Webinar: Inspiring Conversations: Being Black In Canada

Join Ann Marie Beals and Barrington Walker as they discuss the current experiences of Black-Indigenous and Black people in Canada recognizing the historical contexts that directly impact our present realities, and uplifting voices through stories of strength, self-assertion, and consciousness-raising resonating within those communities. The event begins with the speakers sharing their expertise and experience followed by a moderated question period. Ann Marie Beals (MA '18) is a Two-Spirit Indigenous-Black L’nuwey – a mixed-blood African Nova Scotian and First Nation Mi’kmaq from the territory of Mi’kma’ki. They are a graduate student at Wilfrid Laurier University and a storysharer working on the ProclaimingOurRoots.com project. Stories from this project revolve around Afro-Indigenous identity and relationships with Indigenous and Black communities. Their research explores the health and wellbeing of these communities in looking at the effects of colonial legacies of oppression and violence, and lack of acknowledgment of Indigenous-Black identity in the settler nation-state known as Canada. Ann Marie shares Afro-Indigenous voices by uplifting the sacred stories, lived experiences and knowledges loudly resonating in Indigenous-Black communities. Barrington Walker is the Associate Vice-President, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and a Professor in the Department of History. Barrington is a historian of Modern Canada, whose work focuses on the histories of Blacks, race immigration and the law. His work seeks to illuminate the contours of Canadian modernity by exploring Canada's emergence as racial state through its histories of white supremacy, slavery, colonization/immigration, segregation, and Jim Crowism. Much of his work considers how these practices were legitimized, and in some instances contested, by the rule of law and legal institutions. Lee Anna Osei (BA ’15, MA ’16) is the Head Coach of Women's Basketball at Saint Francis Xavier University and Founder of Canletes Sports and The BCCA.