Emancipation Day. Natasha L. Henry
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The 108th Emancipation Day program included the Miss Sepia Beauty Pageant, which was open to contestants from both Canada and the United States.
Preparation for this important annual social event on African-Canadian calendars required an extensive amount of work. Celebrations had to be planned months in advance to host hundreds and thousands of observers. Overnight accommodations needed to be available for the throngs of people staying in Windsor, and local restaurants had to be prepared to serve many visitors. According to one person’s recollections of the Big Picnic in St. Catharines, “All of the relatives came to stay. They would sleep anywhere — on the lawn, in a car in the driveway. The police would even put you up for a night until you found accommodation.”72 Cooking and baking had to begin days before the event. It is evident the yearly logistics worked out as Windsor’s celebrations remained successful for decades.
Janie Cooper-Wilson, born in Collingwood, Ontario, was crowned Miss Sepia in 1965 at the age of eighteen. During her teenage years she was a competitive baton twirler, her talent in the Miss Sepia International contest. She is the current Executive Director of the Silvershoe Historical Society.
Generally during these festivities, Black patrons were not mistreated or denied service because of their race. E.C. Cooper, president of the Chatham Literary Society, remarked that when he visited Windsor he ate “at a first-class restaurant amongst white gentlemen and ladies.”73 However, the same could not be said for attendees of events in Chatham. Throughout the end of the 1800s and early 1900s, African Canadians in Chatham and their guests were refused service in White establishments and could only frequent the few Black-owned businesses.
Three factors led to the end of Emancipation Day celebrations in Windsor in the middle of the twentieth century. Firstly, a fire at Jackson Park in 1957 caused extensive damage to the main event grounds just three weeks before the scheduled event. Secondly, the park was split into two by the construction of an overpass. Then, the 1967 race riots in Detroit led to the refusal of Windsor city council to issue the event permit because of security and safety concerns. No celebrations were hosted in Windsor for the years between 1967 and 1978, but eventually resumed in 1979 at a new location, Mic Mac Park. However, attendance fell dramatically. Shortly after, Windsor’s festivities merged with those in Amherstburg.
August First celebrations were revived in Windsor in 2008 by the Windsor Council of Elders and the Emancipation Planning Committee, with the support of several other community organizations and the City of Windsor, in honour of the 175th anniversary of the abolition of slavery throughout British colonies. The organization’s aim is to restore an awareness of family unity and identity to the African-Canadians in Windsor. The revitalized four-day event recaptured elements of the past by featuring foods from the African Diaspora, musical concerts highlighting hip hop, gospel, blues, and R&B artists, a sunrise church service and breakfast with a keynote speaker, a boxing demonstration, the Miss Sepia International Pageant, and a parade on Ouellette Avenue. The opening ceremony and reception on the Friday night was co-hosted by the United States Consulate General in Toronto, Mr. John R. Nay. Many provincial and American dignitaries, along with local dignitaries and community leaders were on hand to lend their support, such as Rosemary Sadlier, president of the Ontario Black History Society. New attractions to appeal to a younger audience included a three-on-three basketball tournament, a graffiti contest, and a tour of some local Underground Railroad historic sites. Many of the festivals events were held at the riverfront.74
An admission ticket to the Emancipation Day activities at Jackson Park in Windsor on August 5, 1962.
During the nineteenth century, Chatham was a developing commercial centre endowed with large export businesses and a series of smaller enterprises, many of which involved local African Canadians. African people have lived in Chatham as early as 1791. A Black man, possibly named Croucher, is recorded as a resident of the town that year. There were seven Black families in 1832, and the population surge as a result of the influx of runaway slaves saw almost two thousand by 1860, a figure that accounted for one-third of Chatham’s total population. Refugees were attracted to Chatham as the community with its large, welcoming Black community and ample employment opportunities had gained the distinction of being an ideal place for incoming African Americans. Chatham’s Black pioneer community, concentrated primarily on the east side of town, was composed of a mix of free persons, fugitive slaves, and an increasing number of Canadian-born individuals, all with a variety of occupational abilities. Some were skilled workers who operated their own businesses including shoemakers, carpenters, blacksmiths, bricklayers, masons, barbers, cigar makers, cooks, cabinetmakers, watchmakers, ship carpenters, and plasterers. Black labourers were able to find employment on farms, in mills, or lumberyards.
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