TASK FORCE ON ANTI-BLACK RACISM FINAL REPORT
As a result of calls echoed worldwide for systemic and structural change in the face of historical anti-Black racism and white supremacy, the President of Concordia University launched a Task Force on Anti-Black Racism in the fall of 2020. The Task Force was mandated to coordinate the work needed to generate recommendations anchored in the lived experiences of Black faculty, staff and students, in employment, policies, teaching and learning practices, etc. This historic report is the culmination of two years of community consultations, interviews, archival research, literature reviews, town halls and stakeholder conversations, taken on by some fifty Task Force members solicited from among Concordia’s Black community, and spread over initially eight and subsequently six subcommittees.
The Task Force’s recommendations, which align with several of Concordia’s Strategic Directions, emerged along four main axes
Driving institutional
change
Addresses the legacy of the 1969 student protest; the need for a university-wide anti-racism strategy; disaggregated data collection to better serve Black Concordians; training modules that address anti-Black racism in different domains of the university; and a fundraising strategy to support Black-centred initiatives.
Fostering black
flourishing
Encompasses hiring, career advancement and leadership of Black staff, faculty and librarians; the recruitment, retention and graduation of Black students and programs that contribute to their success; a shift in focus for campus security personnel to community safety rather than policing; and mental health services for Black Concordians.
Supporting black
knowledges
Focuses on Black Canadian Studies programs; Black perspectives in curriculum across the university; Black-centred research and a Black Knowledges Hub.
Encouraging
mutuality
Calls for interconnected approaches to confronting anti-Black racism within the university and committed relationships with Black community partners.
West Indian Society executive committee in Sir George Williams University yearbook (1958) Source: Concordia University Records Management and Archives
A parallel evolution of Concordia University and its Black presence
In order to properly contextualize the recommendations, we have created a timeline that attends to the history of Concordia in relation to Black presence, inclusion and discrimination. The timeline not only highlights the long history of Black presence at Concordia, but it also demonstrates the “ongoingness” of the advocacy and struggle for Black inclusion. The events highlighted in the timeline, along with the history of Black presence in Montreal in the context of higher education institutions, indicate the interconnections that exist between the intersectional realities of the Black experience at Concordia and in Montreal, and the work that still needs to be done at Concordia and to which the university must commit through dedicated actions and resources.
1889
Foundation of Loyola College, an extension of an English program at the Jesuit Collège Sainte-Marie de Montréal.
The Montreal YMCA evening adult education program becomes Sir George Williams College.
1926
1947
Montrealer Harold Herbert Potter is hired to teach at Sir George Williams College, becoming the first Canadian-born Black sociologist to be hired by a post-secondary institution in the country. Potter is promoted to assistant professor in 1949 and to full professor in 1963.
Sir George Williams College is officially chartered as a university and becomes Sir George Williams University (SGWU).
1948
1953
The West Indian Society is founded at SGWU.
The number of students from the Caribbean at SGWU increases, partly due to changes in immigration legislation.
1960s
1968
April: Six Black students make a formal report to the Dean of Students, Magnus Flynn, about their experiences of racism in a biology course at SGWU.
October 4 – 6: A conference entitled “Problems of Involvement in Canadian Society with Reference to Black Peoples” is held at SGWU. It is organized by the Canadian Conference Committee (formerly Caribbean Conference Committee), which includes SGWU lecturers and students.
October 11 – 14: A conference entitled “Congress of Black Writers: Toward the Second Emancipation–The Dynamics of Black Liberation,” is held at McGill University. It is organized by students from McGill University, SGWU and community members.
December: An article by Phil Griffin entitled “Black Students’ Association initiates studies program” appears in The Georgian, a SGWU student newspaper. The article describes the initiative and the scheduled program for lectures from guest speakers.32 The proposal for an informal Black Studies program is presented to the co-curriculum committee by Professor C. Davis, Leroy Bucher, and Phil Griffin.
The West Indian Society becomes the Caribbean Students Union.
January 17: The first informal Black Studies program is launched by three Black professors in collaboration with Black students in which Black lecturers from the United States are invited to discuss Black identity from the viewpoint of various disciplines.
January 29 – February 11: Students occupy the University’s computer centre and faculty lounge in protest of alleged racism at the University. Police are called in on February 11; students are violently arrested. This is followed by lengthy legal trials for those arrested. The day prior to the occupation, The Georgian devotes its entire publication (12 pages) to the position taken by Black students and the university’s response to that position.
February 7: An article by Phil Griffin is published in The Georgian. It is entitled “SGWU and the Black Studies program ‘… unresponsive, apathetic”
November 5: An article in The Georgian reports on a racist cartoon published in the student journal, The Paper, by its editor and publisher Wayne Gray. The cartoon was termed “the most offensive example of racism ever published at SGWU” by the Executive Committee of the Students’ Association, who formally brought code of conduct charges against Gray. The cartoon depicts two barefooted Black men with spears and a sign that says, “Pack your kit bag, Alfred, they are about to start a Black Studies Program in Sir George.”
November 5, 11: A questionnaire is published in The Georgian by the Caribbean Students’ Society of Sir George to determine the interest of students in a Black Studies program at SGWU.
November 12: A letter to the editor in The Georgian features a derogatory comment by student John Sedley on Black students’ demands for a Black Studies program.
1969
Students protest against racism outside Hall Building at Sir George Williams University (1969). Source: Concordia University Records Management and Archives
Debris outside the Hall Building following the arrest of protesting students, (February 11, 1969). Source: Concordia University Records Management and Archives