As part of the Women Unite interview series, Rise Up spoke with Beverly Bain. From 1992 to 1995, Beverly Bain served as the National Action Committee on the Status of Women’s (NAC) Executive Director. In the interview, Bain discusses feminist anti-racist organizing in the NAC during the 1990s, highlighting the role of Black and racialized feminists, their strategies, and the election in 1993 of Sunera Thobani as NAC’s first racialized president.

Sisters in the Struggle directed by Dionne Brand and Ginny Stikeman was released by the National Film Board’s Studio D in 1991. It features Black women in Canada active in politics as well as community, labour, and feminist organizing. They share their insights and personal testimonies on the intersectionality of racism and sexism, linking their individual struggles with the ongoing battle to end systemic discrimination and violence against women and people of colour.

In her Women Unite interview with Rise Up, “Black Nurses Challenge Systemic Racism” June Veecock, discusses complaints of systemic racism filed by nurses, Black and one Filipina, against Toronto’s Northwestern Hospital at the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Veecock, then Director of Human Rights at the Ontario Federation of Labour, played a pivotal role in this case. In this interview, she describes how she got involved and the support of other Black anti-racist and feminist activists including Dr. Akua Benjamin, and Zanana Akande, as well as groups like the Congress of Black Women. 

Our Lives was the first newspaper in Canada by and about Black women. Produced by the Toronto-based Black Women’s Collective, Our Lives centred on the lived experiences of Black women in Canada. Vol. 2, Issue 1 – March/April 1987 of Our Lives spotlights Black women throughout Canadian history, from Marie-Joseph Angélique, to Mary Ann Shadd, to Kay Livingstone.

To learn more about Our Lives and the Black Women’s Collective, see “Rich Imaginings and Freedom Dreams in the Archive: Our Lives and the Black Women’s Collective” by Rachel Lobo, which was featured in a previous Rise Up newsletter. 

Finally, we’d like to share this lesson plan developed by the Rise Up Educational Resources Committee and Emily Dychtenberg, MT. The lesson plan focuses on Black women’s activism and its rise in the 1970s and 1980s, drawing in part on archival materials from the Rise Up collection. This is a great resource for those looking to bring the history of Black women’s activism in Canada into the classroom.