Black sleeping automotive porters’ function in Canadian civil rights highlighted in U of A occasion
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The railroads began recruiting blacks as porters in the late 19th century with the invention of sleeper cars on trains, Foster said, an important part of that country’s history when the railways united the country from coast to coast.
Over the decades the black bearers have unionized and have become a powerful advocacy group.
For example, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker was known as the “friend of the sleeper carriage,” and the Bill of Rights was caused, among other things, by the group’s advocacy of fair employment and housing.
Her entry helped turn Canada into a multicultural country, but her history is unknown, he said.
“The narrative that Canada is is still a white Canada… (this) is a narrative to be kept in mind and we have to shake it up, and we have to really retell the narrative of what Canada really is focus on many groups that have been excluded. “
He hopes his talk will inspire people to continue the work started by the porters, for example by continuing the dynamic that sparked George Floyd’s police murder last year.
“I think Canada is way better than it was in the 1950s and 1970s … but we are not there yet,” he said.
“We need many sleeper-car carriers … to get to this ultimate destination. So now anyone on this train who is Canada can become a sleeper car porter. “
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