PLAY THIS: Concession Street
story by Klyde Broox
dramaturgy by Robert Motum
LOCATION ONE: THE CONCESSION STREET LIBRARY PLAQUE
Paola
Hello friends, thanks, and blessings, for tuning in.
Now, hear ye, hear ye, hear ye everywhere!
Be ye aware that this utterance, here, is echoing, clear,
across the cybersphere, all the way from yesteryear!
This is the voice of Hamilton’s own Paola Brown, Esquire,
this city’s inaugural 19th century volunteer town-crier.
Self-appointed, and, regardless of any discouragement,
resolutely persisting with my vocation to inform Hamilton
since this city’s 1830s inception, (despite an alleged 1851 retirement),
until now within this present moment of communication from a dimension beyond this one.
Leonora
And I am his partner, Leonora Brown. Both of us are speaking from somewhere around the “Little Africa” era. We are inviting you to join us on an uncommon tour to explore imprints of the past within the present.
Paola
This tour is likely to be unlike any other tour that you have ever taken before. This is a thoughtful, artful, culturally educational, tour steeped in local historical lore, an unusual tour which is sure to conjure multidimensional connections between history and geography.
Leonora
We are here to visit specified historically significant sites situated within the area along Hamilton’s Concession Street, once known as Little Africa. That pivotal 19th century community served as the historical foundation of contemporary Concession Street’s energetic commercial district.
Paola
I wonder if hints of Little Africa’s distinct characteristics still linger in the area.
Leonora
Generally, history acknowledges that Hamilton’s “Little Africa” emerged upon Mount Hamilton during the 1850s, then encompassing present-day Upper Wellington and a section of what is now Upper Sherman between Concession Street and today’s Fennell Avenue.
Paola
By all accounts, “Little Africa” flourished upon Mount Hamilton from the 1840s until the early 1920s when its inhabitants, for various reasons, gravitated to different parts of Hamilton or migrated elsewhere.
Leonora
Incidentally, between 1891 and 1909, the thoroughfare that would become Concession Street was then known as Stone Road.
Paola
Obviously, Little Africa initiated the transformation of a once disconnected and neglected Mount Hamilton into today’s diversely populated, infrastructurally connected, and municipally integrated Hamilton Mountain. However, lamentably, established versions of Hamilton’s history chiefly portray unflattering, shallow, caricatures of Little Africa.
Leonora
Thankfully though, since 2010, such misleading shallow caricatures of the community were officially refuted by a thorough, City Council commissioned, review of Hamilton’s Little Africa’s history.
Paola
Evidently, the necessity for such a review became apparent during consultations about a plaque to recognize Little Africa’s essential ground-breaking historical significance to Hamilton.
Leonora
The report resulting from that review specifically highlights the fact that many of the residents of Little Africa, quote, “did not come directly from slavery, but had been living in freedom for some years prior to their arrival in Canada”. The report also emphasizes that some residents of the Little Africa settlement had certainly been “educated freeborn individuals”.
Paola
That blatant assertion profoundly refutes the erroneous, frustratingly pervasive, and deliberately constructed misconception that all inhabitants of Little Africa had been illiterate!
Leonora
A misconception that lingers in places on the internet and a misconception which haunted even Paola’s own life’s story and caused him to write a poem about it. Do you still remember that poem, Paola?
Paola
Did someone say poem? That word always makes me want to chant poetry.
History sees me as a notable Hamiltonian.
But I was not appreciated by everyone.
Some people, like informal historian,
Laura B. Durand, framed me as contrarian,
man of “vanity and affectation,”
because I constantly insisted that I’d migrated,
not fled, to Upper Canada, that I was not a
“runaway slave from a southern plantation.”
I debunked assumption of fear of extradition.
That should not have been summarily pinned on me!
When I entered Canada, I was already free!
I was reading, writing, and counting properly.
And I lived freely, confidently, even flamboyantly.
I will never let anyone Underground Railroad me!
