When Ronique Gillis walks the streets of London, Ont., she's struck, not so much by what she sees, but by what's invisible.
Ronique Gillis (Submitted)
"When I wander downtown, I think about how some of these places once belonged to Black Londoners as Black businesses or households," said Gillis, MLIS'22, a PhD candidate in the art and visual culture program in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities.
She thinks of Alfred T. Jones, a successful Black business owner whose apothecary sat on the corner of Dundas and Ridout Streets, across from the courthouse in the 1850s. His brother, A.B. Jones, owned a dry goods store further down Dundas close to Talbot Street. However, unlike the courthouse and other colonial buildings, there are no photographs or archival reminders of their presence.
"The erasure is shocking to me," she said.
It's a reality she's helping to address as a graduate research assistant working on The Black Londoners Project (BLP), a digital, interactive archive that recovers the histories of formerly enslaved individuals who fled the U.S. and settled in London, Ont. in the mid-19th century.
English studies professors Miranda Green-Barteet and Alyssa MacLean conceived the idea of the site, inspired by the oral testimonies of 16 freedom seekers, who shared their stories with Benjamin Drew, a white author from Boston, Mass., who had ties to the abolitionist community. Drew presents their accounts in his book A North-Side View of Slavery; The Refugee: or the Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada.
Using ArcGIS Story Maps, a cloud-based mapping and analysis tool, to combine Drew's narrative text with images, maps and media, the BLP charts where these new Londoners originally lived, tracing their relationships to each other and the rest of the city.
As part of Green-Barteet and MacLean's BLP team, Gillis works alongside David Mitterauer, a PhD candidate in English and writing studies, Patrick Kinghan, a public historian and PhD candidate in the Faculty of Education and Lizzy Hinds-Hueglin, a research associate in the department of English and writing studies.
The Black Londoners Project team. (L to R) Principal investigators Miranda Green-Barteet and Alyssa MacLean, Patrick Kinghan, Ronique Gillis, David Mitterauer and Lizzy Hinds-Hueglin. (Submitted)
Filling a gap in public memory
As Canada recognizes Emancipation Day on Aug. 1, Gillis and Hinds-Hueglin mark it as members of Black communities and as scholars recognizing Black history every day of the year.
Hinds-Hueglin, whose master's research focused on the erasure of early Black Canadian communities in public forms of memory, said the Black Londoners Project fills a gap in London's historical record.
Lizzy Hinds-Hueglin (Submitted)
"London's memory of Black history is very limited. Black presences were very much in existence in the early 19th century," she said.
The team is bringing that presence to life through a Black geographies lens, which explores the spatial dimensions of Black life, focusing on how race, place and power interconnect.
"We're centring Black voices and stories, sharing how Black people have engaged with spaces in London and given them meaning, amidst the historical and cultural complexities of erasure," she said.
Their approach counters dominant mappings and narratives of London's history. It also challenges the perpetual perception of Canada as an anti-racist haven for formerly enslaved Black persons arriving via the Underground Railroad during the early 19th century.
For example, Alfred Jones tells Drew about the "second-hand prejudice" he experienced, while another interviewee describes the racist remarks he endured while attending a predominantly white church.
"It's been eye-opening to find instances where London was definitely not a racial utopia," Hinds-Hueglin said. "There was a lot of anti-Black racism. Black Londoners would have to defend their presence here, when a white dominant society was not responding in an acceptable way."
Anonymity and agency: Giving voice to Black women freedom seekers in London, Ont.
One goal of the Black Londoners Project is to raise the voices of the Black women whose experiences in London, Ont. were shaped by gender, anonymity, racial prejudice and resistance.
To date, uploaded narratives on the BLP site include those of Margaret Henderson, born enslaved because her mother was enslaved; Mrs. Brown, who kept a boarding-house for Black refugees; and an 80-year-old known simply as An Old Woman, who instructed Drew to redact her name from her story.
My name is – – – but you must not tell it, for I have children at the South, who would be eaten up if their masters knew." -"An Old Woman," 1856, Benjamin Drew's The Refugee
Gillis finds accounts from the women the most moving of all those recorded by Drew.
"They tell stories in a way that speaks to their own lived experiences and those of their families and children, sharing the gritty details of their previous lives as enslaved people in America," she said.
The women's narratives will soon come to life through audio recordings, spoken by members of London's Black Heritage Council.
"This addition really gives literal voice to the women, providing extra weight to what is written," Gillis said.
"Black Londoners' early presence shaped the city's landscape through their individual and family identities, their place making, community-building and religious activity." -Lizzy Hinds-Hueglin, research associate, The Black Londoners Project
Sharing London, Ont.'s early Black history in the community, schools
One satisfying aspect of Hinds-Hueglin and Gillis' work on the project is disseminating the knowledge within the London community. The research team recently shared its findings during Emancipation Day celebrations at Fanshawe Pioneer Village on July 27.
They also visit classrooms and share lesson plans they created for educators teaching the Grade 12 course Deconstructing Anti-Black Racism in the North American Context.
As part of the lesson guide, students are prompted to explore The Black Londoners Project Dashboard, an interactive map tracing life events of the 16 Black Londoners. Teachers can also lead customized walking tours through the city, choosing sites from the map.
"Our lessons encourage students to engage with London's Black history in a way that's both interactive and reflective," Hinds-Hueglin said.
Hilary Kingsley, an education specialist at the Thames Valley District School Board, said teachers appreciate the resources and knowledge they can access through the project.
"The lessons and the walking tour expose students to the Black history of London in a way teachers have never experienced before. Teachers tell me it is the only interactive resource available that clearly illustrates the city's Black history. They are excited to utilize it in their classrooms to bring the curriculum to life," Kingsley said.
The Black Londoners Project team believes this type of community-engaged learning will help foster future expressions of allyship and promote a reclaiming of Black community identity. In turn, it will deconstruct and counter current public memory and cultural heritage.
As Gillis explains, "These folks owned businesses, they built Black churches and developed communities. They had lives here that were about more than just being a freedom seeker trying to settle in a new environment.
"This project really spotlights their contributions, not only to the Black community, but to the London community."
