Earlier this fall when Premier Tim Houston announced that Pat Dunn, a white man, would be the new Minister of African Nova Scotian Affairs, Vanessa Fells immediately started getting phone calls from media asking her for comment on Dunn’s appointment. “When things like that happen, our members only meet once a month,” Fells said. “So, […]
Image at NSCC Early Childhood Education classroom reflects centuries of negative stereotypes of Black women
Vanessa Fells is the programming and outreach co-ordinator for the Black Loyalist Heritage Society. This weekend, Fells was at a Black Educators Association professional development event when a young African Nova Scotian student shared with her the following picture from the Early Childhood Education class at the Nova Scotia Community College Burridge campus in Yarmouth: […]
“Hell to the no. We’re outta here.”
Fleeing Nova Scotia for Africa, Black Loyalists, in their “reverse migration,” had rendered themselves vulnerable to a still robust slave trade that was not abolished, within the British Empire, until 1834. Think about it.
There was no love lost between me and a bland fruit that routinely found its way into my childhood home in northwest Indiana. That sentiment changed when, at age 21, I nibbled the same fruit (between sips of palm wine) at a gathering in Ghana. “Who knew it tasted so good?” I marvelled while savouring […]