I have a circular yellow pin that lives on my winter coat. The text proclaims, “February is Black (in red) History (in black) Month (in green),” the colours mimicking those of the Pan-African flag of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and the black liberation flag, and “Join the celebration!” There’s a vancouver.ca weblink and a little blue and green city of Vancouver logo at the bottom of the pin.
I got it in Vancouver in February 2012, the first year the city joined in celebrating and commemorating the lives, challenges and contributions of its black community.
I was honoured to be a part of the slate of events for Black History Month and amazed that such a thing could happen in my lifetime. You see, I’m from Bermuda, where the majority of the population is black and/or of mixed race. Black history has always been an all-year thing for me, even more so now because of my chosen profession. As an actor, I’m constantly researching characters, circumstances and what things were like during their era. But Vancouver and Canada are something different.
At City Hall in 2012, commemorative stamps were unveiled, music, dance, poetry and speeches offered up and special foods served.
I was distributing handbills for our production of Intimate Apparel – a play about an African-American seamstress working in New York – that we were presenting on Granville Island for the rest of the month. I’d been granted a few hours off from rehearsal to go to this event, and I was glad – it was important that at least one member of our cast attend, and I’d rarely seen so many black people gathered in one place in Vancouver, let alone inside City Hall.
Days later, in my favourite comic book shop, the owner, whose family name is the same as that of a neighbourhood just south of the shop, saw my pin on my coat collar and – boom – a conversation took off.
“What black history?” he wanted to know.
I was a little stunned but happily gave him one of our show’s handbills and a summary of the story.
“But how is that related to Vancouver?”
I stuttered and sputtered. I did my best to draw comparisons and mark the similarities between my hard-luck character and the black people from early 20th-century Vancouver whose mug shots were part of a public art piece he would have seen just down the street from where we spoke. Those images became part of my character research for the play and live in my cellphone’s photo album to this day.
I’ve no idea if any of my clumsy responses made him think any differently or drew him to our play, but something powerful did happen.
He proceeded to tell me about a letter written by black prisoner Sonny Jones, who was executed at the old Oakalla Prison in Burnaby in 1953. The shop owner’s father had been a prison guard there, and Sonny had taken enough of a liking to him to give him the letter just before he went to the gallows.
The conversation lit a fire in me. Both his questions and his personal revelation inspired me to dig into Vancouver’s, and by extension BC’s, and by another extension Canada’s black history. From coast to coast there are powerful stories to be told, stories of immigration, struggle, victory and defeat. Through the telling of these stories there are lessons to be learned, art to be made and discussions to be had.
This little pin on my winter coat started a conversation that was long overdue for both of us.
Now, if we can just figure out a way to do that all year long….
Actor Daren Herbert appears in The Wild Party, produced by Acting Up Stage in association with Obsidian, February 20 to March 8 at Berkeley Street Theatre. actingupstage.com.
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