Dr. Lynn Jones
“You know that old saying … you can’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been.”
Dr. Lynn Jones was only eight years old when she began collecting news and artifacts reflecting Black life in Nova Scotia and beyond. Over the next half century, the community leader and historian built a vast archive of more than 10,000 articles, photos and documents. She generously donated the material in 2015 to Saint Mary’s University, where it’s available to students, researchers, educators and the community as The Lynn Jones African Canadian & Diaspora Heritage Collection.
The Collection is once again open to visitors. Also new is an online donation option for those who would like to support student research, community engagement and other work with the Collection. “I truly love when people ask me how the collection came to be,” Jones says of the unique resource, located in the University Archives on the third floor of the Patrick Power Library.
That’s the first story she shares in a new 30-minute video interview on the Collection’s website. She takes you back to her childhood home in Truro, where her family’s dining room table was often covered in her mother’s current events newspaper clippings and small artifacts destined for safekeeping. Jones started her own personal collection, which eventually expanded into 18 boxes of materials that form the basis of The Lynn Jones African Canadian & Diaspora Heritage Collection.
News item about a visit by Marcus Garvey.
The Collection’s oldest piece is a 1928 news item on the Halifax visit by Pan-African pioneer and leader Marcus Mosiah Garvey, who was born in Jamaica, emigrated to the United States and became famous for his Back to Africa Global Movement. Additional segments in the video touch on the ongoing issues of reparations, policing, and environmental racism, as well as community achievements and celebrations, and Indigenous and Black community connections, as reflected in the Collection. Jones also shares 1994 photos from her work in South Africa as an election observer during the first democratic elections there, which resulted in Nelson Mandela, a Black anti-Apartheid leader, becoming President.
“It’s a living collection,” says Dr. Val Marie Johnson of the Social Justice and Community Studies department at Saint Mary’s. “It’s not just about history, it’s about history that is so relevant today.”
The lead facilitator in bringing the Collection to the university, Johnson co-produced the new video along with Nova Scotian musician of international fame, Joel Plaskett. With his colleague, videographer Mike Hall, they filmed it in September 2020 at New Scotland Yard Studio in Dartmouth.
Election materials for the Nelsen Mandela campaign.
“Joel is a friend of Lynn’s, and a huge supporter of all the mobilizing and activism she does. He and Lynn had been talking for a long time about getting her stories on video,” says Johnson. With funding from the Office of the Vice-President, Academic and Research and the SMUworks program, the idea evolved into a video conversation about the Collection.
Master’s student Sawyer Carnegie provides the video’s heartfelt introduction and helped to structure its interview. Her family roots stem from the prominent Underground Railroad community of Dresden, Ontario. She first used the Collection in 2018, while working as a research assistant on a project about 19th century Black press in Canada.
“This Collection planted the seed of my keen interest of African Nova Scotian newspapers, which has become the focus of my thesis,” says Carnegie, a student in the Atlantic Canada Studies graduate program. “None of my recent work would be possible without this collection. It’s an incredibly valuable resource to anyone interested in a more complete understanding of Nova Scotian and Canadian history.”
Visit The Lynn Jones African Canadian & Diaspora Collection to watch the video, donate and learn more.