Historian and Author is the 2022 My People Award Recipient

By Neil Armstrong

Photo contributed    Natasha Henry-Dixon, recipient of the 2022 My People Award

Blackhurst Cultural Centre: The People’s Residence will present the 2022 My People Award to historian and author, Natasha Henry-Dixon at the opening night of the four-day Black and Caribbean Book Affair on October 12 in Toronto.

The My People Award is presented to an African, Black or Caribbean writer in Canada who is excelling at their craft and telling the stories of our heritage in their work.

Henry-Dixon is an educator and curriculum consultant specializing in the development of learning materials that focus on the African diasporic experience. 

The historian is the author of Emancipation Day: Celebrating Freedom in Canada (2010), Talking About Freedom: Celebrating Freedom in Canada (2012), and has written several entries for The Canadian Encyclopedia on African Canadian history. She is the president of the Ontario Black History Society (OBHS).

In 2020, when the murders of two Black men in the United States — Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd — thrust a spotlight on anti-Black racism and issues articulated by the Black Lives Matter Movement seven years earlier, Henry-Dixon’s books became must-reads again as North America, and by extension the world, grappled with its anti-Black racism practices and policies. 

Henry-Dixon has consistently documented the contributions of African diasporic people to what Indigenous peoples have named Turtle Island (North America). She is also helping to ensure that plaques are placed at landmarks significant to the history of Black people in Ontario.

She is a lecturer in the professorial stream in the Department of History at York University and also a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History. The 2018 Vanier Scholar is researching the enslavement of African people in early Ontario. 

 

Through her various professional, academic and community roles, Henry-Dixon’s work is grounded in her commitment to research, collect, preserve, and disseminate the histories of African Canadians.

 

 

 

 

Black and Caribbean Book Affair Celebrates Resilience and Storytelling

By Neil Armstrong

Photo contributed     Daniel McNeil is the author of Thinking While Black: Translating the Politics and Popular Culture of a Rebel Generation published by Rutgers University Press. He will be in conversation with pop culture critic and journalist Dalton Higgins.   

The 2022 Black and Caribbean Book Affair — a four-day event — kicks off on October 12 under the theme “Renewed, Resilient and Ready to Tell My Story.” Everyone is welcome to join the celebration of ideas, perspectives, and stories as we applaud the writers, authors, illustrators, and storytellers, who make up the engine room of literature.

 

Organized by Blackhurst Cultural Centre, the festival opens with the launch of the book, Welcome to Blackhurst: An Iconic Toronto Neighbourhood at 6:00 p.m. This selection of biographies presents a snapshot of life in the Bloor/Bathurst/Annex neighbourhood. It is an opportunity to meet game-changers whose work influenced matters in Toronto and Canada.

 

On the following evening, Edisa Martinez, a former deputy sheriff, social worker, poet and musician, will discuss his book, Christ and The Justice System: Overrepresentation of Minorities, with community advocate Louis March, founder and director of the Zero Gun Violence Movement in Toronto.

 

In the daytime on Friday, students, the public, and organizations will experience a Walking Tour and Book Talk of Welcome to Blackhurst: An Iconic Toronto Neighbourhood. However, in the evening Daniel McNeil, author of Thinking While Black: Translating the Politics and Popular Culture of a Rebel Generation will be in conversation with journalist, author and pop culture critic Dalton Higgins. McNeil is a professor in the department of gender studies at Queen’s University and the Queen’s national scholar chair in Black studies. 

 

“This uniquely interdisciplinary study of Black cultural critics Armond White and Paul Gilroy spans continents and decades of rebellion and revolution.
Drawing on an eclectic mix of archival research, politics, film theory, and pop culture, Daniel McNeil examines two of the most celebrated and controversial Black thinkers working today. Thinking While Black takes us on a transatlantic journey through the radical movements that rocked against racism in 1970s Detroit and Birmingham, the rhythms of everyday life in 1980s London and New York, and the hype and hostility generated by Oscar-winning films like 12 Years a Slave.”

 

The programming on October 15 will run from 11:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. and starts with a workshop, The Essentials of Publishing, with editors Patrick Crean, Shivaun Hearne, and Dwayne Morgan in discussion. Author Gayle Gonsalves will be the moderator. Space is limited so those who are interested should submit their names at blackhurstcc.org.

