Born January 27, 1900 in Alberta, Clarence Clemens moved to British Columbia from Edmonton sometime in 1937. He soon found work on the docks as a longshoreman employed by Empire Stevedoring Co. and settled into the predominantly black neighbourhood of Strathcona in East Vancouver. The heart of this community was known as Read more…
Emmitt Andrew Holmes came to British Columbia in the 1940s from Saskatchewan and was the only black member of the Vancouver Local of the International Woodworkers of America (IWA Local 1-217) when he joined in 1944. Holmes incorporated his trade unionism with black activism in Vancouver for a period spanning Read more…
In the summer of 1954, racist signs on the women’s washrooms at the Namu fish cannery divided the facilities between “Whites” and “Natives”. They had been there for years, but despite demands from both the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union (UFAWU) and the Native Brotherhood of BC (NBBC) they Read more…