Brucex28%20RGB_4 NOVA SCOTIA NDP Majority Government REFUSES- Inquiry into rampant Paedophile Child Abuse in NS School 4 Coloured Children- black on black abuse - it's time
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Is Child Pornography Widespread on Cruise Ships?
Posted on June 7, 2013 by Jim Walker
Last week we reported on an arrest of a Holland American Line (HAL) crew member from the Veendam cruise ship on charges of possessing and importing images of child pornography.
I mentioned that the arrest was one of six arrests of crew members for child pornography in the port of Halifax Canada alone. The arrests involved crew members from a wide variety of cruise ships, including the Cunard Queen Mary 2, Carnival Glory, Carnival Triumph, Costa Atlantica, Norwegian Jewel, and HAL Veendam.
Cruise Ship Child PornographyBut these incidents are just a small percentage of the total number of crew members arrested by the Canadian authorities for possessing child pornography on cruise ships entering ports in Canada.
A spokesperson for the Canada Border Service Agency stated that there have been fifty-six (56) seizures of child pornography from ships in Canadian ports from 2009 - 2012:
2012: 6 seizures of child porn.
2011: 17 seizures of child porn.
2010: 14 seizures of child porn.
2009: 19 seizures of child porn.
We have reported on child pornographers and child predators in many other articles, including some very disturbing cases like this crew member on a Celebrity cruise ship.
Yes, there are perverts everywhere, but few parents who cruise realize that the problem exists on cruise ships as well. Unfortunately, Canada is the only country where the customs and border authorities are serious about searching crew member computers and putting the perverts in jail. http://www.cruiselawnews.com/tags/children/
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69 DAYS??? PAEDOPHILE??? 69 Days??? Jailtime- over 70 porn on young boys???
Ex-cruise ship worker jailed on child por n charges
STEVE BRUCE COURT REPORTER
sbr uce@herald.ca @CH_cour ts
A former cruis e ship enter tainer has been sentenced to 69 days in jail on child pornography charges.
Sean Richard Bell, 37, of Morden, Man., was arrested in Halifax on June 3 after Canada Border Services agents conducted a routine inspection of his cabin on the Veendam, a Holland America Line vessel.
The search turned up an external hard drive that contained about 70 videos of child pornography featuring teenage boys.
Bell, who was a piano player on the ship but has since lost his job, pleaded guilty Wednesday in Halifax provincial court to a Criminal Code charge of possessing child pornography and a Customs Act charge of smuggling prohibited goods.
Judge Michael Sherar endorsed a joint recommendation from Crown and defence lawyers and imposed a sentence of 90 days in jail less 21 days credit for the time Bell spent on remand before he p osted cash bail.
Bell will be on probation for one year after he gets out of the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility in Dartmouth, with a condition that he receive therapy to address his underlying issu es.
The judge also ordered Bell to register as a sex offender for 10 years and provide a DNA sample for a national data bank.
Bell apologized to the court for his actions. He waved at a woman in the gallery as sheriff ’s deputies led him away to begin serving his s entence.
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F***KING PAEDOPHILES- these monsters need 2 be kept away from kids and we need 2 see and know who and where they slither...
NOVA SCOTIA
Pedophile released to halfway house
A convicted pedophile from Dartmouth will get a statuatory release to a halfway hous e under a numb er o f conditions.
Arthur Stanley Gallant, 42, has no leave privileges and can’t be around children 16 and younger without supervision, according to a National Parole Board decision this month. He must report all intimate relationships, is prohibited from accessing cameras, can’t use a computer, can’t drink alcohol or use drugs and must take counselling and drug treatment.
In 2003, he received an eightyear sentence for sexual assault, sexual touching and making and possessing child pornography.
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NOVA SCOTIA HOME 4 COLOURED CHILDREN - BLACK ON BLACK CHILD ABUSE BEING COVERED UP- still by NDP MAJORITY GOV WHO REFUSE AN INQUIRY.... damm it.... rise up women - 1 Billion rising- Breaking the Chains....