Photo contributed   Poet and author Dwayne Morgan will discuss the essentials of publishing

 

In “Passport to Moms Cooking,” Chef Latonya Bentley will share the secret ingredients and the rich tradition of moms, recipes, and cooking. Taken from interviews and conversations over the years, Bentley has cooked up a collection of memories and goodies from 12:30-1:30 p.m.

Photo contributed     Chef Latonya Bentley

Award-winning author Yolanda Marshall will host a Children’s Book Party from 1:45-2:2:45 p.m. Her children’s book column, the Lit Corner is featured bi-weekly in the Caribbean Camera newspaper. This will be a chance to meet and mingle with Canadian children’s authors.

Photo contributed        Children's author Yolanda Marshall

 

What better way to “Get Your Groove On” than to join author, leadership coach, and spiritual liberation activist Aina-Nia Ayo’dele and her book, Self: An Inner Journey to Re-Membering Your Power. Engage with Aina-Nia as you re-member your power from 3:00-3:00 p.m.

Photo contributed     Leadership coach and spiritual liberation activist Aina-Nia Ayo'dele

 

On Facebook Live from 3:30-4:00 p.m., Jonathan Escoffery, author of If I Survive You,
will be in conversation with host and journalist Neil Armstrong. The book is a collection of connected short stories that are Jamaican American, American Jamaican, hilarious and timely. Escoffery is an award-winning Miami-born author of Jamaican parentage who lives in California.

Photographer David Ofori Zapparoli showcases his latest book, Street Level: A Search For Belonging from 4:15-4:45 p.m. Street Level is a collection of photographs from around the world by photographer, cinematographer, cultural animator, and youth arts programmer David Zapporali. His work has been included in private collections, museums, exhibitions and galleries in Berlin, Washington, Paris and beyond. 

 

 

"He's been published in the Anthology of African and Indian Ocean Photography. His work is in numerous private and public collections, including the estate of Nelson Mandela, Canada's Consul General of Jamaica, and the art galleries of Ontario and Alberta. His work has been exhibited internationally, including Washington, D.C., Berlin, Paris, Sao Paulo, and Bamako. Early in his career he worked as a cinematographer on several independent films that belong to public collections.

      He's done considerable work in the area of youth arts programming. In 2000, he was the first coordinator of the Art City after school arts program in the St. Jamestown neighbourhood."

The day culminates with a panel discussion. Walter Rodney’s seminal book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, was published fifty years ago. Scholars and activists, Chevy Eugene and David Austin, will engage in a discussion about Rodney moderated by educator and radio host, Thando Hyman.

 

Eugene is a PhD candidate at York University in the Social and Political
Thought (SPTH) program. His research focuses on the creative arts as key instruments in the advocacy for Caribbean Reparations. Austin is the author of You Don’t Play with Revolution: The Montreal Lectures of C.L.R. James(2009) and Fear of a Black Nation Race, Sex, and Security in the Sixties Montreal. He is the 2014 winner of the Casa de las Americas Prize. His writing engages the work of C.L.R. James, Frantz Fanon, Sylvia Wynter, Hannah Arendt, Walter Rodney and Linton Kwesi Johnson in relation to politics, poetry and social movements. Thando Hyman is a groundbreaking educator in the City of Toronto. She is the host of African Woman and Family on CIUT 89.5 FM.

 

All of the events, except the Facebook Live conversation with Jonathan Escoffery, are in person and take place at Blackhurst Cultural Centre, 777 Bathurst Street in Toronto.

 

The 2022 Black and Caribbean Book Affair is supported by:

 

Dundurn Press 

Simon & Schuster

Rutgers University Press

McClelland & Stewart

Toronto Arts Council

Caribbean Camera

 

 

An  upcoming Book Launch

 

On October 20, 6:00-8:00 p.m., Blackhurst Cultural Centre will host the launch of Mary Anne Chambers’ memoir, From the Heart: Family. Community. Service, published by Dundurn Press. She will be in conversation with veteran journalist Ron Fanfair.

 

Debut Book Showcases a Jamaican Family Grappling with Life in the US

By Neil Armstrong

Photo contributed       Jonathan Escoffery

Jonathan Escoffery always wanted to become a writer since he enjoyed reading, but he was not necessarily thinking of selling a book to a publisher. All he knew was that he loved writing and had a desire to write books one day. 

 

The United States-born author, who is on Jamaican parentage, has written his first book, If I Survive You, a collection of stories, published by McClelland & Stewart, which went on sale in North America on September 6.

