Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T09:31:04.136Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Space of Africville: Creating, Regulating and Remembering the Urban ‘Slum’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2014

Jennifer J. Nelson
Jennifer J. Nelson
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Equity Studies, OISE / University of Toronto, 8 Havelock Street, Toronto, Ontario M6H 3B4,[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The black community of Africville, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, was forcibly dismantled in the 1960s under a program of ‘urban renewal’. Residents had long fought to have their claims to this space legally recognized, as well as to improve the community with minimal services and safety measures, such as water lines, sewage and police protection. This article examines how the space of Africville was denied these services, constituted as a ‘slum’, and in turn how this status was seen to justify its removal. The land on which Africville stood, now a public park, remains a site of contestation and commemoration. As yet, the city of Halifax has declined demands for compensation and has legally maneuvered to silence resistance. This essay's central aim is to demonstrate not only how the law, through the City of Halifax, functioned as a regulatory measure to ensure a series of evictions, but also the way in which these practices and consequences can be remembered. In particular, it argues for a contextualized legal consideration of Africville's story which recognizes the complex interplay of histories of poverty and racism with narratives of justice.

Résumé

La communauté noire d'Africville, à Halifax en Nouvelle-Écosse, a été démantelée par la force durant les années 1960 en vertu d'un programme de «rénovation urbaine». Cela faisait longtemps que les gens de cet endroit demandaient une reconnaissance juridique de leur collectivité et de meilleurs services communautaires et services de sécurité, comme des canalisations d'eau et d'égout, et une protection policière. Cet article examine de quelle façon la localité d'Africville a été privée des services en question et est devenue un bidonville, et aussi comment on s'est servi d'une telle situation pour justifier son élimination. La localité qui était autrefois Africville a été transformée en un parc public, mais elle reste un sujet de contestation et de commémoration. La ville de Halifax a toujours rejeté les demandes d'indemnisations et a utilisé des manœuvres juridiques pour faire taire la résistance. Ce texte cherche à montrer de quelle façon la ville de Halifax a utilisé son pouvoir de réglementation pour déloger des gens. Il montre aussi comment nous pouvons nous souvenir de ces pratiques et de leurs conséquences. Il fait surtout valoir le besoin de contextualiser juridiquement l'histoire d'Africville, compte tenu de l'interaction complexe entre la pauvreté, le racisme, et les narrations sur la justice.

Type
Law, Race and Space/Droit, espaces et racialisation
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , August 2000 , pp. 163 - 185
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Stephenson, G., A Redevelopment Study of Halifax, Nova Scotia (Halifax: Corporation of the City of Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1957) at 27–28.Google Scholar

2 Sibley, D., Outsiders in Urban Societies (Oxford: Blackwell, 1981) at 34.Google Scholar

3 Johnson, L., “Occupying the suburban frontier: accomodating difference on Melbourne's urban fringe” in Blunt, A. & Rose, G., eds., Writing Women and Space: Colonial and Postcolonial Geographies (New York: Guilford Press, 1994) 141 at 146.Google Scholar

4 For early historical information I have relied on: Africville Genealogical Society, eds. The Spirit of Africville (Halifax: Formac, 1992)Google Scholar; Clairmont, D. H. & Magill, D.W., Africville Relocation Report. (Halifax: Institute of Public Affairs, Dalhousie University, 1971)Google Scholar [hereinafter Africville Relocation Report.]; Clairmont, D. H. & Magill, D.W., Africville: The Life and Death of a Canadian Black Community (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1974)Google Scholar; Clairmont, D.H. & Magill, D.W., Africville: The Life and Death of a Canadian Black Community, 3rd ed. (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1999)Google Scholar; Henry, F., Forgotten Canadians: The Blacks of Nova Scotia (Don Mills, Ontario: Longman Canada Limited, 1973).Google Scholar

5 For documentation of relocation, see Clairmont & Magill; Africville Genealogical Society, supra note 4.

6 Letter of R.J. Britton, Director of Social Planning for the City of Halifax, to Halifax City Council (28 October, 1994). Housing purchase prices are listed in this letter. The amounts city council claims to have paid are seen as inaccurate by some Africville activists with whom I have spoken. There have been accusations of bribery, in which city officials are alleged to have offered residents suitcases of cash in exchange for their eviction. See Robson, J., “Last Africville Resident” The [Halifax] Mail Star (12 January 1970) 5.Google Scholar

7 Goldberg, D., Racist Culture (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993) at 191–192.Google Scholar

8 Lefebvre, H., “The Production of Space (Extracts)” in Leach, N., ed. Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory (London: Routledge, 1997) 139 at 140.Google Scholar

9 Hesse, B., “Black to Front and Black Again” in Keith, M. & Pile, S., Place and the Politics of Identity (London: Routledge, 1993) 162 at 175.Google Scholar

10 Ibid.

11 Lefebvre, H., “Reflections on the Politics of Space” (1976) 8 Antipode 30 at 31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Saunders, C. R. et al. , “A Visit to Africville” in Africville Genealogical Society, eds. The Spirit of Africville (Halifax: Formac, 1992) 15 at 33.Google Scholar