I... M-A-T-T-E-R
Tessie Brooks Ex-Home for Colored Children resident
Former Home for Colored Children residents reject panel proposal
AARON BESWICK TRURO BUREAU
abeswick@herald.ca @CH_ABeswick
A panel won’t heal Tessie Brooks.
She says it won’t erase the memories of an employee at the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children who she alleges repeatedly sexually assaulted her during her stay there as a teenager.
The panel charged by the provincial government with looking into the allegations of decades of physical and sexual abuse at the former Dartmouth orphanage won’t have the legal authority to subpoena witnesses.
It won’t give Brooks her youth back or change the decade of prostitution in Montreal that she said followed her after b eing kicked out of the home when she was 16.
So she and other members of Voices, a group representing former residents of the home, are in Truro this week plotting their strategy to make their demands for a public inquiry come to fruition .
The second reunion of residents, being held at an undisclosed location, brought 30 to Truro and seventeen to picket Truro-Bible Hill MLA Lenore Zann’s office.
“It could have been your child, and it could be again," chanted one of the picketers.
Brooks, now 45, repeated the chant before saying that she can’t heal until she gets justice.
The employee who she claims abused her hasn’t been charged by the RCMP. She said they told her there wasn’t enough evidence.
“But we’re not backing down because we can’t heal without justice," said Brooks.
Zann , who was on her way to a caucus meeting in Halifax when the protest occurred, said during an interview later Wednesday that she turned around and headed back to Truro but arrived too late to meet with the picketers.
“I feel really bad that I couldn’t meet with them," said Zann.
“The school was a terrible blight on the province’s history, and I hop e the truth comes out in whatever fashion it takes."
However, she declined to say whether the truth should be s ought via a panel, as the NDP government has advocated, or through a public inquiry, as demanded by Voices.
“I’m not a lawyer, not an expert on this," said Zann.
The picket closed Wednesday with a prayer led by Voices organizer Tracey Dorrington-Skinner, who said the former residents would also spend the week talking about healing and sharing information on services available to them .
“We can’t force a public inquiry on the provincial government," said Dorrington-Skinner.
“But we can’t have closure without healing, and to get them we need justice. A panel isn’t enough. We will keep the pressure up until our voices are heard."
We’re not backing down because we can’t heal without justice.
Tessie Brooks Ex-Home for Colored Children resident
PHOTO
Former residents of the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children picketed Truro-Bible Hill MLA Lenore Zann’s office in Truro on Wednesday. They want a public inquiry into the abuses residents suffered at the institutional school. AARON BESWICK • Staff
http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/1150449-former-home-for-colored-children-residents-rally-for-inquiry
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NOVA SCOTIA HOME 4 COLOURED CHILDREN- WHERE'S OUR INQUIRY???- elections Nova Scotia are coming.... we will remember....
BLACK ON BLACK CHILD ABUSE- inquiry nova scotia home 4 coloured children
Officials at former Nova Scotia orphanage support inquiry into alleged abuse
Officials with a former orphanage in Nova Scotia say they support a provincial inquiry into allegations of child abuse by ex-staff members.
Some former residents of the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children allege they suffered horrific abuse at the home. As a proposed class action lawsuit makes its way through the courts, Nova Scotia opposition parties have been calling for a public inquiry into the allegations.
"We are very disturbed by the nature of the allegations of abuse being made against several of our former staff members and deeply saddened at the possibility that children who were placed in care at the Home may have suffered abuse at the hands of former staff," board of directors chair Sylvia Parris said in a statement Monday. "If anybody associated with the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children abused children while in our care, we hope and expect that they will be brought to justice. To that end, we have no objection if the Nova Scotia government decides to hold a public inquiry into these serious allegations, so long as it does not impede or delay the prosecution of these serious criminal charges, or the disposition of the civil lawsuits filed against the Home."
Executive director Veronica Marsman said that the home "follows rigorous standards" for hiring and safety and has a "zero-tolerance policy for abuse of any kind."
The Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children opened in 1921 in Dartmouth as an orphanage for the province's black children, but it has since become a residential centre for children of all races, according to the website.
