February is Black History month and the stories of Black Canadians are rich, but often remain untold or neglected in common historical discourse. Ottawa story-tellers Greg ‘Ritallin’ Frankson and Ruthanne Edward will shed light on the varied experiences of Black Canadians in Beyond the Railroad: Black History in Canada, this Thursday, February 21, at the National Art’s Centre’s 4th stage.
Edward and Frankson’s show is intended to challenge assumptions and perceptions of Black Canadian history. As part of the Ottawa Storytellers, they will combine story-telling with singing to describe the experiences of Black Canadian men and women across the country, their hardships, their successes and everything in between.
“We are going across the country from Halifax, to Québec City, to Montréal to Toronto, to Hamilton to Calgary,” said Edward. “We’re telling the stories of individual people, their lives as Black Canadians and their difficulties, and the good things that came out of that.”
“Both Ruthanne and I, even though we are of different “races” are both human beings and both Canadians,” says Frankson. “These stories are our shared heritage and it’s important for us both to feel connected to this history.”
Edward and Frankson have quite obviously done their research on a diverse and interesting list of people. Olivier Le Jeune was the first documented slave on Canadian soil in the 1600’s. Marie-Josèph Angélique, a slave in Montréal in the 1700’s, was executed because she had been accused of starting a fire that burned down part of the city. “There was a trial and court transcripts exist,” added Edward. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have known she [Angélique] even existed because there was nothing else to mark the fact that she had ever lived…”
There is Robert Sutherland, who was the first Black university graduate and qualified as a lawyer in 1855. He saved Queen’s University in Kingston. There was also John Baker who may have been the last surviving Upper Canadian slave upon his death in 1871. John Ware was an accomplished cowboy who lived in Alberta and passed in the early 1900’s. Then there was Viola Desmond, who in 1946 refused to sit in a balcony designated for Blacks at a theatre in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, and took her seat on the ground floor with white folks instead.
“We have chosen to tell these particular stories,” says Edward, “but there are so many others. We are also not deliberately dealing with the Underground Railroad, because part of the point is to make people aware of the history other than that.” She goes onto explain that Canada’s role in the Underground Railroad is a dominant narrative in Black Canadian history that paints our country’s past in an overly positive light. The fact that there was slavery in Canada, cannot be excluded, suppressed or forgotten.
“Not everything we say will correspond to the audience’s perceptions of what Canada has taught them our history represents,” says Frankson. “It’s a mixed bag of positive and negative, which ultimately is the truth of how this country has evolved.”
Frankson and Edward are experienced storytellers. Frankson is a history buff, a former high school teacher, as well as one of Canada’s top spoken-word poets, and a co-founder of Capital Slam. Edward has a background in theatre and has been telling stories to audiences for more than ten years. She was once a historical guide and at one time worked for the Haunted Walk Ottawa.
Frankson adds, “Ruthanne asked me to do this show with her and I was immediately interested. I like mixing art forms to come up with something new. The show is important because spoken word and storytelling, like Ruthanne and I, share a common ancestry. Both art forms involve the sharing of critical information through the use of words, expression and emotion.”
Beyond the Railroad will show at the National Art’s Centre’s 4th STAGE (53 Elgin Street) on Thursday, February 21, 7:30 p.m., doors open at 7:00 p.m. Tickets are $20 and available at NAC box office or ticketmaster.ca (614-991-2787).
