The House of Commons officially recognized February as Black History Month in December 1995, following a motion introduced by Jean Augustine, the first Black woman elected to Parliament, according to the Government of Canada.
The motion passed unanimously. Neither Canadian Heritage nor the Canadian Encyclopedia gives a recorded vote count or the date Augustine first tabled it, so this account does not supply either.
The decision capped a campaign that began in Toronto. The Ontario Black History Society was established in 1978, and its founders, including Dr. Daniel G. Hill and Wilson O. Brooks, petitioned the City of Toronto to proclaim February as Black History Month, Canadian Heritage said. In 1979, Toronto issued the first Canadian proclamation.
It took until 1993 for the society to win a similar proclamation across Ontario. Rosemary Sadlier, the society’s president, then proposed a national version to Augustine, Canadian Heritage said.
Augustine was an unlikely person to carry that proposal, and also an obvious one. She was born Sept. 9, 1937, in Happy Hill, Grenada, as Jean Simon, the Canadian Encyclopedia reports. Her father, a sugar cane plantation worker, died of tetanus when she was a toddler.
She arrived in Canada in 1960 through the West Indian Domestic Scheme, which ran from 1955 to 1966, and spent a year working as a nanny in Toronto’s Forest Hill neighbourhood, according to the encyclopedia. She earned her Ontario teaching certificate in 1963, and later a bachelor’s degree and a master of education (1980) from the University of Toronto.
Augustine taught with the Metropolitan Separate School Board and became a vice-principal and then principal with what is now the Toronto District Catholic School Board. Outside the classroom, she helped organize the first Caribana committee in 1967 and founded the Toronto chapter of the Congress of Black Women of Canada in 1973, later serving as its national president, the encyclopedia said.
She was named chair of the Metro Toronto Housing Authority on Nov. 24, 1988, and held the post until she entered politics. On Oct. 25, 1993, she was nominated as the Liberal candidate in Etobicoke-Lakeshore and won the seat, becoming the first Black woman elected to the House of Commons.
The Black History Month motion came in her first term. Its wording, as quoted by the Canadian Encyclopedia, began: “That this House take note of the important contribution of Black Canadians.” The first national Black History Month was celebrated in February 1996, the University of Toronto’s alumni news service reported.
Parliament returned to the subject in 2008. Sen. Donald Oliver, the first Black man appointed to the Senate, introduced a motion that February to recognize the contributions of Black Canadians and February as Black History Month. The Senate adopted it unanimously on March 4, 2008, Canadian Heritage said.
Augustine went on to serve as parliamentary secretary to the prime minister from 1993 to 1996. She was re-elected in 1997, 2000, 2002 and 2004. On May 26, 2002, she was appointed secretary of state for multiculturalism and the status of women, the first Black woman in cabinet, the encyclopedia said. She retired from politics in November 2005.
In March 2007, Ontario appointed her its first fairness commissioner, overseeing the licensing of foreign-trained professionals. She retired from that role in March 2015. She became a member of the Order of Canada in 2007.
The sources reviewed describe the 1995 motion and the 2008 Senate motion as parliamentary recognition. They do not say whether any federal funding or programming was attached to either.
File photo of Parliament Hill in Ottawa. It does not depict Augustine or the 1995 debate.
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Sources: Government of Canada (Canadian Heritage), About Black History Month; The Canadian Encyclopedia, Jean Augustine; University of Toronto alumni news, Canadian legend Jean Augustine helped create Black History Month.
