Cecil Foster - They Call Me George: The Untold Story of Black Train Porters and the Birth of Modern Canada

They Call Me George

The Untold Story of Black Train Porters
and the Birth of Modern Canada

Cecil Foster

Biblioasis

windsor, ontario

Copyright Cecil Foster, 2019

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher or a license from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright license visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

First Edition

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Foster, Cecil, 1954-, author

They call me George : the untold story of black train porters and the birth of modern Canada / Cecil Foster.

(Untold lives)

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-77196-261-2 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-77196-262-9 (ebook)

Pullman porters--Canada--History. 2. Porters--Canada--History.

3. Train attendants--Canada--History. 4. Black Canadians--History.

I. Title.

HD6528.R362C25 2019 331.7613852208996071 C2018-901743-0

C2018-901744-9

Edited by Janice Zawerbny

Copy-edited by Emily Donaldson and James Grainger

Cover designed by Michel Vrana

Typeset by Chris Andrechek

Quotations from new Canadian immigrants on front flap originated in the Permanent Collection of the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 (www.pier21.ca).

Gloria Betty Brock, English War Bride, 1946. Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 (S2012.209.1).

Anna Silins, English Immigrant, 1951. Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 (S2012.768.1).

Martin Wydenes, Dutch Immigrant, 1952. Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 (S2012.1162.1).

Published with the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country, and the Government of Canada. Biblioasis also acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council (OAC), an agency of the Government of Ontario, which last year funded 1,709 individual artists and 1,078 organizations in 204 communities across Ontario, for a total of $52.1 million, and the contribution of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation. This is one of the 200 exceptional projects funded through the Canada Council for the Arts New Chapter program. With this $35M investment, the Council supports the creation and sharing of the arts in communities across Canada.

PRINTED AND BOUND IN CANADA

Dedicated to the Memory of

Billy Downie of Halifax

A sleeping car porter who became a dear friend

and whose spirit enlivens this book

For my grandchildren:

Akil, Markus, Michael, Liam, Amias, Armea, Ryan, Dominic

The members and officials of the Negro Citizenship Association and the Toronto C.P.R. Division of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters will continue to fight unremittingly for the right of all peoples of this planet to enter Canada and become its citizens without penalty or reward because of their race, colour, religion, national origin or ancestry. Yes, we take the uncompromising position that what appears to be premeditated discrimination in Canadas Immigration Laws and policy is utterly inconsistent with democratic principles and Christian ethics.

Stanley Grizzle, president of the Toronto chapter of the
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, April 27, 1954

Contents

INTRODUCTION

I was on my way to Windsor, Ontario, on VIA Rail Train 75, in late-summer 2018. A female voice, flawlessly bilingual in English and French, welcomed everybody on board. Everything seemed so routine. Settling into my aisle seat near the front of the car, I cracked open a book and started to read to help me get through the five-hour trip.

Tickets, please, a gentle voice said over my head. I looked up to see a young woman with long, flowing black braids cascading down past her shoulders, in a navy uniform with an open-neck polo shirt, the corporations insignia on her blazer; she was smiling at me, the traditional mile-wide smile historically associated with her job.

Well, look at that, I said. A Black train porter. Realizing how strange that statement might have sounded in our modern-day multicultural, diverse, and inclusive Canada, I felt compelled to explain why I was remarking on the obvious. Do you know that Ive been travelling a lot on the train in Canada and you are the first Black porter Ive seen?

This was true: train porter was once a job reserved exclusively for Black workers. I had recently been speaking to former train porters, and the old-timers were the first to draw my attention to this observation. You can hardly find any Black porters these days, they said wistfully. Nothing in my train travels had proven them wrong. Until now.

No, man, she said laughing. There are others.

And youre a woman too, I said.

She laughed again.

Do you know there was a time when the only porters youd find on trains in Canada and the United States were Black men? I asked her. It was the only job they could get in Canada and the United States. Those porters fought to change all that so that Black workers could have greater employment opportunities.

She did not know any of this. The quizzical look remained on her face as she waited for me to produce my ticket. I thought about the time, three years earlier, when, following his election victory, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was asked why he wanted gender parity in his cabinet and he replied simply, Because it is 2015! thereby ending the conversation. Canada has evolved over time, so that now issues such as genderand presumably race, ethnicity, and religion toodo not matter in daily life. Or so was the implication in his statement.

At that point my wife, who was sitting next to me, entered the conversation and explained that I was an author and professor, and that my research into a book about the history of Black train porters in Canada was the very reason we were on the train.

My name is Rokhaya Ndiaye, she answered when I asked. I am Senegalese.

And thats another thing, I blurted out. It was the train porters who made it possible for people like you and me to be in this country. Indeed, they forced Canada to open up immigration to people from all parts of the world, including Africa and Asia.

Oh, she said, sounding genuinely interested in the discussion. I must find out more about that. After saying she was happy to have met me, she zapped the ticket barcode on my phone with a hand-held machine and posted two white card strips on the luggage container above our heads. She had a carload of other passengers waiting for her attention and could linger no more. She handed me her business cardwhich called her a manager in customer experience and not a train porterand we promised to continue the conversation at another time.