Online Exhibit: BC Heroes – African Descent Society BC

BC'S AFRICAN DESCENT
HEROES

Since its beginnings as a fur trading outpost, Africans and people of African Descent have contributed in one way or another to weave the tapestry that makes Canada what it is today.

Moving to the “wild west,” we have many examples of extraordinary citizens of African Descent who helped shape BC, Vancouver, and the surrounding areas into what it is today. Some have been acknowledged in postage stamps, some have been invested into the Order of Canada, some are alive and some have passed on. Regardless, it is important that we acknowledge our heroes, learn from their example, and continue to be inspired by them so that we may persevere and become the best that we can be.

This is by no means a definitive list. We will strive to continue to add more heroes to our exhibit, and if you feel that we are missing someone that deserves a spot, please contact us!

Community Heroes

Some of us strive to keep our homes in order, raise our children, perhaps volunteer here or there. Then there are those who see all the children in the community as their own, take on the burdens of their community and make a difference there — we move up the ladder and the ripple effect hits more and more…These are some of the people who got involved in their community, either through activism or politics, helping to advance people of African Descent and the population in general.

Joe, Jill Haras & Jill Haras, provided by the National Film Board of Canada

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Joe Fortes
(1863 - 1922)

Seraphim Joseph “Joe” Fortes was born in Trinidad, in the West Indies. The name Seraphim, in the Old Testament describes the highest order of angels, was appropriately given to a person who would live his life in the highest standard of service to others. His father was a sugar plantation worker and his mother was of Spanish ancestry. Fortes (pronounced “Fortz”, although often thought to be fort-es) forwent education and chose instead to travel the world as a deckhand.

He boarded a brigantine, the Robert Kerr, loaded with sugar bound for Liverpool. Back then, these ships would go from one port to another carrying cargo, offloading it and taking another load to be delivered somewhere else. His travels took him to Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Panama, Amsterdam and eventually to the Pacific northwest. In one of his trips to Liverpool, Fortes took up swimming at one of the bathhouses - this is where Joe became confident of his strength and abilities. One would think that he would’ve been a strong swimmer coming from an island, but where Joe was from, beaches were not the sight that they are now: the beaches near where he grew up were full of sea urchins, stingrays and mud.

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Emery Barnes, OBC
(1929 - 1998)

Born in New Orleans, Emery and his family moved to Portland, Oregon when he was 12. He studied at Oregon State University and earned a Bachelor of Science. He was a talented athlete; towering at 6’6”, Barnes played for the Oregon State football team and was an alternate for the US Olympic Team in the high jump. In 1954, Barnes was drafted to the NFL and briefly played for the Green Bay Packers after leaving the US Army. He then moved to Vancouver in 1957 when the CFL’s BC Lions sent him an offer.

While playing football, Barnes continued his studies at University of British Columbia, earning a Master’s degree in Social Work. In 1964, he began his career in this area, until he entered politics in 1972. In a Canadian Parliamentary Review interview in 1987, Barnes summed himself up perfectly: ‘“It seems the first part of my life was more oriented toward athletics and actions. The cerebral part developed later. I began to develop a social conscience.”’ Barnes continued to demonstrate this “social conscience” throughout the rest of his life.

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Leonard Lane (1921 - 2016)

Born in Saskatchewan, Lane moved to Vancouver after WWII, commencing his long tenure as a community builder. He was an active member of the African Fountain Chapel in various capacities, lending his talents to the choir, dance troupes, and organizing sports for black youth.
After being refused service in restaurants, Lane turned to the broader community and was a founding member of the BC NAACP, eventually becoming part of their full-time staff . His first among many accomplishments was taking on the BC Ministry of Education on the use of racist language in textbooks. Lane also became part of the BC Unity Credit Union, which opened in 1959, providing loans to members of the black community and served as their treasurer for 8 years. The credit union merged with VanCity in 1971 - one could say that part of Vancity’s social consciousness was shaped by Mr. Lane. He was 94 when he passed away.

