After decades of racism, the story of Nova Scotia’s Africville is defined by courage and resilience

While textbooks tend to highlight grand battles and sweeping movements, sometimes the most impactful parts of history are found in basic survival, rendering them seemingly mundane: children gathering for school, a mother doing her shopping, a tailor hemming a pant leg. Such was the case when a long trail of weary years and silent tears brought people who were enslaved in the United States north to find freedom in Canada on the island of Nova Scotia. The story of the community established there now remains to be discovered by those who choose to make a destination of the formerly robust Black enclave that once flourished there, Africville.

The earliest presence of Black people in Nova Scotia came through slavery, followed by a resettlement of over 3,000 African American Loyalists promised freedom by the British in exchange for their service in the wake of the revolutionary war.

Africville became more fully established as legions of people escaping the conditions of enslavement on the Underground Railroad arrived in the area ready to make new lives for themselves.

Unfortunately, the promise of freedom engendered by the traversal of the northern U.S. boundary did not come with a guarantee of equality. Nova Scotia’s white Canadian residents were unwilling to have new Black people arrive to settle in their community, forcing them to form the enclave that came to be known as Africville. Reflecting the sentiments of their constituents, the government refused to provide basic services to the area like sewage, garbage pickup, clean water and schooling.

Still, the community proceeded to thrive for nearly 150 years, boiling water from wells they dug themselves, growing their own vegetables, catching their dinner from the bountiful array of fish, lobster, crab and periwinkles in the bay. Children ran foot races, played baseball and basketball in the streets and could walk into any house in the community knowing they would be welcomed in and taken care of.

The center of community life was Seaview United Baptist Church, where spiritual life and fellowship tied the community together. Over the years, environmental racism was used to try and push the residents away from the area. A hospital for WWII soldiers carrying disease, a toxic waste dump and a prison were all built in the immediate vicinity of the Black homes and businesses that comprised the small community. When rat poison and fire were used to control pest populations at the dump, toxic smoke would wash over area homes. Residents were exposed to biohazards as they picked through the refuse for usable scrap. In spite of it all, the people of Africville remained immovable, tied to the only home of freedom they had known for generations.

It was not until the 1960s that government officials finally took the explicit actions that their zoning and policy decisions had implied. After years of being refused even basic government sanitation services, the community was declared to be below minimum housing standards and slated for destruction.

This process of expropriation was not easy or smooth. City officials did not follow legal processes to inform residents of their rights regarding compensation, and many were taken advantage of, receiving paltry sums for their land and homes. Witnesses recall women screaming as they were torn from their homes, to be bussed to various random locations around the country. Many reported feeling the coffin nail shut as they watched the building that held their community together, Seaview Baptist Church, be torn to the ground in the fall of 1967.

Almost 55 years later, the story of Africville has become one of courage, resilience and reconnection, as former residents and their descendants continue the fight to reclaim what was lost to urban renewal. In 2010, the mayor of Halifax issued an apology, accompanied by restitution in the form of a rebuilt church structure and 100,000 Canadian dollars won in the legal battle that now supports a scholarship fund for the descendants of displaced Africville residents.

The spirit of community among those who have been scattered is still very much alive, as shown by the yearly gathering during which they all bring tents and trailers to camp out in the site of their former homes and visit with one another.

Today, the church building has been redesigned as a museum dedicated to the area’s history. They have programmatic wellness offerings like yoga and host important events to continue the process of historiography when it comes to Nova Scotia’s Black community. The museum is one of four institutions on the island dedicated to the preservation of Black history available to visitors of the island. The other institutions, the Black Cultural Center of Nova Scotia, the Black Loyalist Heritage Center, and the Universal Negro Improvement Association Museum together form a robust itinerary for those keen to dig deeper into the largely overlooked legacy of this community.

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This story was originally published September 21, 2022 at 8:00 AM.