Leonora
(Applauds) Spontaneous cause for unanimous applause!
Paola
Oh wow, thanks, for both instigating and celebrating that impromptu recital my dear Leonora! And now, almost breathless with happiness, I feel temporarily speechless.
Paola
Grooving along on our mystical historical revisiting track, first stop is this silent but eloquent plaque.
Leonora
To me it is an excellent example of history landmarking geography. this landmark of a plaque was mounted during an official commemorative ceremony on February 26th, 2013, here, outside the front wall of the Concession Street branch of the Hamilton Public Library.
Paola
For me, it conjures subtextual imagery of Little Africa in historical memory’s “rear-view mirror”. Please excuse me as I associate myself with it more closely, photographically, for posterity.
Leonora
I think he means that he’s going to take a picture of it…
Music
LOCATION TWO: THE MISSION CHURCH
Paola
Welcome back. Blessings and thank you again for joining us on today’s journey.
Before we further delve into the life that Leonora and I knew in Little Africa, I would love to hear
something from you – yes you – the one listening to this.
I want you to take a moment – take a pause, take a breath to take in this place. Take in your
surroundings. Look at the Concession Street of today. I knew this place 170 years ago… I can tell
you about its people, its stories, histories… its ghosts; but I want to hear about you- and your
experiences of this place in the here and in the now. If it feels safe to do so, you might even
eyes for a brief second. What does this place sound like today? Can you still hear laughter?
Children playing? Do you hear unfinished conversations caught on the breeze? Whispers or
shouts over the noise of 21st Century traffic…
Oh! Though how could you tell with me talking. I’ll give you a moment.
A brief pause.
Open your eyes. What is the first thing you see? A sign? A window? A stranger? Look at how this place is stitched together. Look at the wires overhead… the fresh pavement… the text stamped in the sidewalk. Run your hand against the brick of the library. Push your feet into the ground. What does it feel like to be in this place – my place.
I wish that I could be there – in person – to once again feel the energy… the poetic rhythm of life on that mountain. But today, I’ll have to settle for the next best thing: your description of it.
Up until now, Leonora and I have spoken to you. Now, if you’d be so kind, push the ‘Call Paola’ button on your device, and give me a ring. The wonders of 21st Century technology.
The listener pushes the ‘Call Paola’ button. After a couple of rings, they get this answering machine message:
Now, hear ye, hear ye, hear ye everywhere! Be ye aware that this utterance is echoing, clear, across the cybersphere, all the way from yesteryear! Paola Brown, town crier, here.
Friend, I thank you for your courage in calling. I am absolutely thrilled.
It is my hope, that you might leave me a brief voice message – and tell me about the place in which you are right now. What do you hear? See? Smell? Feel? Anything and everything is-
The message cuts out at the *beep*, and the listener is invited to share their thoughts. Once they hang-up the phone, an automated texting service sends them a text. This picture:
Image description: a black and white photo of the former Mission Church, where it would have stood, superimposed on a photo of the Concession Street of today.
Paola
Hello again, welcome, welcome, welcome.
Leonora
Thank you for continuing to follow along on this journey of yesteryear.
Now, when you called Paola, I sent you a message containing a picture. If you’re having trouble
viewing it, there’s also a link to the image on your device. Take a look at it… and see if you can
find where it ‘fits’ into this place.
A pause.
Yes! Good- right there. Right across the street.
The building in this image is the Mission Church – the heart of our former community. It’s where
Paola and I spent Friday nights and Sunday mornings and Wednesday afternoons. It was a place
of community, fellowship, faith, education, music…
Paola
LIFE!
Leonora
It was a place of life.
Paola
Something was always happening. Look at the picture on your phone and try to imagine music
streaming from the front door… spilling out onto the street. Imagine people talking, laughing,
walking home together after church. Imagine Leonora and I, hand in hand…
Music, laughter, indistinct chatter
Leonora
Let’s venture up Concession. If you’re facing the old Mission Church – now CIMT College, still a
site of education – turn right. We’ll walk west and pause for a moment when we get to the crosswalk at E 22nd Street.