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Rosemary Brown, PC OC OBC (1930 - 2003)

Rosemary Brown (née Wedderburn) was born in Kingston Jamaica to a middle class family and a legacy of strong, educated, political women. She moved to Canada in 1950 to pursue her studies in Social Work at McGill University in Montréal. Rosemary was not prepared to encounter the racism and discrimination she faced in her first years. Canadian girls rejected her as a roommate in the dorms and few people - only a handful of caucasians and others from the West Indies - would talk to her at the dining hall. When she sought private residence in her second year, landlords discriminated against her; employers rejected her when she searched for jobs.

She moved to Vancouver to marry Bill Brown in 1955 and worked to support him while he finished medical school. In the next twelve years, Rosemary was able to accomplish many things: she started her career in social work; she had three children; she was an original founder of the British Columbia Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, and; in 1967 she received her Master of Social Work. Dedicating herself to social issues, Brown also appeared in a national television program called “People in Conflict,” produced in CTV’s Vancouver studios in the 1960’s.

Sports Heroes

BC has an excellent reputation for athletic development. It has produced extraordinary athletes that have been able to shine on the world stage and be etched in our memories forever. African Descent athletes are no exception. Here are some of the most outstanding African Descent athletes that BC has had the honour to call their own.

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Harry Jerome, OC, OLY
(1940 - 1982)

Harry Winston Jerome was born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, and moved with his family to North Vancouver, BC in 1951. They were the only people of African descent in their conservative, all-white neighbourhood. Jerome’s motto was “Never give up,” and he showed that time and time again, proving his critics wrong.

A talented athlete, Harry played soccer, football, and baseball, but his speed let him to really excel in track and field. He began to seriously compete in track and field and by the time he turned 18, and became the first runner in 31 years to beat the previous record for the 220 yard sprint set by Percy Williams. A year later, he matched the world record for the 100m race at 10.0 seconds flat, and became the world’s fastest man when he tied the world record for the 100 yard event at 9.3 seconds. This made him one to watch and a favorite to win gold at the 1960 Summer Olympic Games in Rome.

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Barbara Howard (1920 - 2017)

Barbara was, coincidentally, the granddaughter of pioneer Vancouver family Hiram and Martha Scurry. She was at one time the fastest woman in Canada. In 1938, at the age of 17, she was the first African Descent woman to represent Canada in an international sporting competition (British Empire Games in Sydney, Australia).

When most ethnic minorities were barred from teaching, she was the first visible minority to teach in Vancouver (1948). Lord Strathcona School is one of the schools where Barbara Howard taught physical education for over forty years. Her accolades were many: In 2010, she received a Remarkable Woman Award from the Vancouver Park Board for "her passionate dedication to inspire others to make a positive difference in their community;” in 2012, she was inducted into the BC Sports Hall of Fame; in 2013, she received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, and; in 2015, well into her 90s, she was named to Canada's Sports Hall of Fame. Ms. Howard passed away in 2017 at the age of 96. In September 2018, the City of Vancouver renamed 15 public spaces to commemorate the work of prominent local residents. The Cambie Street Plaza, located south side of the Cambie Street Bridge and north of the East off-ramp was renamed the Barbara Howard Plaza.

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Charmaine Crooks, CM OLY
(1962 - )

Born in Mandeville, Jamaica, Crooks moved to Canada at age six, the fifth child out of her nine siblings. After watching her siblings run track, she decided to start it at school as well and began to take running quite seriously. In 1979, at the age of sixteen, she qualified for the 1980 Canadian Olympic team. Unfortunately, she didn’t get to compete due to the Olympic Games being boycotted in Moscow.
She received a track scholarship to the University of El Paso in Texas, completing her degree in psychology by 1984 - just in time to compete for Canada at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

Crooks was the first Canadian woman to break the two-minute barrier for the 800m event, and her victories did not stop there.

