• Age: 13 to 18
• Grade: 8 to 12
• Reading age: 13 to 18

Beginning in the 18th century, Black men and women arrived from the U.S. and settled in various parts of Nova Scotia. In the 1800s, a small Black community had developed just north of Halifax on the shores of the Bedford Basin. The community became known as Africville and grew to about 400 people. Its residents fished, farmed, operated small retail stores and found work in the city. Jobs for Black people were hard to find, with many occupations blocked by racist practices. Women often worked as domestics and many men were train porters. A school and a church were the community’s key institutions.

The City of Halifax located a number of undesirable industries in Africville but refused residents’ demands for basic services such as running water, sewage disposal, paved roads, street lights, a cemetery, public transit, garbage collection and adequate police protection.

City planners developed urban renewal plans and city politicians agreed to demolish the community. Residents strongly opposed relocation, but city officials ignored their protests and began to seize and bulldoze the homes. In 1967, the church was demolished — in the middle of the night. This was a blow that signaled the end of Africville.

In the 1970s, some community members organized and began working for an apology and compensation. In 2010, Halifax’s mayor made a public apology for the community’s suffering and mistreatment. Some former residents accepted this; others continued to campaign for restitution. This new edition documents the continued fight for compensation by community members and their descendants. The spirit and resilience of Africville lives on in new generations of African Nova Scotians.

Gloria Ann Wesley is an African Nova Scotian writer who published her first book of poetry, To My Someday Child in 1975. She later published Woman, Sing (2002) and Burlap and Lace (2007). Her first young adult fiction, Chasing Freedom, was published in 2011.

Wesley’s poetry appears in three Canadian anthologies: Canada in Us Now (Harold Head, 1976), Other Voices: Writings by Blacks in Canada (Lorris Elliott, 1985) and Fire on the Water (George Elliott Clarke, 1992). Gloria Wesley holds the distinction of being the first published Black Nova Scotian poet (by Resolution of the Nova Scotia Legislature, 5 April 2007).

Gloria Ann Wesley's profile page

"This is an in-depth history in words, pictures, and first-hand accounts of this once thriving community that flourished despite lack of access to any city services. The book brings context to the present-day struggles of the descendants of Africville residents and the ongoing history and use of the site by the community on the southern shore of the Bedford Basin."

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"A wonderful series [Righting Canada's Wrongs] of beautiful books."

Times Colonist