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BLACK ON BLACK CHILD ABUSE- HORRIBLE CHILD ABUSE- NOVA SCOTIA HOME 4 COLOURED CHILDREN- NOVA SCOTIA
The Home for Coloured Children: Time to Muzzle the Lawyers
by Stephen Kimber on June 17, 2013 | 2 Comments
METRO LOGO GREEN
For the lawyers, of course, it is about protecting the client, lessening liability, mitigating damages. In that context, perhaps, it makes lawyer sense to niggle over nouns, to parse phrases like “as if we were slaves” for literality, to offer up a bookkeeper’s balance sheet to contradict allegations of underfunding, to use all the lawyers’ tricks try to make a legal action go away.
But the class action lawsuit by more than 150 former residents of the Nova Scotia Home for Coloured Children is more than a legal matter.
It is a cry for justice, for an acknowledgement — and apology — for five decades of systemic and systematic physical, sexual and emotional abuse of vulnerable children under the unwatchful eye of a series of governments, whose blindness seems willful and, too often, racist.
You’d think Darrell Dexter’s NDP government would appreciate that distinction. The abuse did not happen under its watch, and the NDP has a long and honourable tradition of supporting victims like those at the Home for Coloured Children.
But it is now government, and that, it seems, changes everything.
Last week, lawyers for the Dexter government were in court arguing, in a bureaucratic, tone-deaf, legally proper but morally questionable way, to exclude parts of the complainants’ affidavits because they did not meet certain legal criteria.
As former NDP MP Gordon Earle, who quit the party over this issue, put it: while residents seek “justice and accountability… the government is taking every possible step to prevent the matter from achieving justice through the court system or achieving a full, credible and transparent examination through a public inquiry.”
There will almost certainly come a time when a Nova Scotia government, either as part of a legal settlement or to avoid a messy judicial outcome, will do the right thing and apologize to the former residents. Witness Stephen Harper’s 2008 apology for Canada’s brutal Indian residential school system, Brian Mulroney’s “formal and sincere” 1988 apology to Japanese-Canadians interned during World War II and Peter Kelly’s 2010 apology to the former residents of Africville “for what they have endured.”
By then, however, the gesture will seem inadequate and insincere. The lawyers will have won. Justice will have lost. Pity.http://stephenkimber.com/2013/06/the-home-for-coloured-children-time-to-muzzle-the-lawyers
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NOVA SCOTIA HOME 4 COLOURED CHILDREN- nova scotia
History
The opening of the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children in 1921 was described as “the greatest event in the history of the colored people of Nova Scotia” .
On June 6th, 1921, a 3/4 mile parade of dignitaries and a crowd of 3000 spectators heralded the opening of the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children. This was the largest gathering of Blacks since the arrival of the Loyalists to the Province in 1783.
From the onset, it was the leadership and dedication of Mr. James A. Ross Kinney, Manager and Secretary Treasurer and Mr. Henry G. Bauld, President, which sustained the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children for the first 21 years of its early existence.
After ten years of operating, the Board of Directors was forced to launch its first Annual Broadcast for Funds in 1931. A positive response from the government, African United Baptist Association (AUBA) churches, local residents and other community wide supporters met this challenge. The transition from radio to television lives on today in the form of a Christmas telethon, on EastLink Television.
Although the dream of an educational institute for Black students by Lawyer James R. Johnston, never materialized, the on-site Henry G. Bauld Elementary School filled this void. This two-room school house offered such studies as K-9, industrial arts and domestic science to residents and neighbouring students alike. The school played a major role in the lives of teachers of segregated schools throughout the province, many of whom taught their first classes at this location.
The former school house is now used as a meeting place for local community groups.
In later years, under the guidance of Dr. Melville Cumming, President, aka “Mr. Agriculture”, the Home prospered as a commercial farming outlet and placement centre for agricultural students, who worked the fields along side of the older residents.
As contemporaries, Mr. Noel Johnston, Industrial Arts teacher and Mr. J. A. R. Kinney, Jr., co-founded the George Washington Carver Credit Union, a Black owned financial institution on the site of the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children property.
