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Black History Month Pop Quiz

1 We’ll start with an easy one. This august black woman was the first elected to Parliament, in 1993 (yes, it took that long), representing the Etobicoke riding now held by Michael Ignatieff.

2 This Nova Scotia-born poet and sometime NOW contributor won the Governor General’s Award and is the great-nephew of late, great opera singer Portia White, who helped break the colour barrier in classical music.

3 The First Baptist Church, pictured here, is the city’s oldest black institution, founded in 1826. It was originally located on D’Arcy. What street is it on today?

4 This Scarborough-based choral group founded by composer, educator and pianist Nathaniel Dett recently performed at the Canadian Embassy during Inauguration Week ceremonies for U.S. President Barack Obama.

5 Of the 16 legislators in the first Parliament of Upper Canada, how many were slave owners?

6 The controversial police shooting deaths of Buddy Evans and Albert Johnson marked the beginning of mass demonstrations against police brutality organized by this group.

7 This architectural landmark and meeting place at the corner of King and Jarvis, rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1849, hosted the first meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada. Abolitionist Frederick Douglass spoke here.

8 Mathieu Da Costa was the first documented person of African descent to set foot in Canada. What year was it? Hint: his arrival predates Samuel de Champlain and the founding of the first permanent settlement in North America, Quebec City, in 1608.

9 Score double if you know the names of these two white dudes, one a founder of the Globe, the other a future premier of Ontario, who were at the founding meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada in 1851.

10 In 1987, there were just 24 black members of the RCMP. How many were female? (The answer is more than zero, but not much more.)

11 A plaque near 660 Broadview marks the spot where the house of William Peyton Hubbard once stood. He was:

a) the first black person on Toronto city council.

b) a key player in the establishment of Toronto Hydro.

c) a successful baker who patented the design of his own oven.

d) instrumental in convincing the city to purchase the Toronto Islands.

e) all of the above.

12 The city’s best-known black pioneers, former Kentucky slaves Lucie and Thornton Blackburn, were also the first blacks to be buried in this cemetery, the oldest in the city.

13 This Toronto-based Jamaican-Canadian playwright whose play Toronto The Good debuts this week stormed onto the theatrical scene with his play about the 1992 Yonge Street riot. Can be a moody fellow.

14 Anderson Ruffin Abbott, the first Canadian-born black surgeon, is said to have been at the deathbed of this U.S. president. Obama likes to quote him.

15 Elia Episcopal Church at 1130 Finch West stands as a reminder that this area, often associated with black-on-black crime, has farming roots that go back to the 19th century.

16 Viola Desmond became Canada’s Rosa Parks for

a) refusing to ride at the back of the bus.

b) sitting in seating set aside for whites in a movie theatre.

c) using a whites-only public washroom.

17 This former black slave who escaped to Canada and started a farm co-op for runaway slaves inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

18 This Scarborough MPP and House Speaker won notoriety for his 18-hour filibuster in 1995 against the Mike Harris Tories’ Omnibus Bill.

19 Marlene Nourbese Philip, award-winning poet, novelist and essayist, made her political mark taking on the showcasing of this controversial Drabinky theatrical production at the North York Centre for the Performing Arts.

20 This reggae outfit with a message was formed in the white bastion of Kitchener in 1981 and went on to become one of the best non-Jamaica-based reggae acts on the planet.

Match the year with 1 of the 3 famous events listed below

1799

  1. York enumerates 15 blacks, for the first time making no distinction between slaves and free men.
  2. Former slave Thornton Blackburn establishes the city’s first horse-drawn taxicab service.
  3. Ontario House, the YWCA-affiliated home for black women, opens on Ontario Street.

1833

  1. Slavery is completely abolished in Canada.
  2. Canada provides lumber to build European ships bringing slaves from the Caribbean.
  3. U.S. Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Act reversing the granting of freedom to slaves who reached “free” states.

1851

  1. The Colored Wesleyan movement takes root in Toronto, claiming more than 100 members.
  2. The first issue of the first black-owned paper, The Voice Of The Fugitive, is published.
  3. City directories identify some Torontonians as “coloured.”

1978

  1. Caribana, the annual Caribbean cultural festival, takes to the streets for the first time.
  2. Toronto proclaims its first Black History Month.
  3. MuchMusic launches the MuchVIBE hip-hop show.

1993

  1. Ann Cools becomes the first black woman appointed to the Senate.
  2. U.S.-born civil rights activist Wilson Head, a professor of social work at York U and chair of the Urban Alliance on Race Relations, dies after a long illness.
  3. Urban radio station Flow 93.5 hits the airwaves.

ANSWERS

1. Jean Augustine also served as minister of state for multiculturalism and the status of women.

2. George Elliott Clarke

3. Huron

4. The Nathaniel Dett Chorale

5. Six

6. The Black Action Defence Committee

7. St. Lawrence Hall

8. 1605

9. George Brown and Oliver Mowat

10. Just one, Andrea Elaine Lawrence. Ended up suing the force and settling for a medical discharge.

11. It’s e, all of the above. Quite a guy, that Hubbard.

12. The Necropolis on Winchester. Other prominent blacks buried there: Corporal Ainsworth Dyer, cut down by American “friendly fire” in Afghanistan in April 2002.

13. Andrew Moodie

14. Abraham Lincoln. Talk about six degrees.

15. Jane-Finch. We’re lovin’ it.

16. The answer is b – she refused to pay 3 cents admission for balcony seats.

17. Josiah Henson

18. Alvin Curling

19. Show Boat

20. Messenjah

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