Karina Vernon - The Black Prairie Archives: An Anthology

The Black Prairie Archives

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The

Black Prairie

Archives

An Anthology

Karina Vernon, editor

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Wilfrid Laurier University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada. This work was supported by the Research Support Fund.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: The black Prairie archives : an anthology / Karina Vernon, editor.

Names: Vernon, Karina, 1973 editor.

Description: Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190064390 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190064404 |

ISBN 9781771123747 (softcover) | ISBN 9781771123754 (EPUB) | ISBN

9781771123761 (PDF)

Subjects: LCSH: Canadian literatureBlack authors. | LCSH: Canadian literature

Prairie Provinces. | CSH: Canadian literatureBlack Canadian authors.

Classification: LCC PS8235.B53 B53 2019 | DDC C810.8/08960712dc23

Front-cover photo: Barella & Landscape #3, Osbourne, Kansas, from the project Sense of Place (2013), by Dawit L. Petros. Cover design by Martyn Schmoll. Interior design by James Leahy.

2020 Wilfrid Laurier University Press

Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

www.wlupress.wlu.ca

This book is printed on FSC certified

paper and is certified Ecologo. It con

tains post-consumer fibre, is processed

chlorine free, and is manufactured using

biogas energy.

Printed in Canada

Every reasonable effort has been made to acquire permission for copyright material used in this text, and to acknowledge all such indebtedness accurately. Any errors and omissions called to the publishers attention will be corrected in future printings.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit http://www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to

1-800-893-5777.

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To the memory of my mother and father,

Elvina Dyck and Walter Vernon,

and to my children,

Felix and Ursula

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Contents

The Repertoire

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viii Contents

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Contents ix

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x Contents

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Contents xi

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xii Contents

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I could never have imagined, when I began this project as a graduate student at the University of Victoria, how large it would ultimately become; how long it would take to finish, and how much support I would need along the way.

I began this project on unceded Coast Salish territory. I finished it on traditional Huron-Wendat, Anishnaabe, and Mississauga lands. I have used more resources on these territories than any uninvited guest has a right to expect. Im grateful for the gift of treaty citizenship. May the future, and our relations within it, be more just.

Ive been honoured to have been granted access to the personal documents, family histories, and work of so many writers. To all the people who so generously entrusted me with their writing, I am grateful. I hope this book does your writing, your families, and your histories justice. I am grateful to the womenthe matriarchs and knowledge-keepers of the prairiesVelma Carter, Wanda Leffler Akili, Gwen Hooks, Cheryl Foggo, Junetta Jamerson, and Crystal Mayes, among others, who have kept memory of the prairies black histories, stories, and food cultures alive. Royalties from this book will go to setting up the Velma Carter Bursary for Black Canadians to help support high school students entering university.

I am tremendously grateful to Smaro Kamboureli, who helped to shape this projectand mein so many ways; heartfelt thanks go to you. Thank you to Evelyn Cobley, Sheila Rabillard, and Sada Niang, whose input at the earliest stages helped me conceptualize the project. Thank you to Leslie Sanders for conversations and support around this project and far beyond; Im grateful for your work and for mentorship. Winfried Siemerling has been a tremendously generous mentor, collaborator and friend; thank you.

Im grateful also to Laura Moss for feminist mentorship from afar.

xiii

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xiv Acknowledgements

Thank you to Siobhan McMenemy at Wilfrid Laurier University Press

for her steadfast commitment to this book and for many years of support and friendship. Thank you to the whole team at WLUP, including Lisa Quinn, Robert Kohlmeier, and James Leahy.

My thanks to the many archivists, librarians, and individuals who helped track down archival documents and other information, and who brought my attention to work by black writers on the prairies, including Robert Barrow, Bertrand Bickersteth, Jim Bowman, George Elliott Clarke, Wayde Compton, Nadine Charabin, David Chariandy, Cheryl Foggo, Garry Forsyth, Addena Sumter-Freitag, April Sumter-Freitag, Junetta Jamerson, Jenny Kerber, Saje Mathieu, Suzette Mayr, Marilyn Mol, Nannette Morton, Sophie Tellier, and Lorraine York. Special thanks to the late Fred Booker and Lorena Gale for conversations about black history and families on the prairies; you are greatly missed.

Thank you to my colleagues at the University of Toronto Scarborough, and the Graduate Department of English at the University of Toronto, who make the work of teaching, learning, and administration such an immensely rewarding experience. I owe a debt of gratitude to Christine Bolus-Reichert for support during the years it took to write this book.

Thank you to Suzanne Akbari, Uzoma Essonwane, Lee Maracle, and Neil ten Kortenaar for institutionally-transformative conversations. For their friendship at the university and beyond Im grateful to Maria Assif, Kath-erine Blouin, Andrew Dubois, Cheryl Suzack, Marlene Goldman, Katie Larson, Nathalie Rothman, and Daniel Tysdal. Thank you to my extraordinary undergraduate and graduate studentsboth past and presentwho give me so much to hope for in the future of Canadian literature and black Canadian studies.

Thank you to the conference organizers who invited me to speak about my research on the black prairies. They include Sarah Brophy and Nadine Atwell at McMaster University; George Elliott Clarke at the Weatherhead Centre for International Affairs (Canada Program) at Harvard University; Pilar Cuder Domnguez and Beln Martn Lucas from the universities of Huelva and Vigo in Spain; Smaro Kamboureli and Larissa Lai at the University of Toronto and the University of Calgary; Larissa Lai and Suzette Mayr at the Insurgent Architects House for Creative Writing at the University of Calgary; Heike Paul, Katja Sarkowsky and Meike Zwingenberger at the Bavarian American Academy in Munich; and Leslie Sanders at York University. My immense gratitude to Kit Dobson, Erin Wunker, and all the participants at the Miners Bay retreat in 2014. This event made such a difference to me.