Bob Marley Day Humanitarian Awards Honour People Who Make a Difference

By Neil Armstrong

Photo credit: Graeme Mathieson       Jay Douglas and Mayor Olivia Chow at the 2024 Bob Marley Day Humanitarian Awards at City Hall in Toronto

The annual Bob Marley Day Humanitarian Awards were presented to nine individuals and one organization at City Hall, a day before Bob Marley’s birthday and the City of Toronto-declared Bob Marley Day, February 6.

Lawyer and founder of the Bob Marley Day Committee and awards, Courtney Betty, said thirty-three years ago he was a crown attorney working in the Department of Justice and part of his responsibilities included prosecutions. He observed that most individuals with challenges were coming from the Black community and so he felt that he was caught in the middle.

Betty said he began working with Lance Ingleton, the late well-known reggae promoter, and they talked about using Bob Marley Day to build bridges between the police and the Black community. That was the genesis of the first Bob Marley Day thirty-three years ago.

“Since then, we’ve recognized many individuals from all walks of life. It’s never just been about the Black community; we’ve got members of different communities and many others that we’ve honoured. For me, it’s been a great privilege to be able to provide a platform for these individuals that are already achieving so much.”

Betty also recognized Raymond Perkins of Roots who has been supporting the initiative over those 33 years by creating jackets that were gifted to the awardees.

Among past recipients are entrepreneur Michael Lee-Chin and Ontario’s first Black lieutenant governor Lincoln Alexander, who Betty said was advised that he could not accept the award because he represented the queen, but he went against the advice and invited them to Queen’s Park where he accepted the award. 

Veteran musician Jay Douglas and former university professor and the first president of the Jamaican Canadian Association, Roy Williams, were the recipient of lifetime achievement awards.

Nicholas Marcus Thompson, co-host of the event, said Douglas exemplified a profound commitment not only to his craft, but also to the communities he has touched. 

“Jay’s influence extends beyond his dynamic performance as the frontman of The Cougars and as a celebrated soul artist gracing stages worldwide. His involvement in critical projects, like the “From Jamaica to Toronto” concert tour, showcases his dedication to preserving and promoting the rich heritage of Jamaican music in Canada, making significant cultural contributions that resonate deeply within the community.”

Thompson noted that the musician’s presence in Toronto is immortalized through iconic murals in Reggae Lane and on Yonge Street marking him as a central figure in the city’s cultural narrative and a symbol of the enduring cultural ties between Jamaica and Canada.

“Music is the only international language of joy,” said Douglas, after quoting the lyrics of Bob Marley — “One thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.”

Jay Douglas, Mayor Olivia Chow, Courtney Betty, Nicholas Marcus Thompson and others at City Hall

Douglas said his mother, Noreen Pinnock and his aunt came to Canada as domestic workers under the West Indian Domestic Scheme in 1955. They were followed shortly after by his uncles who came as police officers. 

Sharing a story about one of the uncles, who once visited Jamaica and upon his return to Toronto asked Douglas to pick him up at the airport, Douglas said that uncle expressed his disappointment in being on a flight with many Rastafarian men. Unbeknownst to him was the fact that Bob Marley was one of the passengers. Douglas introduced his uncle to the legendary Jamaican musician. 

Marley did not remember Douglas who reminded him that they went for auditions at Studio One in Kingston, Jamaica, on the same day. 

Douglas said Marley was on his first world tour and his first stop in Toronto was at Massey Hall. 

He said when The Soulettes — a vocal trio consisting of Rita Marley, her cousin Constantine Walker, and her friend Marlene Gifford, founded in the early 1960s — came to perform at the Royal York Hotel, his band, The Cougars, backed them. 

Douglas said Bob Marley visited Club Jamaica on Yonge Street after his performance and when the excited band members left the stage to greet him, the reggae icon told them that they should go back on stage to finish the “people’s work.”

“Right there and then, he told them about accountability and who we are. And this award that you gave me, I’m accepting it on behalf of the kids, they are the gem of the future. We have to teach them and teach them well.” 

On February 18, Douglas will be presented with the Mabel-Helen-Rose Foundation Stone Award by Verity Centre for Better Living for his outstanding contribution to Toronto’s musical landscape.

This award recognizes those African Canadians whose contributions have been a cornerstone to building community and lifting consciousness in Toronto.

Meanwhile, Douglas will be featured in a documentary that will examine how Canada became an important hub of Jamaican music.