 

It is described as “a major debut, blazing with style and heart, that follows a Jamaican family striving for more in Miami, and introduces a generational storyteller.” 

In the 1970s, Topper and Sanya flee to Miami as political violence consumes their native Kingston. But America, as the couple and their two children, Delano and Trelawny, learn, is far from the Promised Land. Excluded from society as Black immigrants, the family pushes on through Hurricane Andrew and later the 2008 recession, living in a house so cursed that the pet fish launches itself out of its own tank rather than stay. But even as things fall apart, the family remains motivated, often to its own detriment, by what their younger son, Trelawny, calls “the exquisite, racking compulsion to survive.”

 

Escoffery, 41, says while growing up his parents, English and literature teachers, and professors encouraged him when they saw what he had written on the page. However, at the same time, he felt discouraged about pursuing such a path with no one tried and true way to becoming an author. The more practical message was that he should get a different job that would make him successful and then write on the side.

 

“But once I got into college and start taking a lot of workshops and realizing my professors were writers — they were all authors, they had writing careers of their own — that was always my happy place. The more I understood about what it meant to take that journey towards putting a book out, the more energized I felt. And that’s when I really start to focus my energies and really consider what kind of first book I would want to have.” 

 

Having read many authors who were a part of the Harlem Renaissance Movement, like Langston Hughes and Nella Larsen, or those who were either immigrants or the firstborn of immigrants in the US, he saw stories that ran parallel to his family’s story and inspired him.

 

“Reading those authors lit a fire under me to really get this book out because I felt if you want to see that book in the world maybe you’re the one who has to write it so that’s what I did.” This echoes Toni Morrison’s speech to the Ohio Arts Council in 1981 in which she said: “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”

 

The earliest renderings of the characters in Escoffery’s new book started 10 years before he sold the book. At the time, he was applying to graduate school and needed to prepare a writing sample. 

 

“I thought I had it finished but then this other story kind of poured out of me, and it was a story about Trelawny and Topper and Delano. I felt like I had suddenly found my subject matter in a way that I hadn’t yet, and so I put that in my writing sample and was able to gain acceptance to several programs and wound up going to the University of Minnesota. It was at the University of Minnesota I started playing with these characters more in different stories, including some of the ones that actually made it into the book,” says the writer who grew up in Miami but now lives in Oakland, California.

 

Escoffery says it was spring of 2014 when he was in his final semester in graduate school that he wrote the story ‘Influx’ — the first in the book — and when he did, that’s when he finally saw what the book would be. He sold the book to a publisher in 2021.

 

In his effort to be insightful in his fiction, Escoffery decided to write about his own culture and the many cultures he knows, and the tensions of inheriting multiple cultures, especially growing up in a place like Miami, which has “so many cultures kind of pressing up against each other.”

 

“Each time I thought it was a challenge for me as a writer, I thought, well, that in a sense is the challenge of my book’s protagonists. What they’re dealing with is how do you exist and how do you decide who you are when other people are giving you this litany of questions — what are you? And you answer that question, and they say no, that’s not what you are. And so them trying to figure out who they are is a big part of the book and we go on that journey with characters like Trelawny, Delano and Topper.”

 

Escoffery is the recipient of the 2020 Plimpton Prize for Fiction, a 2020 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, and the 2020 ASME Award for Fiction. 

 

He received his MFA from the University of Minnesota, is a PhD fellow in the University of Southern California’s PhD in Creative Writing and Literature Program, and in 2021 was awarded a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in the Creative Writing Program at Stanford University. 

 

Jonathan Escoffery will be interviewed virtually about If I Survive You on Saturday, October 15, 3:30-4:00 p.m. at the 2022 Black and Caribbean Book Affair organized by Blackhurst Cultural Centre in Toronto, Canada. Tune in to the interview on the Centre’s Facebook page.

New Memoir Documents Grit and Determination of Mary Anne Chambers

 By Neil Armstrong

 

What former Ontario Member of Provincial Parliament, government minister, bank executive, philanthropist, and current Chancellor of the University of Guelph, Mary Anne Chambers, has done in her new memoir is to share the successful path that she charted in Jamaica and here in Canada — all of this while supporting family, community, and being in public service. 

 

In From the Heart: Family. Community. Service, the former senior vice president of Scotiabank, director, chair and member of various boards and not-for-profit organizations, and funder of many scholarships to students in colleges and universities recalls the agency that she has in her life. From Deanery Road in Vineyard Town to being head girl at Immaculate Conception High School to teaching in the JAMAL Foundation program in Jamaica to immigrating with her young family to Canada in 1976, to working in Corporate Canada and volunteering in many community organizations, Chambers highlights what service means to her — in her family, community, the province, and Canada. 

