Black Canadians in the Greater Toronto Area

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Black Canadians as percent of population by census subdivision

Black Canadians make up a sizable group within the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). The majority of Black Canadians are of Caribbean origin, although the population also consists of African American immigrants and their descendants (including Black Nova Scotians), as well as many African immigrants (particularly Somalis, Ethiopians, Ghanaians and Nigerians).[1]

## History

[edit]

Toronto's early Black community settled largely in an area called St. John's Ward, which no longer stands. In the 1850s, the city of Toronto had 1000 Black residents, Oakville had 400, the former city of York had 225, Etobicoke had 80, and Peel Region had 60.[2][3] Toronto's Black population declined from 1,000 in the 1850s to 500 by the 1870s, due to significant out-migration to the United States.[4] The population remained relatively low until the 1950s when the city's Black population grew to 10,000.[4] Most of the early residents were born in Toronto or other areas in Southwestern Ontario, and could trace their roots to migration from the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the Underground Railroad.

In the 1960s, approximately 40,000 Black people lived in Toronto. Within this population there were over 600 teachers, 500 nurses, and 75 doctors. The population consisted of three main groups: Ontario-born Black Canadians, Caribbean immigrants, and Black Nova Scotians. Black Nova Scotians settled largely in Alexandra Park. Having moved to the city with low levels of education and without many marketable skills, the Nova Scotian group faced high unemployment rates.[4] Earlier waves of Caribbean immigrants came largely from Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados, although Jamaica would later outgrow these two nations as a source country.

In 1967, leaders of the Ontario-born Black Canadians merged their celebration of Emancipation Day with traditions of Trinidad and Tobago Carnival to establish Caribana.[5]

The 1980s and 1990s saw a large influx of East Africans move to the city from Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea.[6] More recent black immigrants to the GTA have come largely from West Africa, with Nigeria becoming one of the top sources of immigration to Canada in 2019.[7]

As of 2016, 442,020 Black Canadians resided in Toronto's Census Metropolitan Area, which contains a large portion of the GTA.[8]

In Toronto, many Blacks settled in St. John's Ward, a district which was located in the city's core.[9][10] Others preferred to live in York Township, on the outskirts of the city. By 1850, there were more than a dozen Black businesses along King Street;[9] the modern-day equivalent is Little Jamaica along Eglinton Avenue, which contains one of the largest concentrations of Black businesses in Canada.[11] First Baptist Church, founded in 1826, is the oldest Black institution currently operating in the city.[12]

Several neighbourhoods in Toronto, including Jane and Finch, Rexdale, Malvern, Weston, St. James Town, and Lawrence Heights, are popularly associated with Black Canadians, although all are much more racially diverse than is commonly believed. The Toronto suburbs of Brampton and Ajax also have sizable Black populations, which have migrated outward from Toronto over the past decade. (Ajax has the highest percentage of Blacks of any municipality of 5,000 or more in Canada, with 16%.) The Greater Toronto Area is home to a highly educated middle to upper middle class Black population who continue to migrate out of the city limits, into surrounding suburbs.[13]

There are large variations in the income and poverty levels of different Black sub-groups in the Toronto area. In 2000, among Blacks in the Toronto area, Barbadians had the highest median income at $31,800, while Somalis had the lowest median income at $13,400.[14] At this time, the incidence for low-income among Barbadian families was 10.4%, while it was 72.2% for Somali families. The median income for all Torontonians, regardless of ethnicity, was $29,800 with 13.9% of families considered low-income.[14]

## Culture

[edit]

Media representation of Black people in Canada has increased significantly in recent years, with television series such as Drop the Beat, Lord Have Mercy! and Da Kink in My Hair focusing principally on Black characters and communities.[citation needed]

The films of Clement Virgo, Sudz Sutherland and Charles Officer have been among the most prominent depictions of Black Canadians on the big screen. Notable films have included Sutherland's Love, Sex and Eating the Bones, Officer's Nurse.Fighter.Boy and Virgo's Rude and Love Come Down.[citation needed]

In literature, the most prominent and famous Toronto-based Black Canadian writers have been George Elliott Clarke, Lawrence Hill and Dionne Brand, although numerous emerging writers have gained attention in the 1990s and 2000s.