It was the inspiration of Dr. Rev. W. P. Oliver, Board Member, which gave rise to the Black Cultural Centre of Nova Scotia, which was constructed on the Home’s property in 1983.
Since 1983, the Home has leased property to the Watershed Association Development Enterprises (WADE), a Black community development group.
A completely restored superintendent’s cottage has been leased to a local family on a long-term basis.
As society changed throughout North America, the mandate of the Home shifted in accordance. The two world wars, the American civil rights movement, the closure of large orphanages and the desegregation of schools all contributed to the closure of the Old Orphanage building.
Since 1978, operating from two modern residential centres, the Home serves a co- ed clientele (30 in the outset) base of twelve youths, 12 to 16 years of age, the majority of whom are non-Black. Since the child care institutions of today are open to persons of all racial origins, there is a smaller population at the Home, although the inpiduals needs have not decreased.
In 1985, the Rev. Dr. Donald E. Fairfax Chapel was dedicated to commemorate the inspirational work of this inpidual, on behalf of the Home, over a 35 year period.
In 1994, Mr. Charles R. Saunders, local Daily News columnist, wrote Share & Care: the Story of the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children, chronicling the compelling history of this great institution; a book that was marketed throughout the local book stores and libraries.
On October 17th & 18th, 1996, the Home celebrated its 75th Anniversary and sponsored the “Black Family Focus: Year 2000”, a conference featuring guest speaker Dr. Clifton Davis, acclaimed movie, stage and television actor.
As we moved towards the new millennium, Y2K (Year 2000), the Home had embarked upon several strategic plans to determine its future direction. Respondents have asked the Home to do outreach work with non-residents in the community in a preventative manner and to preserve the dignity of the family structure. To meet this need, the Home will expand on its current programs, moving towards the creation of a full child, youth and family service centre. This historical landsite will host the new facility with existing Black organizations to respond to community issues from an Afrocentric perspective.
In 2005, the Provincial Government of Nova Scotia has embarked upon an extensive study of its Child Welfare Services, with a view to redesign the existing programs and facilities.
Since the addition of the Cumming Annex section to the Old Home building had deteriorated beyond repair, it became necessary to demolish the extended portions of this facility. At this point, we are planning to salvage the main structure itself and renovate it into a Well Seniors Centre.
Overall, we see a significant role for a revitalized and energetic Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children, as the setting for a Centre of Excellence for the entire African Nova Scotian community.
Timeline
1908 - Lawyer James R. Johnston presented a proposal to the African United Baptist Association (AUBA) to establish a Normal & Industrial Institute for Colored Children.
1915 - The Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children (NSHCC) was incorporated.
1915 - Mr. James Ross Kinney served as the first Superintend, 1915 – 1940.
1915 - Henry Gibson Bauld was elected as the first president for the board of directors, 1915 – 1948.
1917 - Halifax Explosion demolished the original NSHCC building.
1921 - The NSHCC officially opened on June 6, 1921.
1931 - The 1st Annual Broadcast for Funds airs on radio.
1940 - James A. Ross Kinney, Jr. became superintendent following the death of his father.
1948 - Dr. Melville Cummings succeeded H. G. Bauld as president, and served from 1948 – 1966.
1950 - The George Washington Carver Credit Union was built on the NSHCC property.
1973 - Robert Butler was hired as the first executive director.
1978 - Two new group homes are opened on September 16, 1978.
1979 - The employees staged a forty day strike.
1979 - Mrs. Jane Earle, a social worker, was hired as interim executive director.
1980 - Wilfred A. Jackson was hired as executive director, 1980 – 2005.
1982 - The first collective agreement was signed.
1983 - The Watershed Association Development Enterprise (WADE) has been a tenant of the NSHCC since March of 1983.
1983 - The Black Cultural Centre of Nova Scotia opened on NSHCC property on September 17, 1983.
1983 - The former Superintendents Cottage is rented to local families, following major renovations and upgrades.
1985 - An outdoor basketball court was built at the NSHCC.
1990 - After several restoration contracts the original Henry Gibson Bauld Elementary School has been reopened as a community meeting centre.