When we moved to Hamilton, Paola promptly carved out his own space as self-employed handyman and self-appointed town crier. The handyman was the money maker, and the town crier the history maker. My Paola was always well dressed in his well pressed, sparkling white trousers, sporting a dazzling white top hat in summer, and thick grey military overcoat for winter. And whenever our town crier uttered, his voice boomed clearly and resounded throughout the surrounding with confidence and authority; a huge handbell punctuating what he had to tell.
And in 1851, 200 citizens of Hamilton came to hear my wonderful Paola speak at the city hall. He spent weeks writing the speech, ‘An Address on the Subject of Slavery’. We rehearsed it together… trying to get it just perfect. I heard his powerful recitation so many times I can probably still recall it from memory. He began,
Paola
“Slaveholders, I call God, I call Angels, I call Men, to witness, that your destruction is at hand, and will be speedily consummated, unless you repent.”
Leonora
He cited his favourite poets, artists, and authors of antiquity…
And it was going oh so well until – well…
Paola
Some members of the audience weren’t there to hear me speak.
Leonora
Just as Paola began, someone in the audience extinguished the lights- leaving everyone… leaving Paola in the dark. The place erupted in panic as people rushed to the exits.
The sounds of a panicked mob
I felt horrible for Paola; but phased – he was not. He is the strongest, most resilient man I know. He said, ‘tomorrow, we try again’.
LOCATION THREE: INCLINE RAILWAY PHOTO / WALK TO THE MURAL
Paola
We’ll make a brief stop here on this e-magical electronic journey – just to the west of the Cancer Assistance Program. From this parking lot, looking at the side of the building, you can see an image of the former incline railway.
How did you arrive here today? What mysterious methods of 21st Century transportation transpired between your home and this parking lot? Did you travel by bus, bike, car? Maybe you’re lucky enough to live on this beautiful mountain and the trek was shorter.
Today, of course, its quite easy to access the mountain. People come and go… up and down,
but when Leonora and I first arrived in this community, this was not the case.
Leonora
The installation of the incline railway in 1895 transformed this community. It made the mountain accessible for those below – and the town below accessible to those of us up top. It became an artery… helping both parts of the town prosper. This place is the way it is today thanks in part for that railway.
Pause. Ringing Bell.
Paola
All aboard for our next and final leg of this journey!
Leonora
Our destination is the alleyway behind the Zoetic, accessible from E 21st Street. The location is indicated on the map on your device. Please be careful crossing the street – we recommend taking the crosswalk. Just like Paola said earlier… take note of your surroundings!
Light music.
Leonora
From the mid-1800s, Hamilton’s Black community has been politically engaged. We were activists, orators, and community leaders who tried, in our own ways, to demand justice, equality, and accountability for those in power. In 1843, Black Hamiltonians wrote a letter to the lieutenant governor about the segregation of schools in the region. Their calls for justice reverberate through the twentieth century and into today:
Paola
‘We the people of color in the Town of Hamilton have a right to inform your Excellency of the treatment that we have to undergo. We have paid taxes and we are denied use of the public schools, and we have applied to the Board of the Police and there are no steps taken to change this manner of treatment. I thought that there was not a man nor woman to be known by their color under the British flag, and we left the United States in hope that prejudice was not in this land. We are grieved much, we are imposed on much. We brought money into this Province and we hope to never leave it, for we hope to enjoy our rights in these lands. I have left property in the United States and I have bought property in Canada, and all I want is Justice and I will be satisfied.’
LOCATION FOUR: BLACK LIVES MATTER MURAL
Paola
As I alluded to earlier, the history of Black settlement on the mountain, and the story of Little Africa has been mistold and misrepresented by historians for decades. In 2010, the ground-breaking Community Services Committee report indicated, that all previous narratives (prior to its release) about “Little Africa” were derived from the colonially misguided subjectivity of the “reminiscences of Mabel Burkholder”. Her narrative carelessly claimed that William Bridge Green, “donated land free of charge” to establish the “Little Africa,” settlement. And that all inhabitants of the settlement were “destitute fugitive slaves” … who had recently escaped from slavery in the American South”. Consequently, all subsequent accounts that relied solely on Burkholder’s factually loose foundation transmitted her negatively exaggerated portrayal.
