Event

In February 2022, a North Shore News article titled “North Vancouver built on profits from the slave trade, founding family says” told the story of how “early settlement of the North Shore, its continued development, and the formation of the City of North Vancouver as we know it today all flow from a family fortune amassed in the transatlantic slave trade.”

In this session, SFU Associate Professor Dr. June Francis will explore how public and private institutions and corporations continue to benefit from the role they played in transforming Black labor (through enslavement), imperial expansion and colonial dispossession into intergenerational wealth and privilege. It addresses why racist practices and racial inequality persist despite generations of Black resistance, the enactment of civil rights and anti-racism laws and declarations, and a range of public and private responses.

This session will also examine the role of redress and reparations, including examples from the City of Vancouver's reparations for Hogan’s Alley. On a practical level, we will discuss what libraries can do as the curators of much of the knowledge systems and what individuals can do to create the inclusive and equitable societies in which we all can thrive.

We hope you can join us for this inspiring and illuminating event in anticipation of August 1st, Emancipation Day, which marks the day in 1834 that the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 came into effect in Canada.

Registration required. Click here for registration page.

This presentation is a collaboration between North Vancouver City Library, North Vancouver District Library, and West Vancouver Memorial Library.

For event inquiries, please contact CJ Pentland at cpentland@cnv.org.

About the Presenter

Dr. June Francis (PhD, MBA, LLM) is Cofounder of The Co-Laboratorio (CoLab Advantage Ltd.), Special Advisor to the President of Simon Fraser University on Anti-Racism, Director of the Institute for Diaspora Research and Engagement, Cofounder of the Black Caucus at SFU and an Associate Professor in the Beedie School of Business. She is also Board Chair of The Hogan's Alley Society, an organization whose mission is to advance the economic and cultural well-being of people of African Descent through the delivery of housing, built spaces and programming. Through her consulting, research, the media and as a volunteer, she advocates for equity, diversity and inclusion for racialized groups as well as human rights.