Since the late 19th century, Black Canadians have made significant contributions to the culture of sports. In North America's four major professional sports leagues, several Black Canadians from the Toronto area have had successful careers, including Jamaal Magloire, Andrew Wiggins, P. K. Subban, and RJ Barrett. In athletics, Ben Johnson and Donovan Bailey were the Toronto area's most prominent Black sprinters in recent decades; the current generation is led by Andre De Grasse.[citation needed]

The largest and most famous cultural event is the Toronto Caribbean Carnival (also known as Caribana), an annual festival of Caribbean Canadian culture which typically attracts at least a million participants each year.[15] The festival incorporates the diversities that exist among the Canadians of African and Caribbean descent.

Black Canadians have had a major influence on Canadian music, helping pioneer many genres including Canadian hip hop, Canadian blues, Canadian jazz, Canadian Afrobeat, R&B, Caribbean music, pop music and classical music.[16] Some Black Canadian musicians have enjoyed mainstream worldwide appeal in various genres, such as Dan Hill, Glenn Lewis, Tamia, Deborah Cox, Melanie Fiona, Kardinal Offishall, The Weeknd and Tory Lanez.

While African American culture is a significant influence on its Canadian counterpart, many African and Caribbean Canadians reject the suggestion that their own culture is not distinctive.[17] In his first major hit single "BaKardi Slang", rapper Kardinal Offishall performed a lyric about Toronto's distinctive Black Canadian slang:

> We don't say 'you know what I'm sayin', T dot says 'ya dun know'
> We don't say 'hey that's the breaks', we say 'yo, a so it go'
> We don't say 'you get one chance', We say 'you better rip the show'...
> Y'all talking about 'cuttin and hittin skins', We talkin bout 'beat dat face'...
> You cats is steady saying 'word', My cats is steady yellin 'zeen'...
> So when we singin about the girls we singin about the 'gyal dem'
> Y'all talkin about 'say that one more time', We talkin about 'yo, come again'
> Y'all talkin about 'that nigga's a punk', We talkin about 'that yout's a fosse'...
> A shoe is called a 'crep', A big party is a 'fete'
> Ya'll takin about 'watch where you goin!', We talkin about 'mind where you step!'

Because the visibility of distinctively Black Canadian cultural output is still a relatively recent phenomenon, academic, critical and sociological analysis of Black Canadian literature, music, television and film tends to focus on the ways in which cultural creators are actively engaging the process of creating a cultural space for themselves which is distinct from both mainstream Canadian culture and African American culture.[17] For example, most of the Black-themed television series which have been produced in Canada to date have been ensemble cast comedy or drama series centred around the creation and/or expansion of a Black-oriented cultural or community institution.[17]

Black activism also has a presence in Toronto; the Black Action Defence Committee was founded in the city in 1988, in response to the killings of several Black men by Toronto Police officers over the previous decade.[18][19]

## See also

[edit]

* Ontario portal

* List of black Canadians
* African diaspora
* African-Canadian Heritage Tour
* List of topics related to the African diaspora
* Slavery in Canada
* Demographics of Canada
* Indigenous Black Canadians

## References

[edit]