Thankfully, the 2010 report finally refuted these ignorant claims, and indicated that many of us who called ‘Little Africa’ home, were educated and freeborn individuals, who purchased plots of land on the mountain and worked as skilled tradespeople, entrepreneurs, farmers, and labourers’.
Leonora
It is important to consider whose stories are told, remembered, and held onto… and whose stories are overwritten, edited out of the narrative, or left in the dark.
William Nelson, George Washington, Isaac Davis, Washington Scott, Henry Johnson, Lewis Miles Johnson, Edward Johnson, David Nelson, and William Jaggard. These are the men and families responsible for the mountain as we knew it then… and as you know it today.
Paola
Several descendants of people that lived on Stone Road; descendants of people who sang, and prayed, and taught at the Mission Church; who rode the incline railway to work; who wrote letters and speeches and demanded equality and justice… continue to call Hamilton and the surrounding area home. Our descendants are still here- still living, still breathing, still fighting.
Audio of protest; a crowd chanting Black Lives Matter
Paola
Thanks to you the listener for lending us your ears, and to you, dear Lenora, for gracing us with your wonderful presence, acute intelligence, and beautiful voice.
Leonora
And thank you for your all-round magnificence, Paola, and for graciously inviting me to be your co-host. Thanks, and blessings, to all participants and please remember to take a walkabout through the neighbourhood where Little Africa used to be. The view of the city is magical.
Paola
Residents around that area say, new neighbours never feel like strangers there and sidewalk sounds still abound in the vicinity.
Leonora
Nowadays residents do not know but, I tell you, to Paola and I, that is very much a part of the legacy of “Little Africa.”
End.
story by Klyde Broox
dramaturgy by Robert Motum
LOCATION ONE: THE CONCESSION STREET LIBRARY PLAQUE
Paola
Hello friends, thanks, and blessings, for tuning in.
Now, hear ye, hear ye, hear ye everywhere!
Be ye aware that this utterance, here, is echoing, clear,
across the cybersphere, all the way from yesteryear!
This is the voice of Hamilton’s own Paola Brown, Esquire,
this city’s inaugural 19th century volunteer town-crier.
Self-appointed, and, regardless of any discouragement,
resolutely persisting with my vocation to inform Hamilton
since this city’s 1830s inception, (despite an alleged 1851 retirement),
until now within this present moment of communication from a dimension beyond this one.
Leonora
And I am his partner, Leonora Brown. Both of us are speaking from somewhere around the “Little Africa” era. We are inviting you to join us on an uncommon tour to explore imprints of the past within the present.
Paola
This tour is likely to be unlike any other tour that you have ever taken before. This is a thoughtful, artful, culturally educational, tour steeped in local historical lore, an unusual tour which is sure to conjure multidimensional connections between history and geography.
Leonora
We are here to visit specified historically significant sites situated within the area along Hamilton’s Concession Street, once known as Little Africa. That pivotal 19th century community served as the historical foundation of contemporary Concession Street’s energetic commercial district.
Paola
I wonder if hints of Little Africa’s distinct characteristics still linger in the area.
Leonora
Generally, history acknowledges that Hamilton’s “Little Africa” emerged upon Mount Hamilton during the 1850s, then encompassing present-day Upper Wellington and a section of what is now Upper Sherman between Concession Street and today’s Fennell Avenue.
Paola
By all accounts, “Little Africa” flourished upon Mount Hamilton from the 1840s until the early 1920s when its inhabitants, for various reasons, gravitated to different parts of Hamilton or migrated elsewhere.
Leonora
Incidentally, between 1891 and 1909, the thoroughfare that would become Concession Street was then known as Stone Road.
