Date & time
Thursday, October 30, 2025
7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Workshops & seminars
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Indigenous and Black activism: What are the legacies of Black and Red Power?
Join us for the fall 2025 season of the University of the Streets Café
Speaker(s)
Guests: David Austin and Ghislain Picard. Moderator: Adama Kaba
Cost
This event is free.
Organization
Contact
Where
Écomusée du fier monde
2050 rue Atateken, Métro Sherbrooke or Beaudry
This public conversation aims to understand what were the echoes of Red and Black power in Quebec in the 1970’s and what are the legacies of those movements today? What were the connections between the two movements? How did they inform self-determination, identity, political and community organizing, education, and more?
Guests:
Ghislain Picard is Innu from the community of Pessamit in Quebec. He has served as Chief of the Assembly of First Nations Quebec Labrador from 1992 to 2025, and is currently an expert in residence at Concordia.
Prior to his political career with the AFNQL, Picard held various positions within groups representing Indigenous communities, notably on the Atikamekw and Montagnais Council. In the 1980s, he founded the Société de communication Atikamekw-Montagnais, dedicated to broadcasting programs in Indigenous languages.
Since 2021, he has chaired the board of directors of the McCord Stewart Museum and the advisory committee of First Nations Executive Education. He is also co-author of the book, From Kebec to Quebec City – Five Centuries of Exchanges Between Us, in collaboration with Denis Bouchard and Éric Cardinal.
His many distinctions include: Knight of the Ordre national du Québec (2003); Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur of France (2005); Citizen of Honour of the City of Montreal (2017) and a Doctorate honoris causa from Université du Québec (2025).
David Austin is a former youth worker, community organizer, and freelance writer. He is the author of Dread Poetry and Freedom: Linton Kwesi Johnson and the Unfinished Revolution and Fear of a Black Nation: Race, Sex, and Security in Sixties Montreal (winner of the 2014 Casa de las Americas Prize); editor of Moving Against the System: The 1968 Congress of Black Writers and the Making of Global Consciousness (Pluto Press, 2018); and editor of You Don’t Play with Revolution: The Montreal Lectures of C.L.R. James (AK Press, 2009). He has produced radio documentaries for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s flagship radio program Ideas on Frantz Fanon and C.L.R. James.
Moderator:
Adama Kaba (she/her) is a Black mother, community educator, and researcher who was born and raised in Guinea (West Africa) and now calls Tio’tia:ke (Montreal) home. She has spent years creating and facilitating learning spaces – from classrooms to community programs – in Canada and beyond. Passionate about collective learning and liberation, Adama co-developed Montreal’s first Freedom School program (Harambec) and currently works as assistant coordinator for the Platform for the Self-Determination of Racialized People in Research (PARR - PSRR). She is also pursuing her PhD at McGill University, where she explores Black girlhood in Tio’Tia:Ke and the impact of schooling on Black life in Montreal.
About University of the Streets Café
As a flagship program of Concordia University’s Office of Community Engagement, the public bilingual conversations are free and open to participants of all ages, backgrounds and levels of education. Since its inception in 2003, University of the Streets Café has hosted over 500 bilingual public conversations.
Follow us on our Facebook page or visit us at concordia.ca/univcafe to learn more about our programming and last-minute scheduling updates.
