A PROUD MR. BROOKS with some of his students and staff at school in which he was now a principal. Courtesy of The Toronto Star photographer Boris Spremo.
The late Wilson Oliver Brooks was a former Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) veteran who went on to become the first Black male Toronto school teacher and principal after he left the service.
Brooks was born in Windsor in 1924 to a railway porter dad, Oliver, and mom, Edith May Wilson, a fourth generation and proud Black Canadian.
He grew up in the busy Dundas and Spadina Aves. area, where racism was free and thick at the time.
BROOKS FOUGHT PREJUDICE to become Toronto’s first high school Black principal.
The young Books was refused a job at a market because a manager believed customers would be offended by his presence (meaning skin colour); and at the age of 16 was denied entry into a Count Basie concert because of the dark colour of his skin, according to reports.
Brooks enlisted in the RCAF in April 1943. His education and aptitude tests indicated that he would make a good member of an aircrew. As a result he trained to be an air bomber, to guide the aircraft in dropping bombs on a target.
He had good scores and was made a Pilot Officer (or today a 2nd Lieutenant) and sent to England for updated training in June 1944. Brooks became part of a crew that would fly missions together. During this time he was promoted to Flying Officer.
The flyer had joined the war too late and never saw any combat service overseas. He was released from the army and went on to a distinguished career after the Second World War.
BROOKS LOVED HIS students and knew how to talk to them.
Using the money from his Veterans’ allowance, he attended the University of Toronto and graduated with a Bachelor Arts degree. Here he met his wife, Phyllis with whom he had three daughters and a son. Being interested in equality he wanted to teach.
In September 1952 Wilson became the first male Black school teacher in Toronto Board of Education system. He taught Grade 5. He would go on to teach at Williamson Road Public School in 1958. In 1961 he became vice principal in at Gledhill Avenue School. He would later serve on the same position at Queen Alexandra Middle School.
Brooks was always active in the community. He was a member of the Toronto Negro Business and Professional Men’s Association, and its president in the mid-1960s. He and Dr. Dan Hill founded the Ontario Black History Society (OBHS).
The OBHS petitioned the City of Toronto to declare February as Black History Month, which it did. He helped found the Toronto Choiristers and was on the selection committee of the Harry Gairey Scholarship, which helps young Black-Canadians attend university.
He even helped a 12 year old girl return to the ice when she was banned from playing on a boys hockey team.
Brooks In 197 was appointed Principal of Shaw Public School. As such he was the first Black principal in the Toronto School Board. In the mid-1970s he worked in the personnel department of the Toronto Board of Education accepting resumes of prospective elementary and special education teachers.
He returned to what he loved, working with students in 1980 when he was appointed principal of Glen Ames Public School, a post he held until he retired in June 1986.
More than 600 people attended his funeral in April 1994 at St. Olave’s Anglican Church. The Toronto Choiristers performed, as did Dan Hill, son of Ontario’s Human Rights Commissioner.
The former veteran and teacher left behind a legacy of working for equality, fairness and a great impression on all of his students.