Play it Loud! is a feature documentary that tells the remarkable story of how Jamaican music came to Canada as part of a social and cultural migration that had a seismic impact on Canada, helped transform this country into a modern nation, and make it a mecca for Jamaican music.  We tell this story primarily through the life, music, struggles, and triumphs of Jamaican Canadian singer Jay Douglas. Jay is both a witness and participant in the stories we tell - the 1950s’ birth of Jamaican popular music; the early 1960s’ Jamaican migration to Canada; the flowering of a uniquely Canadian Black music culture that is now celebrated around the world, though still little appreciated here. Through Jay’s personal story, we tell a much bigger and largely untold tale of cultural transformation,” says Andrew Munger (Once Were Brothers, Carry it On) who is the producer. Ultramagnetic Productions is the production company, and Clement Virgo (Brother, Book of Negroes) is the executive producer.

 

Roy Williams, first recipient of the Bob Marley Day Humanitarian Award in 1991, was presented with a lifetime achievement award on February 5, 2024, at City Hall

 

Betty said over the duration of the awards, there have been only four individuals that they decided would be presented with the lifetime achievement award. The past recipients were politicians Lincoln Alexander and Alvin Curling.

“This individual, in my view, really represents not only everything that Bob Marley stood for many years ago, but all the things that we need to stand for here today,” said Betty.

He noted there that there was a lot of controversy regarding whether then mayor, Art Eggleton, should declare February 6 as Bob Marley Day in Toronto.

 

At that time, Roy Williams was a member of the Toronto Police Services Board — the first Black person in that position — and Betty’s decision to present him with an award “ignited a firestorm on many different levels,” according to Betty.

He noted that Williams went on stage and accepted the award, and encouraged the Black community to put together a legal fund to ensure that the issues in the community would be addressed. Betty said that statement cost Williams his job.

“I am proud to introduce Mr. Roy Williams, not just the hero but an individual who has always spoken truth to power irrespective of whether or not it’s going to cost him his job,” said Betty.

Williams, who was the first recipient of the Bob Marley Day Award in 1991, said he was happy to see Amber Morley as deputy mayor because back in the time he served on the TPSB, the Black community had to fight very hard to change the system. 

In an abbreviated version of his speech titled, “In Praise of Disruptors,” Williams included lawyer and activist Charles Roach and activist Dudley Laws “who stood up to disrupt, march, resist, and bring change to the city.”

“I would like to say that the system is always very resistant to making incremental changes. People in power do not quickly give up power,” he said.

Roy Williams and Courtney Betty at the 2024 Bob Marley Day Humanitarian Awards presentation at City Hall

The other recipients present at the awards ceremony were Amber Morley, Toronto city councillor and deputy mayor; Al Quance, community builder; Frances Delsol, vice-president, operations, national partnerships, outreach & procurement, BBPA; Clarence Ford, community builder; and the Black Talent Initiative, a social impact organization.

Morley was elected to represent Ward 3, Etobicoke-Lakeshore on Toronto City Council on October 24, 2022.

For over 20 years, she has been working on behalf of the residents of Etobicoke-Lakeshore, while pursuing advocacy at all levels of government. Morley has used her voice to bring attention to issues such as poverty reduction, youth equity, good governance and access to city spaces and services. As the director of the South Etobicoke Youth Assembly at LAMP CHC, she organized, advocated, and fought alongside local young people to advance the needs and aspirations of peers and neighbours in her community.

Morley, who is working to build an equitable and inclusive community for all, noted that there are deep histories in oppression and racism in society but she emphasized that communities and allies mean everything to her. 

Quance, a coach who developed a basketball tradition at Eastern Commerce and expanded it to Oakwood Collegiate Institute, said he considered his work his role and responsibility in society. He developed youth programs in the Oakwood and St. Clair area in the 1970s where he established a youth basketball drop-in centre on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He also initiated a Saturday morning youth basketball for the many Black girls and boys in the area who wanted to play the game.

In 2014, Ford, who has worked with Cirque du Soleil, founded Square Circle in Regent Park, one of Toronto’s first inner city social circus programs. It is described as “part of the global social circus movement that drives social change in communities by helping inner city kids realize their creative potential and learn invaluable life skills.”

Delsol said initially, she thought she was not deserving of the award, and will have to share the news with people from Dominica where she was born. “The work that we do is important,” she said, noting that her father was a police officer and her mother, a school principal.

“There is still so much to be done, the landscape is still not fair,” she said.

The recipients who were absent included Tyler Downey, secretary treasurer of SEIU Healthcare Canada; Matthew Green, member of parliament for Hamilton Centre; and Laura Mae Lindo, a community builder.