Specific

1. ^ "Visible minority groups, 2006 counts, for Canada, provinces and territories". 2.statcan.ca. 6 October 2010. Archived from the original on 8 December 2012. Retrieved 22 January 2011.
2. ^ "Historical Black Settlers Helped Shape Mississauga". www.insauga.com. 16 February 2017. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
3. ^ "Ontarians should know more about the Black history of Oakville". TVO.org. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
4. ^ a b c Austin, Bobby William (May 1972). "The Social Status of Blacks in Toronto". McMaster University.
5. ^ "Black History in Toronto". City of Toronto. 18 September 2017. Retrieved 17 January 2021.
6. ^ Scott, Jacqueline (2001). "A Study on the Settlement Experiences of Eritrean and Somali Parents in Toronto". `{{cite journal}}`: Cite journal requires `|journal=` (help)
7. ^ "Canada broke another record by welcoming 341,000 immigrants in 2019". CIC News. 10 February 2020. Retrieved 17 January 2021.
8. ^ Focus on Geography Series, 2016 Census Statistics Canada. Accessed on June 3, 2020.
9. ^ a b "Underground Railroad Exhibit: Teacher Resources – Backgrounder to UGRR – Lesson Plan One". Pc.gc.ca. 10 April 2007. Archived from the original on 27 May 2005. Retrieved 22 January 2011.
10. ^ "Escaped slaves helped build T.O". Toronto Star. Toronto. 11 February 2007. Retrieved 22 January 2011.
11. ^ "Little Jamaica Competition is stiff in the shopping area that has sprung up along Eglinton Ave. to cater to the tastes of a growing West Indian community." Ashante Infantry. Toronto Star. 7 August 1995. pg. C.1
12. ^ "Now and Then: First Baptist Church". Torontoist. 2 February 2017. Retrieved 30 November 2022.
13. ^ "Community Profiles from the 2006 Census, Statistics Canada – Census Subdivision". 2.statcan.ca. 7 December 2010. Retrieved 22 January 2011.
14. ^ a b Ornstein, Michael. "Ethno-Racial Groups in Toronto, 1971-2001: A Demographic and Socio-Economic Profile" (PDF). Retrieved 20 February 2019. `{{cite journal}}`: Cite journal requires `|journal=` (help)
15. ^ "Little party that grew into Caribbean Carnival celebrates 50th anniversary". Toronto Star, 11 July 2017.
16. ^ Monique Desroches; Marie-Thérèse Lefebvre. "Black Music". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 26 July 2010.
17. ^ a b c Rinaldo Walcott, Black Like Who?: Writing Black Canada. 2003, Insomniac Press. ISBN 1-894663-40-3.
18. ^ Philip Mascoll, "Sherona Hall, 59: Fighter for justice", Toronto Star, 9 January 2007
19. ^ James: Dudley Laws stung and inspired a generation Toronto Star. Retrieved June 1, 2020.

General

* Benjamin, Drew. The Refugee, or the Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada, Related by Themselves, with an Account of the History and Condition of the Colored Population of Upper Canada. 1856.

## Further reading

[edit]

* Mathieu, Sarah-Jane (2010), North of the Color Line: Migration and Black Resistance in Canada, 1870–1955, University of North Carolina Press, ISBN 9780807834299
* Winks, Robin W (1997), The Blacks in Canada: a history, McGill-Queen's University Press, ISBN 0-7735-1631-X
* Walcott, Rinaldo (2003), Black like who?: writing Black Canada, Insomniac Press, ISBN 1-894663-40-3
* Williams, Dawn P (2006), Who's who in Black Canada two, Volume 2, D.P. Williams, ISBN 0-9731384-2-4

* Hill, Daniel G (1992), The Freedom-Seekers, Blacks in Early Canada, Stoddart Publishing Co. Limited, ISBN 0-7737-5558-6

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African diaspora

Geography|

| Americas/
Latin America|

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Atlantic|

* Saint Helena

Secondary
Afro-American
diaspora|

| Africa|

* Ghana
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|

Europe|

* France
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Asia and
Oceania|

* Israel
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Related
topics|

* African diaspora religions
* Anti-African sentiment
* Anti-Black racism
* Atlantic slave trade
* Coromantee
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Caribbean diaspora

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Black Canadians

By ethnic or
national origin|

* African-American
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Ethnic origins of people in Canada

Canada|

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Africa|

| Horn of Africa|

* Eritrean
* Ethiopian
* Somali

|

North Africa|

* Berber
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* Moroccan
* Tunisian
* Coptic
* Egyptian

East Africa|

* South Sudanese
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Southern Africa|

* South African
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West Africa|

* Ghanaian
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Americas|

| North America|

* American
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|

Caribbean|

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Asia|

| Central Asia|

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|

East Asia|

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West Asia|

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Europe|

| Central Europe|

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|

Eastern Europe|

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Southern Europe|

* Italian
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Western Europe|

* Belgian
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Oceania|

* Australian
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City of Toronto

Features|

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| Before
1998|

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* effects
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* Board of Control
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|

Since
1998|

* Second Amalgamation of Toronto
* 2003 Etobicoke gas explosion
* Northeast blackout of 2003
* 2008 propane explosion
* 2010 G20 Toronto summit and the associated protests
* Danzig Street shooting
* Rob Ford video scandal
* 2015 Pan American Games/Parapan American Games
* 2018 van attack
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* 2020 machete attack
* 2020–22 COVID-19 pandemic
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Education|

| Primary/secondary|

* Toronto District School Board
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|

Post-secondary|

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|

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