 

There are many gems in the memoir published by Dundurn Press. She acknowledges her privilege while recognizing her advocacy for family, friends, members of her constituency, parents and students grappling with the education system, championing teachers, the Youth in Policing Initiative, challenging racism inside the boardroom and outside of it, and more. 

 

"It is not easy being a minority in politics. We need to be very strong. We need to stay true to our desire to serve, and we need to avoid being overcome by a desire to feel accepted or popular lest we be inadvertently co-opted or submerged by the dominant culture in which we find ourselves,” writes Chambers in what could be considered wise counsel to racialized people in politics or those seeking to become political representatives. 

 

An important revelation in the book is her expectation that her colleagues at Queen’s Park be conversant with matters pertaining to Black and Indigenous communities in the province.

 

"I do remember telling the premier that I had not realized I was Black until I arrived at Queen's Park. It was my way of saying I was more than that and expected him to recognize that I didn't simply see my role as the MPP or minister for Black people," writes Chambers.

 

Expanding on this assertion, she writes: “I didn’t appreciate being singled out as the person who absolutely had to represent the government at the annual Caribbean Carnival parade. I expected my colleagues to also care about issues like the over-representation of, and better outcomes for, Black and Indigenous children in the child-protection system; the difficulties faced by young people in underserved neighbourhoods seeking employment opportunities; and the challenges experienced by internationally trained professionals in becoming accredited to work in their fields of expertise.”

 

The storytelling recaptures vivid moments in her political life such as the day Denham Jolly — who was awarded an Order of Distinction (OD) in the rank of officer on August 6, 2022 by the Government of Jamaica — turned up at her campaign office to show his support.

"Community activist, businessman, philanthropist, and son of Jamaica, Denham Jolly, who lived several ridings away from mine, arrived at the campaign office one day, bearing dozens of Jamaican beef patties for anyone who happened to be there."

 

 

After serving as Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities and the Minister of Children and Youth Services, Chambers decided not to seek re-election but made every effort to ensure that a Black person would seek the nomination to represent the Ontario Liberal Party as her replacement in her riding. She was content with her tenure in the Ontario government and wanted to ensure that representation matters in the political system and in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Queen’s Park.

 

"I arrived at Queen's Park with my integrity intact and left Queen's Park with my integrity intact, content that in my four years there as an MPP and a cabinet minister, I had served the public good," she writes.

 

The memoir also references community figures and stalwarts such as Lillie Johnson, Alvin Curling, Lincoln Alexander, Zanana Akande, Beverley Salmon, Ron Fanfair, Margarett Best, Paulette Senior, Joan Lesmond, Mitzie Hunter, Dr. Wendell Nii Laryea Adjetey, Dr. Carl James, Margaret Parsons, Michael Thompson, Dr. Mavis Burke, and others.

 

Throughout the book, readers hear about her husband Chris, sons Nick and Stefan, and their partners, her granddaughters, parents, and siblings. Chambers enfolds them with love and shares how they have contributed to her quest for lifelong learning, paying it forward, and their collective contribution to humanity. The memoir is worth the read; one gets a sense of what drives Chambers and what her hopes are for now, and for the years to come.

 

In her projection of a way forward, she notes that: “It’s important to believe in ourselves and to take personal responsibility for our actions and the achievement of our goals. When I tell young people to dream big, I am telling them not to settle for the easiest path or the path that others might define for them. Most importantly, I am hoping that they will realize that their destiny is what they aspire to for themselves. I tell them they are the ones who should be determining their future, and how successful they will be. I advise them to take charge of their lives.”

 

Chambers acknowledges her “few secret weapons” that have helped her thus far, including the love and high expectations of her parents — “I came from a supportive environment where any barriers to my success resided primarily with me.”

Photo credit: Sophia Findlay       Mary Anne Chambers speaking at the gala celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Jamaican Canadian Association and Jamaica's Independence

The book launch will take place on Thursday, October 20, 6:00-8:00 p.m. at Blackhurst Cultural Centre, 777 Bathurst Street in Toronto, Canada. The author will be in conversation with veteran journalist Ron Fanfair.

