Black History celebration and symposium coming to Hamilton

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The Afro-Canadian Caribbean Association of Hamilton and District (ACCA) is staging its Black History Celebration and Symposium – “We Are Planted Here: Narratives in Belonging” on March 13-14 in Hamilton. The two-day Arts and Culture Celebration and Symposium will bring together leading Black academics, community organizers, activists, artists and students from across Ontario to excavate and foreground the historic and contemporary presence and contributions of Blacks in Canada and their participation in addressing issues related to anti-Black racism

March 13, Arts and Culture Celebration performers include:

Clifton Joseph a Canadian dub poet. He is most noted for his 1989 album Oral/Trans/Missions, from which the song “Chuckie Prophesy” was a shortlisted Juno Award finalist for Best Reggae Recording at the Juno Awards of 1990. A native of Antigua, Joseph moved to Canada with his family in the 1970s

Leslie McCurdy-an actor, dancer, singer, choreographer and playwright, author of four one-woman plays that she performs herself. The Spirit of Harriet Tubman, is her most “famous” play and was a finalist for a Canadian Chalmers Award for Best New Play for Young Audiences. Her second play, Things My Fore-Sisters Saw, which was filmed for TV and premiered on the Bravo Network in Canada in February 2006.

The March 14: symposium speakers include:

Dr. Afua Cooper, the keynote Speaker Dr. Afua Cooper is the immediate past James Robinson Johnston Chair in Black Canadian studies at Dalhousie University. A Leading expert in African Canadian and African Diaspora history, she has done ground-breaking work in bringing Black Canadian history to the fore through her research, teaching, public speaking, publications, and other forms of knowledge mobilization. She is professor of Black Studies at Dalhousie University and is currently Halifax’s Poet Laureate.

Dr. Bonny Ibhowah is a Professor and Senator William McMaster Chair in Global Human Rights at McMaster University. He has taught in universities in Africa, Europe and North America. Previously, he was a Human Rights Fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics and International Affairs, New York, and Research Fellow at the Danish Institute for Human Rights, Copenhagen.

Natasha Henry is the president of the Ontario Black History Society. Natasha is a historian and has been an educator for 19 years. She is an award-winning author and an award-winning curriculum consultant, focusing on Black Canadian experiences. Natasha is currently completing a PhD in History at York University, researching the enslavement of Africans in early Ontario. Through her various professional and community roles, Natasha’s work is grounded in her commitment to research, collect, preserve, and disseminate the histories of Black Canadians.

Tamari Kitossa is an Associate Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology at Brock University since 2006. His research and scholarly interests include anti-criminology, antiBlackness, Black masculinity, racial profiling and the sociology of knowledge. With Erica Lawson and Philip Howard, he is a contributor and lead editor for African Canadian Leadership: Continuity, transition and transformation published by the University of Toronto Press. He is an editor for Appealing Because He is Appalling: Black masculinity, colonialism and erotic racism currently under review with the University of Alberta Press.