1994 - The book Share & Care: the Story of the NSHCC is launched by Charles Saunders.
1996 - The Home’s conference entitled Black Family Focus: Year
2000 was held at the Halifax Westin Hotel during its 75th anniversary and featured actor, Rev. Clifton Davis as the banquet speaker.
1996 - The Prime Minister of Canada, Jean Chrétien, writes to the Home on its 75th anniversary praising the Home for adding “to the quality of life of the nation’s young people.”
1998 - In a partnership agreement with the HRM Department of Recreation, a fenced regulation sized baseball field was constructed on the Home’s property.
2000 - State-of-Art Computer Lab facility is established for residents.
2004 - The Home receives the Trail Blazer Award by the Preston Area Board of Trade.
2011 - The NSHCC launched the Akoma Family Centre. Akoma is a short term residential facility for sibling groups ages 0-19 years of agehttp://www.nshcc.ca/history/
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AND...... IT TOOK 2 WHOLE YEARS 4 REHTAEH.... 2 years..... and all the folks who r suffering.... we must do better... please
Mercy for mentally ill begins at grave
August 9, 2013 - 4:56pm By DAN LETT
http://thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/1146853-mercy-for-mentally-ill-begins-at-grave
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HOPE in Kentville
Participants in the Healthy Options Preparing for Employment program. Submitted
Published on August 23, 2013
Topics : Community INC , Healthy Options Preparing for Employment , Wellness Initiative Fund , Kentville , Western Kings , East Annapolis
Submitted by Beth Easson
On May 16, Community INC partnered with the Town of Kentville for a 12-week program called H.O.P.E.: Healthy Options Preparing for Employment. Community INC is a non-profit organization that provides specialized employment services to persons with disabilities in Kings and East Annapolis. In April, Community INC was awarded a Wellness Initiative Fund grant, and through the generous support of the Central Kings, Eastern Kings , Western Kings and Kingston/Greenwood Community Health Boards, the H.O.P.E. program became a reality.
The goal of the program is to encourage persons with disabilities to move more, so that as they prepare to get back to or begin work, they would be more energetic and active. In recent years the Heart and Stroke Foundation created the Move More program, which was similar in content to what the H.O.P.E was to be, which is when the Town of Kentville was asked to partner. Kentville’s active living co-ordinator, Nicole Lutz, a Move More facilitator, was the perfect person to assist in this program The town also donated the use of the recreation facility to host the programs on Thursday afternoons. The program included presentations from physiotherapists, community recreation staff and a dietitian. Facilitation assistance was given from Ann MacDonald. During the first week of the program, new sneakers were given to participants, overcoming one of the main barriers to physical activity. Special thanks to the staff of Cleves, New Minas and Greenwood, for their assistance. Participants were given pedometers and water bottles from the Department of Health and Wellness. All were encouraged to become members of the Heart and Stroke Walk About online program. Having the pedometers encouraged participants to become more active. All activities included in the program were chosen by the participants - Zumba to Nordic walking to indoor curling to ring toss – and all movements were logged, and celebrated. The program materials included talking about the barriers, stresses and myths about physical activities. Participants were more energetic, confident and had an increased awareness of their activity levels. During the closing week, participants enjoyed a hike near the Kentville Research Station and enjoyed a healthy snack of foods many had never tried. Certificates were given, as well participants were presented with new lunch bags, so that when employment begins they have something they can pack a healthy lunch in.
Twelve participants began the program, five successfully completed the program, two participants found employment, and one was accepted into a training opportunity. There was wonderful feedback given to the facilitators during the program, which will by put into place as we begin a fall H.O.P.E session, this time with the primary financial support given through the Regional Development Grant Program from the Department of Health and Wellness. Community INC is very appreciative of the grant funding received and for the town’s support. Together as an inclusive community H.O.P.E can be shared.
http://www.kingscountynews.ca/Community/2013-08-22/article-3360191/HOPE-in-Kentville/1
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NOVA SCOTIA
CLARKE: Tattrie tangles with difficult hero
August 24, 2013 - 9:56am By GEORGE ELLIOTT CLARKE
The Hermit of Africville: The Life of Eddie Carvery Jon Tattrie Pottersfield Press, $20
In the wake of the passing, last month, of Burnley (Rocky) Jones, the superb human rights champion and civil rights lawyer, I knew I could no longer neglect to read Jon Tattrie’s The Hermit of Africville: The Life of Eddie Carvery. Carvery was one of the many who worked with Jones and one of the very few to put public protest to personal test.
