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Monday, February 23
1:30 PM
Frank Mackey, author of Done with Slavery and Black Then, is giving a lecture at the Château Ramezay as part of Black History Month.
From the Château Ramezay website:
Now You See Them, Now You Dont: Looking into the distant past of Blacks in Quebec, we sometimes see them where they never were in the first place, and fail to see them where we should – as if history were an optical illusion or a trick painting, in which images appear or disappear depending on our perspective.
Last year, Frank Mackey was on Radio Canada International to speak about the history of Quebec’s black community as part of Black History Month.
Listen to the interview here (en français)
Did slavery exist in Montreal, and if so what did it look like? Frank Mackey grapples with this question in Done with Slavery, a study of black Montrealers in the eighty years between the British Conquest and the union of Lower and Upper Canada.
Through close examination of archival and contemporary sources, Mackey uncovers largely unknown aspects of the black transition from slavery to freedom. The book provides a detailed and nuanced reconstruction of the circumstances of black Montrealers and their lived experience.
MQUP also learned that one of Frank Mackey’s stories from Black Then, called “Messing with Dragons”, inspired a song by Quebec hip hop artist Webster. The song is called “Alex Grant” off Webster’s 2013 album, À l’ombre des feuilles.
Listen to a sample here (track 7 – en français)
Black Then is a collection of stories about the black experience in and around Montreal between the end of slavery and the early years of Confederation. Based on original research, these engaging stories bring to light a wealth of previously neglected historical information.
Click here for MQUP’s Q&A with Frank Mackey
To learn more about Black Then or Done with Slavery, click here.
For media inquiries, please contact publicist Jacqui Davis.
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