 

Jamaicans in Canada Celebrate 60th Anniversary of Independence in Different Ways

By Neil Armstrong

Photo credit: Sophia Findlay    JCA past presidents Adaoma Patterson and Herman Stewart present a plaque with photos of the three buildings owned by the organization over its 60-year history to active founding members Amy Nelson, Pam Powell, Roy Williams and Bernice Bailey. Missing is Beryl Nugent

Activities in Toronto celebrating Jamaica’s diamond jubilee of independence kicked off on the eve of Emancipation Day and will continue well into the fall. 

 

In the days leading up to August 6 — Independence Day — there were several flag raising ceremonies, a church service, a cultural festival, a jerk food festival, and the illumination of some sites in the Greater Golden Horseshoe metropolitan region, which includes the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, and Niagara Falls.

 

On July 31, the Jamaican Canadian Association held its Jamaica 60^th Anniversary flag raising ceremony at Toronto City Hall followed by a church service at Faith Sanctuary on Jane Street. It included various members of the clergy as well as performances by the Heritage Singers, Revivaltime Tabernacle Men’s Choir, and others. The last day of July was also the date of JAMBANA One World Festival in Brampton that celebrated the life of its co-founder, Denise Jones, and included her induction, posthumously, into the Brampton Arts Walk of Fame.

Dancers of Dance Caribe Performing Company at JAMBANA One World Festival in Garden Square, Brampton, Ontario

 

From August 1 to 8, a group visited Jamaica for what was dubbed the Jamaican Canadian Association Homecoming 60^th Anniversary of Independence trip to Ocean Coral Spring Resort in Trelawny. 

 

There were more flag raising ceremonies in the following cities: Markham (Aug.4), Oshawa (Aug. 5), Mississauga (Aug. 5), London (Aug. 5), Brampton (Aug. 6), and Hamilton (Aug. 7).

Lincoln Downer, Jamaica's consul general at the flag raising ceremony in Brampton, Ontario

Raising of the Jamaican flag at Ken Whillans Square outside Brampton City Hall

Hyacinth Lindo and Marjorie Taylor of the United Achievers' Club of Brampton at the flag raising ceremony

 

In Brampton, mayor Patrick Brown, former councillor and new member of provincial parliament Charmaine Williams, who is also the associate minister of women’s social and economic opportunity, and Jamaica’s consul general at Toronto, Lincoln Downer, were also in attendance. Organized by United Achievers’ Club of Brampton, it involved speeches and performances. Peel District School Board trustee, Kathy McDonald, who is one of the recipients of this year’s Community Service Award from the Jamaican Canadian Association, was the emcee. 

Consul general Lincoln Downer and Fred Eisenberger, mayor of Hamilton

Lincoln Downer and Fred Eisenberger after cutting the Jamaica 60 cake

The Jamaica 60 cake

Jamaica 60 cupcakes

Fabian Coverley, co-executor of the Estate of Louise Bennett-Coverley 'Miss Lou'

Fabian Coverley and Doreen Watson, secretary of Jamaica Foundation (Hamilton)

Fabian Coverley and Tania Hernandez outside Hamilton City Hall

Tania 'Miss Tania Lou' Hernandez leads the kids in the "Ring Ding" program during the  Jamaica 60 flag raising ceremony in Hamilton, Ontario

Tania Hernandez 'Miss Tania Lou'

Pamela Appelt and Mary Bishop at the Jamaica 60th anniversary of independence flag raising ceremony at Hamilton City Hall

 

Hamilton included in its flag raising event a re-enactment of “Ring Ding,” a popular television children’s show of the late Louise Bennett-Coverley ‘Miss Lou.’ Tania Hernandez (Miss Tania Lou) led the kids in the celebration of various aspects of Jamaica’s culture. The event was organized by the Jamaica Foundation Hamilton.

Photo credit: Sophia Findlay   Niagara Falls illuminated on August 6 to celebrate Jamaica's 60th anniversary of independence followed by a celebration of Bolivia's independence

 

The iconic Niagara Falls was illuminated to celebrate Jamaica’s 60^th anniversary of independence. Some Jamaicans who attended said they were disappointed that the Falls did not display the black, green and gold colours of Jamaica’s flag but instead showcased the colours of Bolivia’s flag to celebrate that country’s independence. However, the Jamaica Tourist Board, which co-hosted the event with the Consulate General of Jamaica Toronto, begs to differ.

