By Tom Godfrey

A memorial service is being held next month in Montreal for Fil Fraser, who is best-known as Canada’s first Black broadcaster; having mentored many young Blacks over the years.

Fraser, who lived in Toronto for a number of years, was based in Edmonton where he worked as a journalist, columnist, author, radio personality, educator, television program director, and radio, TV and feature film producer.

Felix Blache-Fraser, or Fil, as he liked to be called, was born on August 1932 in Montreal. He passed away last December 3 at the age of 85.

His son, Randall, said a celebration of his father’s life will take place on May 20 at the Urgel Bourgie Cemetery, in St. Laurent.

“There will be a program of remembrances, followed by conversation and connection,” Randall told Share. “He loved his time in Toronto, but was also happy to return to Edmonton where most of his family live.”

Fraser, and his wife, Gladys, lived in the downtown area from 1995 to 2000 while he was in Toronto working as Chief Executive Officer of Vision TV, where he is credited for making positive changes.

Former journalist Desmond Brown, who is now a Toronto realtor, called Fraser a good friend and mentor.

“Fil was like a father to me,” recalled Brown. “He was a man of action and had a way of bringing out the best in people, including me.”

He will never forget Fraser mentoring him in the late 1990s to attend journalism school if he wanted to become a successful journalist. He attended university and ended up working for many years at CTV News and the National Post.

“I was 37-years-old and already ten years into my first tenure in real estate,” Brown said. “I trusted Fil, so I applied to Ryerson’s School of Journalism, got accepted as a mature student, and quit my job as a real estate agent.”

The oldest of six children, Fraser experienced discrimination first-hand while growing up as an English-speaker in Montreal. He channelled those experiences into his work.

He went on to become Canada’s first black broadcaster, landing a job at the age of 19 at Foster Hewitt’s CKFH in Toronto, the first of many radio and television gigs he held across Canada. In 1965, Fraser moved to Edmonton and became a senior producer at Canada’s first educational television channel, known as MEETA (Metropolitan Edmonton Educational Television Association).

He became a popular public figure in that city, who was known for his warm and engaging approach on his CJCA Radio talk show, which was the highest-rated local program from 1974 to 1979. Later, he moved to ITV television with The Fil Fraser Show, following up a few years later with Newsmakers.

Along the way he founded the Regina Weekly Mirror newspaper, which ran for some time in Saskatchewan.

During the 1970s he formed his own production company which focused on dramas as Why Shoot the Teacher? and Marie-Anne, about the first European woman at Fort Edmonton. He gained prominence with the release of The Hounds of Notre Dame, about a storied boys’ school in Wilcox, Sask.

Fraser, a member of the Order of Canada, founded the Banff International Films for Television Festival, Alberta Motion Picture Industries Association, and established a master’s program in Canadian film at Athabasca University.

He was appointed Chief Commissioner for the Alberta Human Rights Commission from 1989 to 1992, during which time the body heard complaints about discrimination based on race and sexual orientation.

Fil liked to write and was the author of three books and received the Alberta Award of Excellence in 2015 for his promotion of the arts.

His 2006 book, Running Uphill: The Fast, Short Life of Canadian Champion Harry Jerome, looked at the pioneering Black Canadian track star. He then completed How the Blacks Created Canada, part of a series about how different cultural groups contributed to the development of Canada.

Fraser served on the Alberta Task Force on Film and the Federal Task Force on Broadcasting Policy and was the Governor of the Canadian Journalism Foundation as well as a member of the Canadian Association of Black Journalists.                                                                           – 30 –

For the first time in Canadian history, a Black person has been immortalized on a $10 bank note, or any other currency, for that matter.

It was 72-years ago when Viola Desmond, an entrepreneurial hair stylist turned civil rights activist, refused to give up her seat to someone else in a “whites only” section of the Roseland Theatre, in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia.

Desmond, then 32, had purchased a ticket to watch a movie to pass some time as her car was getting repaired. All she wanted to do was return home and to her salon, which catered to Black women.

It only took minutes before she was dragged out of the theatre by police and jailed overnight for defiantly sitting in the “whites only” section of the Roseland. At that time, Blacks could only sit in the balcony of the theatre.

Desmond was convicted of defrauding the province of a one-penny tax, the difference in tax between a downstairs and upstairs ticket, even though she had asked to pay the difference.

She was released after paying a $20 fine and $6 in court costs. She appealed her conviction but lost.

Desmond is often described as Canada’s Rosa Parks, even though her act of defiance happened nine years before Parks refused to give up her seat on an Alabama bus.

Desmond, who was quite business savvy, had her own thriving hair salon and The Desmond School of Beauty Culture, which offered Black women an opportunity to obtain training to start their own businesses.

