(l-r) Dr. Rachel Zellars, Marcus Marsman, Sylvia Parris-Drummond, and Dr. Lynn Jones at public discussion held last week about reparations for historic and systemic wrongs against African Nova Scotian communities.
A public discussion on reparations for historic and systemic wrongs against African Nova Scotian communities drew a full house to the Halifax North Memorial Public Library on February 5. Saint Mary’s Department of Social Justice & Community Studies hosted the African Heritage Month event, Reparations: Exploring a Basis for a Claim, in partnership with Halifax Public Libraries and the Global African Congress-NS Chapter.
Thanks to “radical community archivist Lynn Jones,” the university has an excellent resource for anyone doing reparations-related research in Nova Scotia, noted Dr. Val Marie Johnson, Chair of the department. The Lynn Jones African-Canadian & Diaspora Heritage Collection is housed in the Saint Mary’s University Archives. It documents the lives of Dr. Jones, her family including brother Dr. Burnley “Rocky” Jones, and more than 50 years of African, African Diasporic and African-Nova Scotian history. Nearly 20 “remarkable boxes” offer archival materials such as news clippings, programs, reports and more.
“As a young girl, I noticed that our stories weren’t being told,” said Jones, explaining why she started snipping articles and collecting artifacts as a child. A passionate champion for reparations, she hopes people will make use of the Collection in developing the case, not just here but across Canada.
The evening began with a presentation by Dr. Rachel Zellars, an assistant professor with Social Justice & Community Studies, who used items from the Collection to illustrate her talk. She asked the panellists to imagine what the case for reparations in Nova Scotia could look like, considering such harms as environmental racism, denial of land ownership, and the historical representation and treatment of Black children.
“At its simplest, reparation means to make amends, offering atonement, giving satisfaction for a wrong or an injury,” she said. “Reparation is about repairing or restoring. It is a formal acknowledgement and apology, and a recognition that the injury continues in the present.”
Joining the conversation were special guests Sylvia Parris-Drummond, CEO of the Delmore Buddy Daye Learning Centre; Carolann Wright-Parks, the Halifax Partnership’s Director of Capacity Building and Strategic Initiatives for African Nova Scotian Communities; and law student Marcus Marsman.
Marsman, whose great grandfather owned property in Africville, said he struggles with the idea of looking to courts and government as the only direct path to reparations, since neither adequately reflects the community. The issues are challenging to resolve legally, since the concept of reparations doesn’t come up much in Canadian case law. He also spoke about multigenerational trauma, and how one might repair that kind of harm.
Delvina Bernard, who is working toward a PhD in International Development Studies at Saint Mary’s, said the discussion needs to go beyond compensation.
“What I think we ought to be adding to this debate is a guiding theoretical framework that looks at reparations as a model for social change. A lot of us see it as a model for compensation. I see it as a model for moving the needle in terms of how we live our lives as humans,” said Bernard. “Otherwise, we might just be looking to be compensated. And part of that is that we are really asking just to be included in the same capitalist economy that put us in the situation that we’re in in the first place.”
The community conversation continues on Saturday, February 29 with a full-day forum at the Halifax North library, From Enslavement to Reparations: Community Engagement. Follow updates on the Facebook event page. The upcoming forum aims to boost public awareness of the historical contributions of African ancestry in building North American and European societies, and to show the context and history of calls for reparations for African people throughout the world. It will also consider ways to strengthen and support the participation of young African Canadians in the educational, social, economic, and political fabric of society.
Further reading:
Community meeting explores the case for reparations to African Nova Scotians; Nova Scotia Advocate, Feb. 6, 2020
- Marla Cranston, Faculty of Arts