 

“Although not as prominent as anticipated, the colours of the Jamaican flag were illuminated as scheduled between 10pm -10:15 pm.  Black, yellow and green lights appeared on the Falls although the mist covered the black illumination,” says the Jamaica Tourist Board through its public relations agency, Fever Pitch Marketing Communications Inc.

In an email, it said, “Red and green lights cross to create yellow. The excess red created a red shadow in front of where the black appeared. 

“Landmarks across the country were illuminated in celebration of Jamaica 60, including the Edmonton High Level Tower, Ottawa’s ByWard Market, Vancouver’s Burrard Bridge and Halifax City Hall. In addition to our Jamaica 60 illumination, the Jamaica Tourist Board hosted a cocktail reception on August 6 in Niagara Falls with Jamaica’s Consul General.”

 

In an article published in Niagara Falls This Week on August 9, Niagara Parks says, “the Jamaican colours were, indeed, emblazoned on the falls as scheduled and that people may have simply caught the period following that when Bolivia’s colours were shone on the falls.”

 

It was responding to a story in the Jamaica Gleaner published with the headline “Niagara Falls heartbreak as Bolivian colours rankle Jamaican expats.”

 

There was also a lighting of the City Hall of Mississauga in the colours of the Jamaican flag on August 6.

Sandra Whiting, recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award, and Kathy McDonald, recipient of a Community Service Award

Nadine Spencer, Marcia Brown and Sandra Whiting 

Audrey Campbell, Adaoma Patterson and Sophia Findlay

Danae Peart and Elaine Thompson

Itah Sadu and Marcia Brown

Sophia Findlay and Marie Clarke Walker

Danae Peart, Neil Armstrong, Nick Dawkins and Sophia Findlay

Photo credit: Sophia Findlay        Chris Campbell and Neil Armstrong

 

The signature Jamaican Canadian Association 60^th Annual Jamaica Independence and Anniversary Gala was held on August 13 with a keynote speech by Dr. Mary Anne Chambers, former Ontario member of provincial parliament, government minister, new chancellor of the University of Guelph, and new author of her memoir, From the Heart: Family. Community. Service.

 

Awards were presented to several community members, including: Eunice Graham, Francella Moore, Bruce McDonald and Sandra Whiting who received a Lifetime Achievement Award for 35 years of continuous service; Wilbert Johnson for 25 years of continuous service; Michelle Davis received the President’s Award; Hyacinth Wilson, the Volunteer of the Year Award, and Andria Babbington, Camille Hannays-King, Kathy McDonald, and yours truly received the Community Service Award.

 

The annual Jerkfest Toronto was held from August 5-7 and on August 13 and 14 there were screenings of Roy T. Anderson’s documentary film, African Redemption: The Life and Legacy of Marcus Garvey, in Brampton and Toronto respectively. Both viewings were hosted by the Kiwanis Club of Toronto Caribbean. The Jamaica Foundation Hamilton held its Thanksgiving Service in partnership with Pentecostal churches on August 14.

 

Some of the upcoming events include a diamond jubilee cricket match, Jamaica XI vs. Trinidad & Tobago XI at Andrew McCandless Park in Brampton (Aug. 20), Falla Fashun fashion show by Flair Management at the Jamaican Canadian Association (Aug. 21), Sinting Fest on Eglinton West (Aug. 26-28), A Taste of Jamaica (Aug. 27) at the Jamaican Canadian Association, and on October 21, the Jamaica Hamilton Foundation will hold its annual banquet in Hamilton, and the Helping Hands Jamaica Foundation will hold its Jamrock 16^th annual gala in Toronto.

 

On July 28 — a couple days before Toronto’s major Caribbean Carnival took over the city — the Downtown Yonge BIA held the launch of the exhibit, Rhythms and Resistance: Caribbean Music in Toronto, curated by Klive Walker and Nicholas Jennings at Friar’s Music Museum on the second floor of Shoppers Drug Mart near Yonge-Dundas Square.

 

The exhibition documents the history of Black and Caribbean musicians, musicologists, media, venues and events who have contributed significantly to the development of Caribbean music and resistance in the city.

 

Check out Jamaica60to.com to see the events and to learn more about the Jamaica 60 Toronto 35 Change Makers who are highlighted on the site as being among “the most influential and impactful next-generation and senior leaders of Jamaican heritage in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area.” 

 

Congratulations to them!

 

Trinidad & Tobago celebrates its 60^th anniversary of independence on August 31 and there are several events happening in the Greater Toronto Area to recognize that historic moment.