Down Home

Through the Exhibit, Into the Past

As we close out this season, we’re reflecting on a powerful experience: our visit to A History Exposed: The Enslavement of Black People in Canada—a traveling exhibit that confronts one of the most overlooked chapters in Canadian history. Created with guest curator Dr. Afua Cooper in partnership with the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia, this traveling exhibit forces us to confront the realities of slavery on Canadian soil

Before Freedom: Black Stories from Pre-1834 Canada

De Costa and Le Jeaune stand as two of the earliest recorded figures in Black Canadian history—names that surface in the archives long before Canada was even Canada. Their stories take us back to a time when this land was known as British North America, a place still being shaped.
 
Through them, we catch a glimpse of what life looked like for people of African descent in the 1600s —navigating identity, survival, and status in a colonial world that hadn’t yet fully codified slavery, but was already laying its foundations.
 
#blackhistory365 #canadianhistory #celebrateblackhistory #bhms #podcast

Uncomfortable Truths - Reacting to The Color of Fear

In this episode Jay and I are diving into The Color of Fear, a 1993 documentary that brings together a group of men from different racial backgrounds for an unfiltered, and often uncomfortable, dialogue about race in America.
 
Please watch The Color of Fear: https://youtu.be/hyOl52YxHW4?si=g1I61IcTZciCeLRA
 
 
#blackhistory365 #reaction #emotional #podcast #documentary

Jay and D react to their ancestry DNA results

For this milestone episode, we’re turning the lens inward—getting as personal as it gets. This is who we are… literally. In this episode we’re breaking down our ancestral DNA—what we found, what surprised us, and how it connects to the bigger story of our Black identity in Canada.
 
 
#dna #reaction #blackhistory365 #podcast #celebrateblackhistory

Polite Racism: The Foundation of Canada’s Immigration System Exposed

In the early 20th century, behind the language of nation-building and progress, Canada quietly built barriers — policies designed not to include, but to exclude.
In this episode, we uncover the story of Canada’s racist immigration policies during that time period— and the people they were meant to keep from ever calling this country home.
 
#blackhistory365 #canadianhistory #immigration #systemicinequality #bhms

75 Klansmen

It’s February 28th 1930, A biter cold night in Oakville Ontario Canada. The streets are quiet—still—until the sound begins. A Slow. Rhythmic. Sound of Boots striking pavement. 75 men are marching down the middle of the street, an unusual sight in this small Ontario town. Even more unsettling is what they’re wearing: white robes, and pointed hoods
 
The klan has arrived on a mission, they have heard that a Black man and a white woman have been seen in each others company and they have arrived to do something about it.
 
#canadianhistory #celebrateblackhistory #oakvilleontario #bhms #blackhistory365

James Baldwin

One of the most powerful voices in twentieth-century literature and social commentary, James Baldwin spent his life confronting America with its deep contradictions surrounding ethnicity.
Through works like Notes of a Native Son and The Fire Next Time, Baldwin challenged America to reckon with its bigotry, identity, and justice. In this episode we explore the life of James Baldwin.
 
#jamesbaldwin #celebrateblackhistory #bhms #paris #blackhistory365

Josephine Baker

Josephine Baker rose to international fame as a dancer, singer, and stage performer, dazzling audiences with her charisma and electric performances. But her story goes beyond the stage.
 
 
#celebrateblackhistory #blackhistory365 #bhms #josephinebaker #blackhistorymonth

Escaping Jim Crow: Black Life in Paris After the Great War

When World War I ended, thousands of Black American soldiers faced a question that went beyond simply returning home. For many, the Great War had been a fight for freedom in more ways than one. Yes, they wore the uniform and fought for their country — but crossing the Atlantic also meant stepping outside the suffocating grip of Jim Crow.
 
 
 
#paris #blackhistory365 #jimcrow #bhms #celebrateblackhistory

Assata Shakur

Assata Shakur was a political activist who looked at a society built on inequality and chose resistance over silence. Her story is one of confrontation, exile, and survival—and it forces us to ask a difficult question: when a system is built on oppression, what does justice really look like?
 
 
 
 
#revolutionaryhero #celebrateblackhistory #assatashakur #blackhistorymonth #blackhistory365