Black History Month Resources

From award-winning journalist Eternity Martis, a look at race and gender on campuses, and a personal tale of struggle and survival. Eternity Martis thought going away to university would help her discover who she really is--to escape her abusive boyfriend, her nerdy reputation, her coddled life with her doting Pakistani grandparents and rebellious mother, and her complicated feelings towards her absent Jamaican father. When she heads out to the predominantly white college town of London, Ontario, Eternity discovers an entitled culture of racism and sexism. As her boyfriend becomes increasingly violent, Eternity navigates her first parties, her father's continued attempts at a relationship, the revelation that she has several half-siblings she's never heard anything about, and the growing complexity of her friendships. What follows is a memoir of struggle about the difficulty of navigating through white spaces as a young woman of colour. And humour.

An in-depth ethnography of Black engineering students at a historically White institution, Black Campus Life examines the intersection of two crises, up close: the limited number of college graduates in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, and the state of race relations in higher education. Antar Tichavakunda takes readers across campus, from study groups to parties and beyond as these students work hard, have fun, skip class, fundraise, and, at times, find themselves in tense racialized encounters. By consistently centering their perspectives and demonstrating how different campus communities, or social worlds, shape their experiences, Tichavakunda challenges assumptions about not only Black STEM majors but also Black students and the “racial climate” on college campuses more generally. Most fundamentally, Black Campus Life argues that Black collegians are more than the racism they endure. By studying and appreciating the everyday richness and complexity of their experiences, we all—faculty, administrators, parents, policymakers, and the broader public—might learn how to better support them.

"The presence and experiences of Black people at elite universities have been largely underrepresented and erased from institutional histories. This book engages with a collection of these experiences that span half a century and reflect differences in class, gender, and national identifications among Black scholars. By mapping Black people's experiences of studying and teaching at McGill University, this book reveals how the "whiteness" of the university both includes and exceeds the racial identities of students and professors. It highlights the specific functions of Blackness and of anti-Blackness within society in general and within the institution of higher education in particular, demonstrating how structures and practices of the university reproduce interlocking systems of oppression that uphold racial capitalism, reproduce colonial relations, and promote settler nationalism. Critically engaging the work of Black learners, academics, organizers, and activists within this dynamic political context, this book underscores the importance of Black Studies across North America."-- Provided by publisher.

xperience, "Colour Matters," as the youth described their experiences, presents a collection of essays that engages educators, youth workers, and policymakers to think about the discursive ways in which race shapes the education and community-based aspirations and achievements of African Canadians. Informed by the current socio-political Canadian landscape, Colour Matters covers topics relating to the lives of Black youth, with particular, though not exclusively, examination of Black young men, in the Greater Toronto Area. The essays reflect the issues and concerns of the past thirty years, and question what has changed and what has remained the same, in the lives of Black youth. Each essay is accompanied by an insightful response from a scholar engaging with topics, ranging from immigration, schooling, to athletics, mentorship, and police surveillance. With the perspectives of scholars from the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada, Colour Matters provides provocative narratives of Black gendered experiences that, by comparison, alert us to what more might be said, or said differently, about the social, cultural, educational, political, and occupational worlds of Black youth in Toronto. This book probes the ongoing need to understand, in nuanced and complex ways, the marginalization and racialization of Black youth in a time of growing demands for a societal response to anti-Black racism."-- Provided by publisher.

The field of black women's history gained recognition as a legitimate field of study only late in the twentieth century. Collecting stories that are both deeply personal and powerfully political,Telling Histories compiles seventeen personal narratives by leading black women historians at various stages in their careers. Their essays illuminate how--first as graduate students and then as professional historians--they entered and navigated the realm of higher education, a world concerned with and dominated by whites and men. In distinct voices and from different vantage points, the personal histories revealed here also tell the story of the struggle to establish a new scholarly field.Black women, alleged by affirmative-action supporters and opponents to be "twofers," recount how they have confronted racism, sexism, and homophobia on college campuses. They explore how the personal and the political intersect in historical research and writing and in the academy