Here is something I wrote in my Halifax Media Co-op days, about an interactive map exploring the deep connection between the Mi’kmaq people and the landscape of Mi’kma’ki, the place the Mi’kmaq never ceded and have called home since time began.
“These stories are true.” Brenda Thompson introduces five people who lived between the early 1800s and today. “Their hardships were not their fault, yet they were punished for being different or for merely being poor. When it comes to people in poverty, our minds remain shut. Our attitudes and policies are still stuck in the 1860s, Brenda writes
Brenda’s piece was produced in partnership with the Nova Scotia College of Social Workers, for co-publication in Connections, published three times a year by the College. We really appreciate this wonderful opportunity to promote longer pieces by Nova Scotia authors on topics so dear to our heart.
Angela Bowden remembers growing up Black in rural Nova Scotia, and reflects on the enduring damage done by abusive police practices over the generations. “I vividly recall, as do many of my peer group, police officers slowly driving by us numerous times, following us as we walk, asking us our names, where we are going, where we are coming from, and who our parents were.”
Brenda Thompson, author of Poor houses of Nova Scotia, on the only poor house in the province that segregated its residents based on the colour of their skins. Other poor houses did not allow the sexes to mix but allowed African-Nova Scotians and Mi’kmaq to live under one roof with white people. Not in Bridgetown though.
Ricky RIchard reflects on the tremendous debt he and fellow Acadians owe to the Mi’kmaq for shielding them when they were chased and deported by the British. “I am alive today because of the Mi’kmaq. I want to thank them. I owe them my life and that is a debt I cannot possibly repay. … My life is theirs, but I am ashamed of the way we have treated the Mi’kmaq. We have dispossessed them of their land, their livelihood, their ways, their dignity. History teaches us that too many injustices have been brought to bear on such a generous and welcoming people,” writes Richard in this remarkable open letter.
This September Nova Scotia’s Town of Windsor formally commemorated the little known fact that David Ben-Gurion, future prime minister of Israel, was trained along with the rest of the Jewish Legion at the town’s Fort Edward. But while Ben-Gurion came to fame as the founder of Israel, there was a darker side to this Zionist leader that is too often ignored, writes author and Cape Breton University teacher Garry Leech.
Picture yourself as a poor person, 125 years ago in Nova Scotia. Brenda Thompson, author of a wonderful book on poor houses in Nova Scotia, on what it would take to be accepted in a poor house, a place so horrible it would always be your last resort.
There’s a wonderful new book on the history or poor houses and poor farms in Nova Scotia, written by poverty activist and frequent NS Advocate contributor Brenda Thompson. Things are better now, of course, but in a way not much has changed for people who are very poor.
This weekend’s weekend video is an oldie but goodie about the historic African Nova Scotian communities of Lucasville and Upper Hammonds Plains. Lots of interviews with elders, lots of community spirit and mutual support.
Yesterday we published Judy Haiven’s take on the Halifax Explosion, arguing that in essence a war crime occurred, today Tony Seed makes a similar case in this well-researched article. “The tragedy of the Halifax Explosion, the subsequent Naval Magazine explosion of July 1945 and other preventable incidents since then shows that the granting of military-naval concessions and other privileges to the superpowers and their naval fleets represent nothing but great danger to the democratic right of the people to live in peace and to their freedom.”