Paola
Obviously, Little Africa initiated the transformation of a once disconnected and neglected Mount Hamilton into today’s diversely populated, infrastructurally connected, and municipally integrated Hamilton Mountain. However, lamentably, established versions of Hamilton’s history chiefly portray unflattering, shallow, caricatures of Little Africa.
Leonora
Thankfully though, since 2010, such misleading shallow caricatures of the community were officially refuted by a thorough, City Council commissioned, review of Hamilton’s Little Africa’s history.
Paola
Evidently, the necessity for such a review became apparent during consultations about a plaque to recognize Little Africa’s essential ground-breaking historical significance to Hamilton.
Leonora
The report resulting from that review specifically highlights the fact that many of the residents of Little Africa, quote, “did not come directly from slavery, but had been living in freedom for some years prior to their arrival in Canada”. The report also emphasizes that some residents of the Little Africa settlement had certainly been “educated freeborn individuals”.
Paola
That blatant assertion profoundly refutes the erroneous, frustratingly pervasive, and deliberately constructed misconception that all inhabitants of Little Africa had been illiterate!
Leonora
A misconception that lingers in places on the internet and a misconception which haunted even Paola’s own life’s story and caused him to write a poem about it. Do you still remember that poem, Paola?
Paola
Did someone say poem? That word always makes me want to chant poetry.
History sees me as a notable Hamiltonian.
But I was not appreciated by everyone.
Some people, like informal historian,
Laura B. Durand, framed me as contrarian,
man of “vanity and affectation,”
because I constantly insisted that I’d migrated,
not fled, to Upper Canada, that I was not a
“runaway slave from a southern plantation.”
I debunked assumption of fear of extradition.
That should not have been summarily pinned on me!
When I entered Canada, I was already free!
I was reading, writing, and counting properly.
And I lived freely, confidently, even flamboyantly.
I will never let anyone Underground Railroad me!
Leonora
(Applauds) Spontaneous cause for unanimous applause!
Paola
Oh wow, thanks, for both instigating and celebrating that impromptu recital my dear Leonora! And now, almost breathless with happiness, I feel temporarily speechless.
Paola
Grooving along on our mystical historical revisiting track, first stop is this silent but eloquent plaque.
Leonora
To me it is an excellent example of history landmarking geography. this landmark of a plaque was mounted during an official commemorative ceremony on February 26th, 2013, here, outside the front wall of the Concession Street branch of the Hamilton Public Library.
Paola
For me, it conjures subtextual imagery of Little Africa in historical memory’s “rear-view mirror”. Please excuse me as I associate myself with it more closely, photographically, for posterity.
Leonora
I think he means that he’s going to take a picture of it…
Music
LOCATION TWO: THE MISSION CHURCH
Paola
Welcome back. Blessings and thank you again for joining us on today’s journey.
Before we further delve into the life that Leonora and I knew in Little Africa, I would love to hear
something from you – yes you – the one listening to this.
I want you to take a moment – take a pause, take a breath to take in this place. Take in your
surroundings. Look at the Concession Street of today. I knew this place 170 years ago… I can tell
you about its people, its stories, histories… its ghosts; but I want to hear about you- and your
experiences of this place in the here and in the now. If it feels safe to do so, you might even
eyes for a brief second. What does this place sound like today? Can you still hear laughter?
Children playing? Do you hear unfinished conversations caught on the breeze? Whispers or
shouts over the noise of 21st Century traffic…
Oh! Though how could you tell with me talking. I’ll give you a moment.
A brief pause.
Open your eyes. What is the first thing you see? A sign? A window? A stranger? Look at how this place is stitched together. Look at the wires overhead… the fresh pavement… the text stamped in the sidewalk. Run your hand against the brick of the library. Push your feet into the ground. What does it feel like to be in this place – my place.
I wish that I could be there – in person – to once again feel the energy… the poetic rhythm of life on that mountain. But today, I’ll have to settle for the next best thing: your description of it.