13 See D. Goldberg, supra note 7; Sibley, D., “Racism and settlement policy: the state's response to a seminomadic minority” in Jackson, P., ed. Race and Racism: Essays in Social Geography (London: Allen & Unwin, 1987) at 74 Google Scholar; Sibley, D., Geographies of Exclusion (London: Routledge, 1995).CrossRefGoogle Scholar [hereinafter Geographies of Exclusion]; Stallybrass, P. & White, A., The Politics and Poetics of Transgression (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986)Google Scholar; Said, E., Culture and Imperialism (New York: Vintage, 1993).Google Scholar

14 Marcuse, P., “Not Chaos, but Walls: Postmodernism and the Partitioned City” in Watson, S. & Gibson, K., eds. Postmodern Cities and Spaces (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1995) 243.Google Scholar

15 Razack, S., “Race, Space and Prostitution” (1998) 10 Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 338.Google Scholar

16 Reports of some bootlegging in Africville are cited in Africville Relocation Report, supra note 4.

17 Sibley, supra, note 2.

18 Kawash, S., “The Homeless Body” (1998) 10 Public Culture 319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 D. Goldberg, supra, note 7 at 190.

20 See Anderson, K.. Vancouver's Chinatown: Racial Discourse in Canada, 1875–1980 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1991).Google Scholar

21 D. Goldberg, supra, note 7 at 198.

23 Stephenson, supra note 1. Stephenson's report focuses most intensely on the downtown region of Halifax and what might be done about the poor and overcrowded living conditions of its residents, the majority of whom would have been white.

24 Ibid.

25 Sibley, supra, note 2.

26 Saunders, C. R., “Relocation and Its Aftermath: A Journey Behind the Headlines” Africville Genealogical Society et al. , eds., Africville: A Spirit that Lives on (Halifax: The Art Gallery, Mount Saint Vincent University, et al., 1989) 16 at 17.Google Scholar

27 Many references to the city's intended desegregation are made in all the cited works by Clairmont & Magill, supra, note 4; see also R.J. Britton, supra, note 6.

28 Simon, R., “The Touch of the Past: The Pedagogical Significance of a Transactional Sphere of Public Memory” in Trifonas, P., ed., Revolutionary Pedagogies: Cultural Politics, Education, and the Discourse of Theory (New York: Routledge, 2000) 61.Google Scholar

29 D. Goldberg, supra note 7 at 204.

30 S. Razack, “Gendered Racial Violence and Spatialized Justice: The Murder of Pamela George” (2000) (in this issue of CJLS/RCDS).

31 Razack, S., Looking White People in the Eye: Gender, Race and Culture in Courtrooms and Classrooms (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998) at 40.Google Scholar

32 R.J. Britton, supra note 6, at 2.

33 Ibid. at 5.

34 Ford, R. Thompson, “The Boundaries of Race: Political Geography in Legal Analysis” (1994) 107 Harvard Law Review 1843.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

35 Goldberg, supra, note 7.

36 Clairmont, D.H. & Magill, D.W., Africville Relocation Report (Halifax: Institute of Public Affairs, Dalhousie University, 1971).Google Scholar

37 Goldberg, supra, note 7 at 204–205.

38 Tynes, M., Woman Talking Woman (Porter's Lake: Pottersfield Press, 1990) at 61.Google Scholar

39 Harvey, D., Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1996).Google Scholar

40 Kirby, K., “Re: Mapping Subjectivity: Cartographic vision and the limits of politics” in Duncan, N., ed., Bodyspace: destabilizing geographies of gender and sexuality (London: Routledge, 1996) 45.Google Scholar

41 MacLean, L., “Seaview officially opens” The [Halifax] Mail Star (24 June 1985).Google Scholar

42 Jacobs, J., “Resisting Reconciliation: the secret geographies of (post)colonial Australia” in Pile, S.. & Keith, M., eds., Geographies of Resistance (London: Routledge, 1997) 203 at 206–208.Google Scholar

43 Lefebvre, supra note 8 at 140.

44 Lightstone, M., “Africville showdown brewing” The Halifax Daily News (12 February 1995).Google Scholar

45 MacKeen, C., “City responds to protest over Seaview Park land” The Halifax Chronicle Herald (12 May 1995).Google Scholar

46 Paynter, T.L., “City gives Carverys the boot” North End News (24 March 1995).Google Scholar

47 Lightstone, M., “Mayor: ‘No racism in this’” The Halifax Daily News (25 March 1995).Google Scholar

48 McKeen, C., “Get out, protesters warned” The [Halifax] Chronicle Herald (17 May 1995) A1.Google Scholar

49 Lightstone, supra note 46.

50 I have not been able to ascertain the exact time at which the brothers finally left. News articles from November of 1996 state that their protest site remained, although there was some speculation that they had begun to spend less time at the site by then.

51 Geographies of Exclusion, supra note 13.

52 See Lawrence, B., “Real” Indians and others: mixed-race urban Native people, the Indian Act, and the rebuilding of Indigenous nations (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Toronto, 1999) [unpublished].Google Scholar