Published in 2010, Tattrie’s chronicle underlines the multi-generational social and familial dislocation that occurred through the City of Halifax’s Africville relocation program from 1964 to 1970. The program razed a historic African-Nova Scotian community and trucked most of its former homeowners into municipal rental units or into actual, downtown slum housing.
Far from being a benign effort to support racial integration and social uplift goals, the so-called Relocation was, “as Rocky saw it,” the result of a “race struggle” that mandated Africville’s “destruction.”
In Tattrie’s own words, “Africville was … beaten to death.”
But the most eloquent testimony about the history of Africville is that of the persistent protester, Carvery, who has spent the last 45 years fighting for apologies, the reconstruction of the Seaview Baptist Church, compensation or reparations for the former residents and descendants, as well as a public inquiry into the razing of the local community.
“They couldn’t give us pavement, but they could give us a dump. They couldn’t give us sewage, but we had to receive their sewage. We got evicted. It’s a vicious cycle of racism, what they did to us in Africville.”
And Carvery concludes: “I’m still in Africville. Right today, anybody driving by will see my little caravan of freedom fighters, fighting for what we all should be fighting for.”
Carvery emerges as a heroic figure despite himself. He has been an addict, a prison inmate, and violent to his lovers and dangerous to his children. Describing his subject in the 1970s, Tattrie says, with a daub of yellow journalism and a dash of purple prose, “Carvery was a human dump, a walking infectious diseases hospital, a bone prison for one.”
In short, for Carvery, the “Relocation” was a descent into hell, while his personal salvation has been his dedication to protesting iniquity and inequity enough to help win a painfully slow-in-coming apology and partial restitution from the city.
Tattrie’s writing style is colourful, and each chapter in Carvery’s saga, based on interviews and some research, is essentially a human interest, J-school story. Even so, Carvery’s flamboyant talk shines through.
Not surprisingly, Rocky Jones makes vital appearances in the text, describing black history in Nova Scotia and even helping dig Carvery free of a 2004 blizzard that had swamped his camper.
It was quite moving then to see Carvery at Jones’s visitation three weeks ago: One fighter mourning another, as the struggle for justice and equality continues.
One wonders what Halifax might look like now and how socio-economic integration might have been assisted if, rather than being bulldozed down, Africville had been valued as a culturally unique and vibrant African-heritage enclave, with proud homeowners occupying prize real estate along the shores of Bedford Basin.
It could have become a tourism must-see as a bucolic Harlem, or as a black adjunct to the city’s Hydrostone district, or as an African-Nova Scotian version of Peggys Cove.
But such visions require visionaries. Nigh the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s Dream speech, “now is the time” to revisit the planning of Africville as a once-and-future city estate.http://thechronicleherald.ca/books/1149808-clarke-tattrie-tangles-with-difficult-hero
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Africville: Canada's Secret Racist History
Racism in Halifax and Eddie Carvery's Ongoing 44 Year Protest for Justice
By Noah Tavlin
An archival shot of Africville.
Canada just loves to brag about how from 1840-1860, before the American Civil War, Nova Scotia was the last stop on the underground railroad. We even had national television propaganda showing happy slaves popping out of furniture and finding a new life in the Great White North. But not everyone knows what a shitty time some former African American slaves and their decendents had on the east coast. Not everyone knows about Africville.
Africville was a poor, black neighborhood in the North End of Halifax that was systematically destroyed by the city. The local government never provided Africville with basic amenities and services—such as water, electricity and snow plowing—and that continued up until the point the neighbourhood was demolished in 1964. Since the 1917 Halifax explosion, Halifax wanted to redevelop Africville for industry, which meant kicking out the poor, black people living in Africville. The city finally made their dreams come true. Despite the resilience of the locals, the city continued to do shitty things like building a hospital for diseased World War II soldiers, full of contagious viruses, nearby. After that, they put up a toxic waste dump. Their plan eventually worked and eventually drove residents right out of the area. What has happened since, is Eddie Carvery and his protest.
