Centre C

Topic: Male Leaders of Black History

Learning Goal: Examine important male leaders of black history and record your research and ideas.
Task: Chose one leader to focus on and using the graphic organizer to record your responses. Use the resources (books, websites, and fact sheets) that are provided at the centre for your research.

Books:

"Let They Play" by Margot Theis Raven

Lincoln Alexander

The Honourable Lincoln M. Alexander was born in 1922 in Toronto. He served with the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War, between 1942 and 1945. He was educated at Hamilton’s McMaster University where he graduated in Arts, and Toronto’s Osgoode Hall School of Law where he passed the bar examination in 1965. Mr. Alexander was appointed a Queen’s Counsel and became a partner in a Hamilton law firm from 1963 to 1979. He was the first black person to become a Member of Parliament in 1968 and served in the House of Commons until 1980. He was also federal Minister of Labour in 1979–1980.

In 1985, Lincoln Alexander was appointed Ontario’s 24th Lieutenant Governor, the first member of a visible minority to serve as the Queen’s representative in Canada. During his term in office, which ended in 1991, youth and education were hallmarks of his mandate. He then accepted a position as Chancellor of the University of Guelph. In 1996, he was chair of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and was also made Honorary Commissioner for the International Year of Older Persons Ontario celebrations.

The Honourable Lincoln Alexander was appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada and to the Order of Ontario in 1992, and in June 2006, he was named the “Greatest Hamiltonian of All Time.”

Mr. Alexander died on October 19, 2012 at age 90

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/multiculturalism/black/people.asp

Jackie Robinson

Baseball was a White man's game for 100 years. That changed forever in 1946 when the Montreal Royals signed Jackie Robinson, the first professional Black baseball player in the major leagues.

The Royals, of the International League, was the AAA farm team of the Brooklyn Dodgers. President and owner of the Dodgers, Branch Rickey, chose Montreal as the test site for the bold move, saying that he thought of Robinson as a ball player first and that it was a point of fairness.

News that the team had signed Robinson was met by a storm of controversy and on tour he was subjected to threats and jeers. Critics expressed doubt, saying Robinson was too muscular to be a good hitter. Robinson played his first game for the Royals on April 18, 1946 in Jersey City, NJ, and played the kind of game that would make him legendary, driving in four runs with four hits, including a three-run homer, and stealing two bases. The Royals won 14-1.

Robinson proved on the field and off that Black players were as deserving of the major leagues as anyone. He helped the Royals win the "Little World Series" in the single year he played for the team, after which he was promoted to the Dodgers. He retired from the game in 1957. Jackie Robinson died in 1972.
http://blackhistorycanada.ca/arts.php?themeid=22&id=1

Daniel Hill 

Daniel G. Hill, human rights specialist, historian, and public servant, was prominent in the movement to overturn racial discrimination in Canada. He came to this country for graduate studies but committed himself to the quest for justice.

As an activist in the 1950s, Hill used public awareness as a tool to combat prejudice. With a PhD in sociology from the University of Toronto and a decade of experience with social causes, he became the first director of the Ontario Human Rights Commission in 1962, a position he held until 1971. Under his management the commission evolved innovative tactics, widely copied in Canada and other countries. In 1971 he became the first full-time chairman of the Ontario Human Rights Commission and in 1973 established a consulting firm in human rights with an international clientele.

In 1978, Daniel Hill, Donna Hill, Wilson Brooks and other educators co-founded the Ontario Black History Society. It became the first major public organization in Canada focused on the history of people of African descent in the country. He headed the organization for six years.

As Provincial Ombudsman from 1984 to 1989, Hill strove to make that office reflect the "new Ontario" with a forceful outreach program towards traditionally excluded groups and in particular to Canada's Aboriginal people. Following his retirement he became a member of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.

Hill's publications on human rights and Black history include Human Rights in Canada: A Focus on Racism (1977, 1986) and The Freedom Seekers: Blacks in Early Canada(1981).

http://blackhistorycanada.ca/arts.php?themeid=22&id=6

Resources 

Websites 
Black History Canada