The school graduated about 15 women yearly; all who had been denied admission to whites-only training schools. She also started her own line, called Vi’s Beauty Products, which she marketed herself. She was selling her goods in New Glasgow when her car broke down.

Her surviving sister, Wanda, took part in a bill unveiling ceremony in Halifax last week, along with Finance Minister Bill Morneau and Bank of Canada Governor, Stephen Poloz. The bill, which will be in circulation later this year, features a portrait of a well-coiffed Desmond that was taken in 1940.

She is the first Black person, and non-royal woman, to appear on a widely circulated Canadian bank note, according to Bank of Canada officials. Canada’s first female MP Agnes MacPhail was one of four people featured on a commemorative $10 bill created as part of Canada 150 activities.

Desmond’s court case was the first known legal challenge against racial segregation brought forward by a Black woman in Canada, Bank of Canada officials said.

“Her story serves as inspiration to all Canadians and acts as a powerful reminder of how one person’s actions can help trigger change across generations,” Morneau said. “We hope this constant reminder of Viola’s story will help inspire a new generation of women, men, girls and boys to fight for what they believe.”

Poloz said the new note is the first vertically-oriented bank note issued in Canada and will allow for a more prominent image of Desmond to be displayed

The back of the bill features the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, an eagle feather representing our journey to rights and freedom for Indigenous peoples and an excerpt from the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“The launch of the bill sends people of African descent the message that Canada is finally accepting us,” said Russel Grosse, of the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia. “It’s a long-awaited sense of belonging for the African-Canadian community.”

It would be 63 years after her conviction before Nova Scotia formally issued Desmond a posthumous apology and pardon. She passed away in 1965 at the age of 51.

Segregation was legally ended in Nova Scotia in 1954, three years after Desmond’s death. Many attributed the end of segregation in part due to the publicity generated by Desmond’s case.

Her name now graces a Halifax Transit harbour ferry, a Canada Post stamp, and there are plans for streets named in her honour in Montreal and Halifax and a park in Toronto.

– 30 –

 

 

 

By TOM GODFREY

It was more than 60-years ago that Willie O’Ree valiantly stepped on the ice and stick-handled his way into becoming the first Black player to ever play for the iconic National Hockey League.

O’Ree, now 82, is still very active and serves as a NHL diversity ambassador. He was honoured by the Boston Bruins on January 17 to mark the 60^th anniversary of when he took to the ice for the team to become the league’s first Black player.

His first game with Boston resulted in a 3-0 win against the Montreal Canadiens. He recalled that he didn’t know the significance of the game until reading a newspaper the next day that said he had broken the NHL’s colour barrier.

“It was a nice feeling,” O’Ree told The Canadian Press recently in an interview from his home in California. “I just happened to be playing and just happened to be Black.”

He only played one more game with the Bruins that season. He returned to the team for the 1960-61 season, playing a total of 45 games in the NHL, scoring a respectable four goals and 10 assists.

O’Ree for the last 20 years has been going to schools and other venues to speak to young people as part of a Hockey is for Everyone initiative.

Today, members of the Black community and some top Black NHL players, have written letters and are lobbying for O’Ree to be the first Black to be inducted into the legendary Hockey Hall of Fame, in Toronto.

The athlete touched Boston residents so much in his brief stint there that they also named a street hockey rink after him.

Brenda Samson, a friend of O’Ree in his hometown of Fredericton, said the anniversary sparked an effort to have the former player inducted into the Hall of Fame as a builder.

“I think the idea originated with all the celebrations taking place in Boston,” she said.

Organizers have received many letters of support for O’Ree’s nomination; including one from Karl Subban, whose famous sons P.K. play for the Nashville Predators, Malcolm with the Las Vegas Golden Knights and Jordan for the American Hockey League.

Subban said O’Ree broke the colour barrier for the Bruins in 1958, the same year that he was born.

“He is a pioneer and a trailblazer,” he wrote. “Willie achieved in the face of adversity. He changed the game and he changed society and he changed minds.”

Subban noted that O’Ree made it possible for his sons to play professional hockey.

“He changed hockey which is now for everyone,” he wrote. “Hockey needed him and so does the Hockey Hall of Fame. The time is right!”

Mike Eagles, director of athletics at St.Thomas University in Frederiction and a player in the NHL for 16 seasons, also threw in his support for O’Ree.

“Willie loved hockey so much that it helped him deal with and overcome all the challenges and racism he faced during his life and hockey career,” Eagles wrote.

The nomination bid has received letters from politicians and even children who received advice from O’Ree.

The youngster left Fredericton in 1954 at the age of 17 to play junior hockey with the Quebec Frontenacs. The next year he moved to Kitchener. It was during that second year in junior that he had an unfortunate accident.

“There was a slapshot, and I’m on the ice in front of the net. A ricochet came up and the puck struck me in the eye. I lost 97 per cent vision in my right eye. I was out of action for about six weeks,” he later recalled.

