder and chairman of the Canadian Council of Business Leaders Against Anti-Black Systemic Racism and the BlackNorth Initiative.

 

Hall said the work that he does today is to eradicate some of the challenges that he and his team see in society that are preventing individuals from greatness. 

 

He told the graduates that society has labels for people like him and those who share his background. “They call us underserved, underprivileged, underrepresented — that label imprisons our potential. It divides us, it makes us feel like we do not belong, it makes us feel ashamed of our place in society, yet we cannot control it. We do not determine the country in which we were born, we do not determine the families we are born into. That’s all luck, but it’s held against us, or it’s held up depending on what happens in our life.” 

 

Hall said there are injustices in society, and it is everyone’s duty to react when they see them. 

 

The recipient of six honorary degrees advised them to never discriminate against opportunities and told those who come from privilege that they have a more critical role to play in society by using it to change the world. 

 

Reflecting on his thirty-eight years in Canada and how different things are from where he started in Jamaica, Hall thanked his grandmother, Julia Vassell, who died at the age of 97 for loving and caring for him and his siblings. He also thanked his wife, Christine, their five children and his father.

 

“When I was growing up in that tin shack in rural Jamaica with my grandmother working on a plantation, I never thought that my life would be anything but that,” said Hall while lauding the diversity of the graduates and telling them that they are the future of Canada. 

 

He said the sooner diversity can be integrated into society the better and the quicker many of the problems in the world today will be solved. 

 

Hall said his mother abandoned him when he was 18 months, and his siblings — sister Joan at 4 years old, and brother Ian, 6 months old — in a plantation shack. She left a pot of porridge on the stove and told Joan to feed everyone whenever they were hungry. 

 

Days later a neighbour heard them crying in the house and when she checked she realized that they were by themselves. She quickly went to find the children’s grandmother who was raising seven grandchildren plus a special needs adult daughter at the time but opened her home to them. They were now ten grandchildren and two adults living off a plantation worker’s salary.

 

“That hard work that I witnessed as a child carried me to this day,” said Hall noting that opportunities were limited for him and his siblings. Their only option was to work on the plantation, but he said he was saved because his father, who migrated to Canada when Hall was one year old, rescued him from that life.

 

Hall, who came to Canada on September 27, 1985, at the age of 16, said when he lived in Jamaica, he had no right to education.

Photo credit: York University   A hood is adjusted on Wes Hall at the Fall Convocation where the honorary degree, Doctor of Laws, honours causa, was conferred on him by York University

 

“I could take the exam and then if I passed, I could go to high school, but my grandmother couldn’t afford high school. When I came here, September 27, 1985, was a Friday and on Monday I was in high school. Education was a right here, I didn’t have to take an exam. I didn’t even have to be smart; I was entitled to be educated and that completely changed my life.”

 

Hall said the future that he has today was not meant for him and he thanked everyone who paved the way for him. “I am forever grateful and will continue to work hard to pay back that debt of gratitude that I owe to them,” said Hall thanking again his grandmother who “never saw an ounce” of his success and died in poverty. 

 

He said the work that he does today is to honour her.