Up until now, Leonora and I have spoken to you. Now, if you’d be so kind, push the ‘Call Paola’ button on your device, and give me a ring. The wonders of 21st Century technology.
The listener pushes the ‘Call Paola’ button. After a couple of rings, they get this answering machine message:
Now, hear ye, hear ye, hear ye everywhere! Be ye aware that this utterance is echoing, clear, across the cybersphere, all the way from yesteryear! Paola Brown, town crier, here.
Friend, I thank you for your courage in calling. I am absolutely thrilled.
It is my hope, that you might leave me a brief voice message – and tell me about the place in which you are right now. What do you hear? See? Smell? Feel? Anything and everything is-
The message cuts out at the *beep*, and the listener is invited to share their thoughts. Once they hang-up the phone, an automated texting service sends them a text. This picture:
Image description: a black and white photo of the former Mission Church, where it would have stood, superimposed on a photo of the Concession Street of today.
Paola
Hello again, welcome, welcome, welcome.
Leonora
Thank you for continuing to follow along on this journey of yesteryear.
Now, when you called Paola, I sent you a message containing a picture. If you’re having trouble
viewing it, there’s also a link to the image on your device. Take a look at it… and see if you can
find where it ‘fits’ into this place.
A pause.
Yes! Good- right there. Right across the street.
The building in this image is the Mission Church – the heart of our former community. It’s where
Paola and I spent Friday nights and Sunday mornings and Wednesday afternoons. It was a place
of community, fellowship, faith, education, music…
Paola
LIFE!
Leonora
It was a place of life.
Paola
Something was always happening. Look at the picture on your phone and try to imagine music
streaming from the front door… spilling out onto the street. Imagine people talking, laughing,
walking home together after church. Imagine Leonora and I, hand in hand…
Music, laughter, indistinct chatter
Leonora
Let’s venture up Concession. If you’re facing the old Mission Church – now CIMT College, still a
site of education – turn right. We’ll walk west and pause for a moment when we get to the crosswalk at E 22nd Street.
When we moved to Hamilton, Paola promptly carved out his own space as self-employed handyman and self-appointed town crier. The handyman was the money maker, and the town crier the history maker. My Paola was always well dressed in his well pressed, sparkling white trousers, sporting a dazzling white top hat in summer, and thick grey military overcoat for winter. And whenever our town crier uttered, his voice boomed clearly and resounded throughout the surrounding with confidence and authority; a huge handbell punctuating what he had to tell.
And in 1851, 200 citizens of Hamilton came to hear my wonderful Paola speak at the city hall. He spent weeks writing the speech, ‘An Address on the Subject of Slavery’. We rehearsed it together… trying to get it just perfect. I heard his powerful recitation so many times I can probably still recall it from memory. He began,
Paola
“Slaveholders, I call God, I call Angels, I call Men, to witness, that your destruction is at hand, and will be speedily consummated, unless you repent.”
Leonora
He cited his favourite poets, artists, and authors of antiquity…
And it was going oh so well until – well…
Paola
Some members of the audience weren’t there to hear me speak.
Leonora
Just as Paola began, someone in the audience extinguished the lights- leaving everyone… leaving Paola in the dark. The place erupted in panic as people rushed to the exits.
The sounds of a panicked mob
I felt horrible for Paola; but phased – he was not. He is the strongest, most resilient man I know. He said, ‘tomorrow, we try again’.
LOCATION THREE: INCLINE RAILWAY PHOTO / WALK TO THE MURAL
Paola
We’ll make a brief stop here on this e-magical electronic journey – just to the west of the Cancer Assistance Program. From this parking lot, looking at the side of the building, you can see an image of the former incline railway.
How did you arrive here today? What mysterious methods of 21st Century transportation transpired between your home and this parking lot? Did you travel by bus, bike, car? Maybe you’re lucky enough to live on this beautiful mountain and the trek was shorter.