Broadcast Heroes

There are so many things we take for granted nowadays, and our radio and tv content are definitely on this list. There are many African Descent artists that are household names: Will Smith, Beyoncé and our own Canadian, Drake, to name a few. Although there’s still a ways to go in order to achieve absolute diversity in our world, there was a time when it was unthinkable to feature an African Descent artist on television or radio. These are the stories of BC’s African Descent pioneers, forging the path of inclusion and paving the way for future artists to be spotlighted, not just in Canada, but around the world.

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Eleanor Collins, CM
(1919 - )

Hailed as Canada’s “first lady of jazz,” Eleanor is truly a living legend.

She was born Elnora Ruth Procter in Edmonton, Alberta; her parents were part of the hundreds of homesteading families that migrated to Canada from Oklahoma. At the age of fifteen, she won a singing contest that led her to sing on a radio station, CFRN, and by the late 1939, she decided to have a go in Vancouver.

She began singing on CBC Radio from 1940-1942 with the gospel group “Swing Low Quartet,” which included her sisters. She met Richard Collins, marrying him in 1942. They had four children together, and so she chose to stay home and raise her children.

When the Collins family decided to move to the all-white neighbourhood of Burnaby in the late 1940s, they were met with a petition to bar them from moving there. Despite the discrimination and intimidation, the Collins’ moved in anyway, opting to lead by example to dispel the stereotypes that the residents held. Sure enough, they were model citizens: Eleanor taught music to the local Girl Guides and volunteered at the local school. By doing so, the Collins' were trailblazing society by breaking down community racial barriers.

Collins acted in theatre and continued singing. Her performances gained popularity, earning her the title, “Vancouver’s first lady of jazz.” Eleanor’s career began to take off in 1945 when she accompanied a friend to CBC Radio’s studios at The Hotel Vancouver. That’s when she met Ray Norris and was invited to sing with the Ray Norris Jazz Quintet and also performed on Serenade in Rhythm, which broadcasted to overseas troops.

With a golden voice and glamorous looks, Collins began to perform on television, singing on CBUT (now CBC Vancouver) in 1953. She went on to sing and perform on Bamboula, which featured Len Gibson’s choreography. Groundbreaking Bamboula featured the first multi-racial cast in North America, and it was the first live show produced and broadcast from Vancouver. When Bamboula was cancelled, she was offered her own show, The Eleanor Collins Show in 1954, also choreographed by Gibson and backed by the Ray Norris Quintet. She was the first person of African Descent in North America to have her own television show. Collins also became the first female in Canada to have her own show. In 1964, she continued her television career again hosting another show, Eleanor, performing show tunes and pop standards and backed by the Cris Gage Trio.

Along with her stardom came many offers for Collins to go to the United Stated and perform, but she refused, even when US record labels came knocking on her door. She chose to stay in the more racially integrated Canada, moreover in Vancouver, where she continued to appear on various CBC shows and perform live at Vancouver venues.

When the variety show format began to dwindle, so did Collin’s television appearances. Nevertheless, she continued to perform well into her eighties and be engaged in her community. In 1986, she was recognized as a Distinguished Pioneer by the City of Vancouver; in 2014, at the age of 94, Eleanor Collins became a member of the Order of Canada, recognized for her pioneering achievements as a jazz vocalist, and for breaking down barriers and fostering positive race relations in the mid-20th Century.

Collins turned one hundred years old in 2019 and is living independently in Surrey, BC. She is indeed a trailblazer and an outstanding citizen.

Further Exploration

We have carefully curated the above content to provide a concise, yet informative story. If you would like to learn more, please visit our additional stories and galleries below, as well as our comprehensive resource & bibliography page.

Stories:

Vancouver Pioneers since 1859

Victoria Pioneers since 1858

Galleries:

Vancouver Pioneers since 1859