Black Resilience: Motivating Rosa Parks, Viola Desmond and You…

Rosa Park’s legendary sit-in by the window on the Mongomery, Alabama city bus in December 1955 reminds us of Viola Desmond’s earlier decision in 1946 to use her 40-cent movie ticket to sit wherever she pleased in the Roseland Film Theatre in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. Forbidding Black people from using public spaces—restaurants, swimming pools, prime seats in public transportation, movie theatres, sports facilities (the late Harry Gairey Jr.’s ice-skating experience as a Toronto teenager in 1945, for example)—was a longstanding tactic designed to foster feelings of alienation from society.

Both events reflect a clear determination to resist systemic, and socially entrenched injustices intended to dehumanize racialized people, deny them equality and inflict undue stress even in the most mundane activities of life. These stories also remind racialized people that their freedom and dignity must be unapologetically demanded—asserted as inalienable and non-negotiable. True allies in the struggle for Inclusion, Diversity Equity and Anti-Racism (IDEA) recognize attitudes of resilience and actively support them.

Reflecting later on the bus incident Rosa Parks explained: “I thought of Emmett Till – a 14-year-old African American who was lynched in Mississippi in [August] 1955, after being accused of offending a White woman in her family’s grocery store, whose killers were tried and acquitted – and I just couldn’t go back.”

In her autobiography, My Story, Parks added: “I was not old,… I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”

Today, as Canadians proudly celebrate Viola Desmond whose 40-cent protest—$6.52 cents today– is commemorated on our $10 bill, we also remember, with gratitude, Rosa Parks who played her part in extending the ever-growing line of resilient Black leaders and wore her personal mantle of courage and determination with distinction. #inclusion #diversity #equity #antiracism

Canada

The Power and Disempowering of Language in the Trump Era

James Baldwin viewed language as deeply tied to power, identity and historical reality, particularly for marginalized communities. Language, he wrote is “meant to define the other – and in this indispensable, cruelly dishonest role, it can be employed to obscure the truth.” Writers like Baldwin remind us that language is more than just a tool for communication—it shapes thought, reinforces power structures, and influences the way individuals perceive reality.

Read More »
anti-racism

DEI Backlash and Canadian Organizations

How Canadian Organizations Should Respond to the Backlash Against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

For many years, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives have become a cornerstone of workplace culture in Canada. Many organizations recognize that these initiatives contribute to creativity, talent recruitment, and growth.  But recent court decisions in the United States, actions taken by the Trump administration, and political misinformation about DEI in the US and Canada have all added to increasing resistance to diversity, equity and inclusion. Even some organizations that prioritized these initiatives a mere five years ago (after a White police officer killed Black American George Floyd, which led to widespread protests) have pulled back or softened their approach. 

Read More »
Canada

In Conversation With the Stratford Festival

“We’re getting to a place where we’re thinking across the whole experience: How do we welcome people in? And there’s something really joyful about that. So it’s not just the spreadsheet of it being a good business decision. It is the experience of the festival being enriched.”

– Anita Gaffney, Executive Director, The Stratford Festival

Read More »
Difficult Conversations

Is DEI on Its Way Out?

Over the past few weeks, I have felt the southerly cold wind creeping up on The Great White North, bringing doubt amongst equity-deserving groups and their allies. Even our pending elections seem to signal a seismic shift from the commitment to build representative organizations – none more so than within the Federal Public Service (FPS).  It begs the question: Is Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) on its way out?

Read More »
In the news

Celebrating Black Excellence

Black History Month is a very significant time for my generation and for me personally. It is
important to highlight and truly recognize Black excellence.
Often when people bring up Black History, they only relate it back to slavery or a few
outstanding Black American figures in history. But as a Canadian Black female of Jamaican,
Trinidadian and Saint Lucian heritage, I know that Black history is so much more.

Read More »
Skip to content