Today, of course, its quite easy to access the mountain. People come and go… up and down,
but when Leonora and I first arrived in this community, this was not the case.
Leonora
The installation of the incline railway in 1895 transformed this community. It made the mountain accessible for those below – and the town below accessible to those of us up top. It became an artery… helping both parts of the town prosper. This place is the way it is today thanks in part for that railway.
Pause. Ringing Bell.
Paola
All aboard for our next and final leg of this journey!
Leonora
Our destination is the alleyway behind the Zoetic, accessible from E 21st Street. The location is indicated on the map on your device. Please be careful crossing the street – we recommend taking the crosswalk. Just like Paola said earlier… take note of your surroundings!
Light music.
Leonora
From the mid-1800s, Hamilton’s Black community has been politically engaged. We were activists, orators, and community leaders who tried, in our own ways, to demand justice, equality, and accountability for those in power. In 1843, Black Hamiltonians wrote a letter to the lieutenant governor about the segregation of schools in the region. Their calls for justice reverberate through the twentieth century and into today:
Paola
‘We the people of color in the Town of Hamilton have a right to inform your Excellency of the treatment that we have to undergo. We have paid taxes and we are denied use of the public schools, and we have applied to the Board of the Police and there are no steps taken to change this manner of treatment. I thought that there was not a man nor woman to be known by their color under the British flag, and we left the United States in hope that prejudice was not in this land. We are grieved much, we are imposed on much. We brought money into this Province and we hope to never leave it, for we hope to enjoy our rights in these lands. I have left property in the United States and I have bought property in Canada, and all I want is Justice and I will be satisfied.’
LOCATION FOUR: BLACK LIVES MATTER MURAL
Paola
As I alluded to earlier, the history of Black settlement on the mountain, and the story of Little Africa has been mistold and misrepresented by historians for decades. In 2010, the ground-breaking Community Services Committee report indicated, that all previous narratives (prior to its release) about “Little Africa” were derived from the colonially misguided subjectivity of the “reminiscences of Mabel Burkholder”. Her narrative carelessly claimed that William Bridge Green, “donated land free of charge” to establish the “Little Africa,” settlement. And that all inhabitants of the settlement were “destitute fugitive slaves” … who had recently escaped from slavery in the American South”. Consequently, all subsequent accounts that relied solely on Burkholder’s factually loose foundation transmitted her negatively exaggerated portrayal.
Thankfully, the 2010 report finally refuted these ignorant claims, and indicated that many of us who called ‘Little Africa’ home, were educated and freeborn individuals, who purchased plots of land on the mountain and worked as skilled tradespeople, entrepreneurs, farmers, and labourers’.
Leonora
It is important to consider whose stories are told, remembered, and held onto… and whose stories are overwritten, edited out of the narrative, or left in the dark.
William Nelson, George Washington, Isaac Davis, Washington Scott, Henry Johnson, Lewis Miles Johnson, Edward Johnson, David Nelson, and William Jaggard. These are the men and families responsible for the mountain as we knew it then… and as you know it today.
Paola
Several descendants of people that lived on Stone Road; descendants of people who sang, and prayed, and taught at the Mission Church; who rode the incline railway to work; who wrote letters and speeches and demanded equality and justice… continue to call Hamilton and the surrounding area home. Our descendants are still here- still living, still breathing, still fighting.
Audio of protest; a crowd chanting Black Lives Matter
Paola
Thanks to you the listener for lending us your ears, and to you, dear Lenora, for gracing us with your wonderful presence, acute intelligence, and beautiful voice.
Leonora
And thank you for your all-round magnificence, Paola, and for graciously inviting me to be your co-host. Thanks, and blessings, to all participants and please remember to take a walkabout through the neighbourhood where Little Africa used to be. The view of the city is magical.
Paola
Residents around that area say, new neighbours never feel like strangers there and sidewalk sounds still abound in the vicinity.
Leonora
Nowadays residents do not know but, I tell you, to Paola and I, that is very much a part of the legacy of “Little Africa.”
End.