Eddie Carvery is a former resident of the area, and he’s still protesting all of this crazy injustice. He told me the whole terrible and depressing story, and about his ongoing protest, on a cold Friday over the phone from his unheated trailer that has “Africville Protest” painted in big, red letters on its sides, parked three feet from the Bedford Basin, the former site of Africville. Today the land is a container pier, a bridge, some highways, some railroad track, and a park. Half a century ago, it was a bustling community.
Eddie in front of his protest trailer.
Eddie remembers: “The hospital would just dump their raw garbage on the dump—bloody body parts, blankets, and everything. We were subject to that. And then they would burn this dump every so often. There would be walls of fire and toxic smoke, and we used to run through that fire to get the metals before they melted because we scavenged off the dump. We had to. You had to do that to survive.”
There were also the rats. Eddie estimates about a hundred thousand at any given time. The rat population grew to such a point where, if you came out at night with a flashlight, “It looked like the dump was alive. It looked like a rug.”
When the rats began spreading into the white neighborhoods to the south, the city sent exterminators to douse the dump in rat poison. “We breathed it,” Eddie asserts. “It was in the air, it was on our clothes. Now we're all dying of cancer.”
When a decade of rat-infested toxic dump failed to cause a mass-exodus, Halifax conducted some studies to determine that the area was officially on the books as an uninhabitable slum. Despite outrage from residents, the city began their plan to level the neighborhood and relocate its people into public housing. While before they had owned their homes now, they would be paying rent to the city.
In 1964, after the city gave some compensation to people for their homes, demolition and relocation could begin. Houses were bulldozed with people still inside of them. The church was torn down as well. In 1969, the last resident had relinquished his home and Africville was gone.
“Africville wasn't a hallucination,” Eddie says, “it was a real society within this society. And what they did was a slow genocide. They poisoned us. They forced us out of our homes. They created illiteracy. They're guilty of racism and genocide in the first degree. They're guilty and they know it.”
This brings us to Eddie's protest. For the past 44 years, Eddie has been occupying the park in protest. Canadian history has written Africville out of the books. While it's unclear how much former residents have suffered from the toxins they breathed in while living in Africville, the neighbourhood’s proximity to the toxic dump must have some residual side effects. Despite all of that negativity haunting the area’s history, Eddie appears to be the only voice demanding that Africville not only be remembered, but also restored.
“This didn't happen in some other corner of the world,” Eddie tells me. “This happened in Canada. It happened to Canadian people. No matter what color they are. They are not to be treated like that.”
A map of Africville.
He doesn't picket government buildings or hand out flyers. He just hangs out and tries to stay warm in the winter. Despite it being freezing mid-winter, Eddie is still pretty positive, “It's really cold here, but that's cool! It's a good day to protest!”
After seeing the Civil Rights movement in the United States, and at the suggestion of his concerned mother, Eddie decided to return to Africville–or what was left of it–to clean up his act and demand justice. He has occupied the park ever since.
In its early years, Eddie says that the police would harass him in the middle of the night. He would often return to his camp to find it destroyed. On several occasions, he says, he had to run and hide in the woods at night when Haligonians wearing Nazi insignias shot at him. More recently, the city has seized and “lost” his trailer—twice.
Eddie has stuck it out through it all. However, forty-four years of protest have yielded jack shit for his cause. History has swept Africville under the rug. Even though the mayor issued an official apology a few years ago, there's an Africville commemorative sundial (which actually displays the wrong time) and a replica museum/church (that doesn't actually hold services), no substantial reparations have been made. Basically, every few years, Halifax throws Africville a couple of figurative bones while it continues to feast on the proverbial meat generated by industry.
All of that could change in the near future. Halifax has agreed to hear Eddie's outstanding grievances in court later this spring, but he has low expectations.
