Black History Month in Canada is a celebration of Black people and their cultures, the diversity of Black communities, and the contributions and legacies of Black Canadians throughout the country’s history.
However, Black History Month is often viewed purely as commemorative, intended to spotlight Black historical figures for the sake of mere acknowledgment and recognition. Yet, the month’s purpose lies far beyond that. Black History Month involves the conscious reevaluation of how histories are written, constructed, and shared, by emphasizing the lesser-known aspects of Black history, noting how information and histories are shaped by power relations, and actively decolonizing collective memory and the process of history creation. This approach, known as historiography, serves to analyze how Black history has been and must continue to be revisited, re-celebrated, and re-understood.
In Canada, February was first designated as Black History Month in 1978 by Daniel Hill and Wilson Brooks, the founders of the Ontario Black History Society (OBHS). In 1995, Canadian Member of Parliament Jean Augustine presented a motion to formally recognize February as Black History Month, which was unanimously approved by the House of Commons. Augustine, having worked in education, understood the importance of institutionalizing this celebration within Canadian education and collective memory.
However, the motion to recognize Black History Month was only fully passed by Parliament in 2008, when Senator Donald Oliver pursued its recognition in the Senate. Oliver emphasized the importance of Black History Month in challenging our common perceptions of history and tackling racial prejudices. He also tied the month’s value to Canadian pedagogy, stating schools must teach the country’s history of slavery and segregation—the latter of which lasted well into the 1960s—in order to understand the present-day fight against anti-Black racism. Therefore, one of the active goals of Black History Month is to analyze biases and how they have systematically hidden stories from conventional Canadian history.
Systemic biases still persist today, including through notions like Canadian exceptionalism, under which anti-Black racism is often depicted as external and U.S.-specific. Overlooked far too often are patterns of prejudiced policing and disproportionate incarceration rates in Canada. In 2015, Black people were twice as likely to be accused in Canadian criminal courts, and in 2020, Black people accounted for nine per cent of federal correction populations, despite making up only four per cent of adults in Canada. Also neglected is the underrepresentation of Black people in academia, as only 2.3 per cent of high-ranking positions at Canadian universities were held by Black professionals as of 2024. These statistics demonstrate that Anti-Black racism is not a strictly American phenomenon, and reveal the critical significance of Black History Month as a mechanism through which to revisit such biases.
An important part of this process is interrogating how history has selectively omitted Black narratives. This goal does not have to be solely pursued through historical research and education reform, but can also be achieved through cultural events, such as music, visual art, and performance art. In this way, cultural events become part of the historiographical process themselves—sites where Black artists and communities reframe dominant narratives and participate in the ongoing reconstruction of collective memory.
Black History Month’s historiographic power lies in its recurrence, its nature annually underscoring the voices of Black Canadians while also finding new ways to challenge Canadian history. One of the best ways to continue this tradition is through education. At McGill, this means going beyond initiatives and events during February to offering courses on Black history and critical Canadian history, designating a program specifically for Black Studies, and reconciling its own histories of slavery, discrimination, and exclusion.
Black History Month anchors a celebration of Black excellence and cultures, but this cannot exist without an ongoing commitment to reexamining the stories Canada tells about itself.