Through his career and the diversity that he faced, O’Ree never told others that he was blind in one eye, which meant he would not be allowed to play in the NHL.

Following his stint within the Bruins, he played in other leagues for teams in Ottawa, Los Angeles and San Diego.

The submission for O’Ree’s nomination into the Hall of Fame will be sent to a selection committee this month. A decision will be made by June if O’Ree will take his place in hockey’s top shrine.

 

– 30 –

Eleanor Collins could have been the Oprah Winfrey of her day as she was the first Black woman to host a mainstream TV show in Canada while fighting racial discrimination on and off the screen.

The golden-voiced Collins, who was known as “Vancouver’s first lady of jazz,” got her first break while visiting CBC Radio Vancouver with a friend in 1953.

Collins soon became part of the fledgling station’s first live broadcasts and gained some fame hosting a program called ‘Bamboula; a day in the West Indies’, which lasted for three episodes. The show featured music from the Caribbean and was the first to have a mixed-race cast and many song and dance numbers.

Her talent, professionalism, and charm led to her own national television series, The Eleanor Show, a weekly music series that aired in June 1955 and ran for that summer. It starred Collins, pianist Chris Gage and dancers Leonard Gibson and Denise Quan.

The show was resurrected in 1964 and called Eleanor, but it did not last long. The sultry singer was often compared to U.S. singer Lena Horne in appearances on TV, radio and clubs. I “didn’t see a lot of my people on TV” she noted then.

Collins is credited with being the first Black artist in North America to star in her own TV series. She beat Nat King Cole’s achievement of being the first Black performer to star in their own show on American television by over a year. The Nat King Cole Show debuted November 1956 on NBC, decades after Winfrey and others ruled the airwaves.

She is fondly remembered for her ground-breaking work in that era and is regarded as a television pioneer.

Known for her smoky jazz stylings, Collins had worked with Vancouver’s leading musicians on CBC radio and television. Throughout her career, she was known as the consummate professional, who was able to take any song and give it life.

“She could start fires by rubbing two notes together!” once wrote Jack Wasserman, a nightlife and celebrity columnist for the Vancouver Sun.

Collins was born in 1919, in Edmonton, to pioneering parents who were among 1,000 Black U.S. homesteaders who came to settle in the rustic Alberta prairies in 1910.

She won an amateur talent contest in 1934 at the age of 15 and soon after moved to Vancouver, where her family lived for a while in the infamous Hogan’s Alley area; which was the home of the Black community, whose residents included Nora Hendrix, the grandmother of iconic rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix.
She married Richard Collins in 1942 and the couple settled in Burnaby, B.C., where they raised four children. They later moved into an all-white neighborhood and were met with racism as their neighbours began a petition against the family to try and intimidate them from settling on their street.

Instead of getting angry, Collins and her family fought to combat the ignorance of their neighbours and immersed themselves in their new community by participating in local activities, events, and organizations.

By the late 1960s the popularity of musical variety and live shows ebbed which meant less work for Collins, who kept busy in her community and serving as musical director at Unity Church.

To this day she insists that her most memorable performance was in front of 80,000 people attending Canada Day Ceremonies on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in 1975. It was her largest live audience and she recalled looking out from the stage at all the people holding candles.

“Suddenly it came very clearly that I was Canadian,” she recalled much later, “and to be proud of it.”

The Order of Canada recipient was honoured with her inclusion in a new book celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Order of Canada along with Canada’s 150th Anniversary titled: “They Desire a Better Country: The Order of Canada in 50 Stories”.

She was inducted into the B.C. Entertainment Hall of Fame, has been presented with numerous lifetime achievement awards and was singing at Unity Church well into her late 90s.

– 30 –

By TOM GODFREY

Efforts are underway to have this country’s first Black mailman, Albert Jackson, a former U.S. child slave, commemorated on a Canadian postage stamp almost 100 years after his death.

The Jackson family has also launched a fundraising drive to obtain a plaque to highlight his role in history in that he fought racism and bigotry while working as a letter carrier in downtown Toronto from 1882 until his retirement. He died in 1918.

The hard-working Jackson was made a postman but given an inside job with a “mop and pail”. It took complaints from the community and an order from then Prime Minister John A. Macdonald to place him on a route.

Jackson was the youngest of seven children. His mother, Ann Maria Jackson, fled to Canada from Delaware through the Underground Railroad, a system that smuggled slaves up north from the U.S. to escape slavery.

It was the sale of Jackson’s two older siblings into slavery that forced the family to flee to Canada in 1859.

Jay Jackson, the great-grandson of Albert, said his great-grandfather stood up for what he believed in and experienced a lot in his life.

“Him being commemorated on a stamp is something that needs to be done,” Jay told Share. “This man has been through so much that this is long overdue.”

