Community Organizing

• Author: Alan Borovoy
• Pages: 75-90

• 75 •

chapter five

Community Organizing

Among the objectives of any viable operation in race relations

is the creation of self-help organizations that are designed primarily

to serve the interests of some victimized minority group. During my

tenure there, the Labour Committee became involved in a couple of

such ventures.

The f‌irst one arose in the summer of 1962. Sid Blum asked me to go

to Halifax and meet with a group of black people from an area known as

Africville. Members of this group had written to Sid, complaining that,

in their dealings with the Halifax city government, they always got the

short end of the stick. So Sid asked me to try to provide whatever assist-

ance we could. I went there, not knowing what kind of help I could — or

should — offer these people.

I did know that the part of the country I was about to visit contained

proportionately the largest black population in Canada. We believed,

therefore, that there was likely to be proportionately more discrimina-

tion against them than would be found elsewhere. Despite the fact that

my knowledge of the area was limited and the nature of my mandate

was vague, I greeted my proposed trip with much enthusiasm.

A word about my f‌irst day there. Arriving in mid-August, I was met

early on by a well-respected member of the Halifax community, Lloyd

Shaw. I had learned that, despite his status as a successful businessman,

Lloyd had been involved for many years in social democratic politics.

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“at the barricades”

Indeed, he was then on the national executive of the New Democratic

Party (NDP), as he had formerly served the CCF. My patrician socialist

host turned out to be very kind and gracious. He spent a considerable

period of time with me, and showed me the major sights of the city. I

should also note that his later contribution to Canadian social democ-

racy included his daughter, Alexa McDonough, who became the federal

leader of the NDP.

According to prearrangement, I was joined a little later by then Mac-

lean’s writer, David Lewis Stein, whom I had known from my camp

years. David was there to do a piece on the problems of Africville and

my role in trying to address them.

By another prearrangement, David and I went to Africville on the

morning of the day after my arrival in Halifax. The setting was hard to

imagine: dilapidated houses, no f‌lush toilets, and a sign over the well

warning people to boil the water before using it. About four or f‌ive Af-

ricville residents joined David and me in the home of Leon and Emma

Steed. Mrs. Steed was the person who wrote most of the letters to Sid

Blum that requested our presence there. It soon became apparent that

she was one of the principal leaders, at least of this group of Africville

residents. The possibility of relocation was very much on everyone’s

mind.

One of the f‌irst questions I asked of this group was, “Do you want

to move elsewhere?” One member of the group quickly replied, “Would

you want to live here?” No one in attendance evinced any disagreement

with this sentiment.

I thought, therefore, that it was important to create some kind of

organization that could help these people in their dealings with the

Halifax authorities. Such an organization might be able to provide a

certain amount of expertise and, more important, a source of pressure

for whatever negotiations might ensue and for whatever political de-

cisions had to be made. I also had it at the back of my mind that the

Labour Committee was interested in trying to develop some aff‌iliated

human rights organizations in such regions of the country. Perhaps, I

thought, it might be possible to create an organization that could serve

both of these functions.

Accordingly, I arranged for a meeting to be held in my hotel room

on the following evening. I invited the Africville people, along with a