McGill to host Black Histories, Black Futures

One-day conference aims to create a forum for dialogue and strategy

On this first day of Black History Month, McGill University’s Social Equity and Diversity Education Office is pleased to announce it will host a one-day conference, Black Histories, Black Futures on Saturday, Feb. 12.

Filmmakers, professionals from the public and private sectors, community workers, scholars, students, and artists will convene in Montreal for a series of workshops, panel discussions, forums and film screenings that aim to highlight the diversity and complex realities of Montreal’s and Canada’s Black communities.

WHAT:  One-day conference: Black Histories, Black Futures

WHEN:  Saturday, February 12, 2011, 9:00 AM – 7:00 PM (Registration begins at 8:00 AM)

WHERE: Bronfman Building, 1001, Sherbrooke St. West, Montreal

Johanne Magliore of Québec’s Commission des droits de la personne et de la jeunesse will deliver the conference’s opening keynote, during which she will discuss the commission’s public consultation on racial profiling.

There will be panel discussions addressing issues such as discrimination, empowerment through community work, and health issues in the Black community, as well as workshops on poetry and poetic identity, and on the role of Black professionals as story-tellers. The conference will also feature the screening of two films: Shadeism, which addresses the discrimination that exists between lighter-skinned and darker-skinned members of the same community, and Beyond Labels, a 2009 film that examines what it means to be Black and gay in the UK.

The closing plenary, Remembering the Sir George Williams Affair: Black Montreal from the Sixties to present, will revisit an important turning point in Montreal’s Black community and in Canada that profoundly shapes the present. This panel has been organized by the Alfie Roberts Institute.

Montreal’s Black communities include a range of cultures, ethnicities, languages, geographies and histories, and members of these communities have been present in Montreal throughout its development as an urban centre. The Black Histories, Black Futures conference aims to strengthen growing relationships with Montreal’s Black communities by creating a forum for dialogue and strategy.

For more information and a full schedule: https://www.mcgill.ca/equity_diversity/black_histories/