Jackson was appointed by the federal government to be a mail carrier in May 1882. It was at the time an important job for a member of the Black community.

He was instead reassigned to a menial job of hall porter at the post office, which touched off a controversy in the fledgling Black community.

At the post office, the all-White workers insulted him and refused to give him a uniform, train or show him his mail route.

“He showed up to work on the first day and they gave him a mop and pail,” said Jay. “They wouldn’t give him a uniform because they didn’t think he represented the Canadian government.”

Jackson’s plight was picked up by the Toronto newspapers and many sided with the quiet postman, who served the south Annex area.

“What resulted was a furor, with the Black community insisting that Jackson be given his appointment,” wrote Colin McFarquhar, in an essay of Blacks in 1880s Toronto. “Many in the White community were arguing that other letter carriers should not be forced to work with him.”

So contentious was the Jackson issue at the time that a number of Blacks were assaulted on the streets by Whites.

“The question of whether Jackson should be a mailman became a highly charged issue in Toronto,” McFarquhar wrote. “The matter was discussed prominently in the newspapers for the next couple of weeks.”

Jackson suggested that “if North American Whites gave Blacks equal opportunity they would eventually see Blacks possessing all the attributes Whites said they did not have”.

“One point that was debated was whether Blacks were inherently inferior to Whites,” read one publication. “The question of whether Blacks were inferior or had a smaller brain was debated in letters to the Toronto World.”

A committee of business and social leaders was set up to study the issue, but Macdonald was forced to intervene and ensure Jackson was assigned a delivery route.

Mark Brown, of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) and Toronto and York Region Labour Council, said a package is being prepared for a Canada Post selection committee seeking that Jackson be immortalized for his contribution to Toronto’s history.

“This worker was wronged and the community is coming together to give him his rightful place in history,” Brown told Share. “He is truly deserving to be on a Canadian stamp.”

Brown said Jackson was the first Black postman in all of Canada.

The Jackson family’s plight was first exposed by historian and author Karolyn Smardz Frost in her book, I’ve Got a Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad.

Her book was the first volume on African Canadian history to win a Governor General’s Award.

Jackson’s plight was turned into a play called The Postman that debuted in 2015. A downtown laneway was also named after him

Come and see and exciting display of moving artwork-

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
August 19, 2015
Burlington, ONT. (TNWS) – Come feast your eyes on some of the world’s most expensive and beautiful Exotic and Supercars this weekend on the grounds of the historic lakeside Paletta Mansion.
The 4th Annual Marques d’Elegance takes place August 21, 22 and 23, 2015 and features hundreds of owners and their luxury vehicles. There will be fashion shows, live bands and live and silent auctions; with a donation made to the Sick Kids Foundation.
The event kicks off on Friday, August 21 with the 3rd Annual “An Evening of Luxury” presented by Mercedes-Benz Burlington in which car-lovers can walk along the new Burlington Pier and view a stunning display of AMG Performance vehicles.
There will be a VIP Tent with a great selection fine wines and spirits, artisan foods, fashion shows, art exhibits, live and silent auctions.
The event will take place at the Brant Street Pier, at Brant & Lakeshore Road, from 6 pm to midnight.
Join us on August 22 for our popular “Supercars and Jets Gala” that involve an incredible display of Exotic Supercars and private jets. Our guests experience the worldly feeling of being a jetsetter by going in an out of private jets.
“Our visitors can enjoy gourmet foods, premium wines and spirits, live entertainment and finish off the night with an exciting fashion show,” promises Felice Cappellano, a local businessman and car buff who founded the Pebble Beach style event in 2011.
“The event is growing bigger every year and our members are the first to donate or to help raise funds for charities like the Sick Kids Foundation,” Cappellano says.
The Gala takes place at Jetport Hangar, in Mount Hope, from 6 pm to midnight.
The premiere Marques d’Elegance event takes place on Sunday, August 23 with some 150 Maseratis, Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches; along with a special appearance of Sebastian Vettel’s world-championship F1 car, that will be sprinkled on the grounds of the picturesque Paletta Mansion. It is eye-candy for car-lovers, so make sure to walk with a camera.
Drivers and their guests will spend an all-inclusive afternoon at a VIP Paddock area in which they are treated to artisan meals, champagne and vintage wines. They can even have their car voted best in its class and win awards.
General admission tickets are $25; $15 for children under the age of 16 and children are free under the age of 6. Prices does not include HST.
For further information visit us at www.marquesdelegance.ca or contact:
Confidy Kong,
Executive Assistant to Felice Cappellano,
Founder, Marques d’Elegance
905-928-0471 or 905.592.4203 or drop us a line at info@marquesdelegance.ca
– 30 –
Press Release preprared and distributed by Toronto News Wire Services at torontonewswire.com or 416-251-7329.

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