“The plaintiffs, us Africvillians going to court, are illiterate. We don't have no money. So I feel like I'm going into a kangaroo court. They know that we're not going to be prepared, and it will just be another vice that the city uses to close the books on what happened to the people in Africville.”
Eddie will demand that former residents receive compensation for losing their homes and their community. He will demand that they receive a cut of the money coming in from the industry. He demands the reconstruction of Africville for its surviving people. He will demand a public inquiry into what effect the dump and the rat poison had on the long-term health of former residents.
If justice is not served, Eddie hopes to mobilize more Africvillians into civil disobedience. However, he adds: “Every time it comes to a confrontation or a showdown, the only one who stands up is me, and everyone else disappears.”
Ultimately, all Eddie wants, and has wanted for the past forty-four years, is for Halifax to right its wrongs. He has no intention to ever abandon the Africville protest.
“I miss the community. I miss the people. We were one people. Wouldn't be nothing to see ten of us in one room at one time. It was a dear, warm spirit. You really felt it when you went into the church. It was a wonderful, warm feeling. Look, it's the most beautiful place in the world. Right here on the Bedford Basin. The sky gives you this sense of freedom. It was where I was born. I wasn't born in the hospital. I was born in Africville. I'm still in Africville.”
Photographs of Eddie by Darrell Oake.
Archival photographs by Bob Brooks, from the Africville Relocation Report.
Special thanks to Jon Tattrie, who put me in touch with Eddie Carvery. He wrote a book about Eddie's life.
Follow Noah on Twitter: @NoahTavlin
More on racism:
The Town that Racism Built
My Dad Told Me a Black Man Would Never Be President
A Bloody and Belated Black History Lesson on Killing Whiteyhttp://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/africville-canadas-secret-racist-history
COMMENT:
http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/society/racism/africville-expropriating-black-nova-scotians/racism-in-halifax.html
Good Doc about it
comment:
I'm from Halifax, I've lived here most of my live. It's shocking that no one else in Canada knows about this, granted. But it's not like there's no information about it out there. There have been documentaries, books, poems and articles being written about this for years.
I've been to where Africville used to be, it's now a dog walking park which is absolutely awful, and I cannot express how angry I have been and am about the injustice of what happened to the residents and their community.
However, I have a number of problems with this article...you're acting like no one has heard about this when, in fact, you've never heard about it. Which is different that no one knowing about it....so first I recommend you do some research, this has been discussed before, it's a shame not more widely, but it has. Also when writing a piece which as much history as this, and as much pain, do more research.
Granted the city of Halifax was beyond shitty, racist, discriminatory and abusive. No, no one has been compensated other than the limited value residents got for their houses.
This article angers me in the sense that, first, you have one persons account of it. Diversify, there are so many stories and accounts of Africville, all just as bad as Eddies, but to have on source, and base a whole rant on that one source is ridiculous.
Also, what do you recommend Halifax does? according to your article you have strong feelings about this, so instead of just ranting what do you propose is the next step?
I can vaguely appreciate your wanting to 'get the word out'...but it's already there, frankly I don't think you know what you're talking about, and I find it pretentious and absurd.
Eddie is also not the only one protesting, so again, do your research....it's offensive to use a quote saying that people from Africville are uneducated, at this point it's there descendants, I know some of them from school, multiple children who lived in Africville have become prominent members on the School Board and I'm almost positive there are many others, educated, holding good positions across the HRM.
And if Halifax is throwing Africville a bone every now and then, what is Canada doing to the Aboriginal community?
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UK- PAEDOPHILE ALERT/PAEDOPHILE ALERT
Nursery Rapist: Repeated Warning Signs Missed
A nursery worker was known by officials to have a "special relationship" with a child he raped but the warning was ignored.
Subsequently, he would use the images to blackmail the children into carrying out sex acts.
"He told the review that within 10 minutes online he could find someone who would do what he wanted them to do and that social networking sites were 'like eBay for teenagers'," the review said.
http://news.sky.com/story/1133670/nursery-rapist-repeated-warning-signs-missed
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