On the first day of Black History Month 2026, I had the privilege of addressing the congregation at the Unitarian Church of Montreal—Canada’s first Unitarian community, founded in 1842. My theme was WONDER. Wonder at the deep roots of Black history in Quebec, wonder at the resilience of our community, and wonder at what we might build together through genuine allyship.
The Wonder of Deep Roots
Many people express wonder—and not always the positive kind—when they learn that Black history in Quebec stretches back over four hundred years. The first recorded Black person in what would become Canada was Mathieu da Costa, an interpreter of African descent who accompanied Samuel de Champlain on his transatlantic voyage of 1606-1607. Before there was a New France, there was a Black presence on this land.
But there is a harder truth. From as early as 1628, enslaved Africans were brought to settlements like Quebec City and Montreal. Slavery existed in this province for over two centuries. Most of the enslaved Africans in Canada resided right here in Montreal, sold in market squares on Saturdays, their sales advertised in local newspapers as one might advertise furniture.
One story that endures is that of Marie-Joseph Angélique, an enslaved Black woman in Montreal. In 1734, accused of setting fire to part of the city as an act of rebellion against her bondage, she was tortured and burned at the stake. Her story is one of resistance—of a woman who refused to accept the unacceptable.
The Wonder of Community: Little Burgundy
By the early twentieth century, nine out of ten Black families in Montreal lived in the Saint-Antoine district, near the railway stations and yards. The American-owned Pullman Palace Car Company only hired Black men to serve as sleeping car porters—while Blacks, regardless of their education, were not hired as engineers or conductors. McGill University would not accept Black students to study law or medicine.
And yet, the wonder of what that community built despite these barriers is extraordinary. In 1902, the Women’s Coloured Club of Montreal was founded. In 1907, Union United Congregational Church was established—still serving the Black community today, over a century later. In 1927, the Negro Community Centre opened its doors.
In June 1919, the first Canadian Division of the Universal Negro Improvement Association opened in Montreal. It was there that a young woman named Louise Langdon, who had emigrated from Grenada, met a young Baptist minister from Georgia named Earl Little. They married in Montreal on May 10, 1919. On May 19, 1925, Louise gave birth to their fourth child—a son named Malcolm, who would grow to become Malcolm X.
Little Burgundy gave us Oscar Peterson and jazz legends. Rockhead’s Paradise, opened in 1928, attracted greats like Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong. It was a place where Black excellence flourished against all odds.
And then, in the 1960s and 1970s, in the name of urban renewal, it was destroyed. The government demolished the neighbourhood to make way for the Ville-Marie Expressway. Fourteen thousand residents, most of them Black, were displaced.
The Wonder of Persistence
Today, nearly 200,000 Black Canadians make up over eleven percent of Montreal’s population. But the challenges facing Black Quebecers have not been resolved.
I spent nearly thirty years in federal law enforcement with the RCMP, rising to senior positions including Manager in the Prime Minister’s Protection Detail and Manager of Organized Crime Programs. I saw the system from the inside, and I saw how systemic discrimination operates.
In 2011, Quebec’s Commission des droits de la personne et de la jeunesse published a report with over ninety recommendations for countering racial profiling. A 2020 follow-up found the majority had not been implemented. In 2019, research commissioned by the SPVM found that Indigenous people and Black people were four to five times more likely than white people to be stopped by police. In September 2024, a landmark class-action ruling found that systemic racial profiling exists within the Montreal police force.
Yet even in the face of such findings, some political leaders persist in claiming that systemic racism is absent in Quebec. Just months ago, Quebec refused federal funding aimed at addressing the overrepresentation of Black people in the criminal justice system. I wonder how we can solve a problem we refuse to name.
My Story of Wonder
I was adopted at six months old. I grew up in Quebec not knowing anything about my biological parents. In November 2017, at fifty-seven years old, I decided to get my DNA tested. Through what I can only call providence, I connected with a woman named Sandra in New Jersey who had tested hers at the same time. We discovered that Sandra’s grandfather was my biological father.
I was able to trace my lineage back to slavery in South Carolina. My grandfather was born enslaved.
When I sought information about my biological mother, I learned she was ninety-one years old and living in a senior’s residence. She remembered everything. When she had inquired about me after giving me up for adoption, she was told that I was dead. She is ninety-nine now and messages me every day, just to check up on me. Wonder upon wonder upon wonder.
The Wonder of Allyship
What does genuine allyship look like in practice?
Allyship means educating ourselves. Read the histories that were not taught in schools. Learn about Little Burgundy and its destruction. Learn about the sleeping car porters who built community while serving passengers who would not sit beside them.
Allyship means listening. Listen when Black Quebecers describe being stopped by police for driving while Black. Listen when they describe the pain of hearing political leaders deny the reality of their lived experience.
Allyship means speaking up. When you witness discrimination, name it. When you hear casual racism, challenge it. Your voice carries weight precisely because you are not directly affected.
Allyship means supporting Black-led organizations: the Black Community Resource Centre, the Black Coalition of Quebec, CRARR, the Red Coalition, and the Black Class Action Secretariat. These organizations have been doing the work for decades.
Allyship means showing up—at events, on hiring committees, in school board meetings, in community consultations. The places where decisions are made need allies who advocate for equity.
And allyship means perseverance. This is generational work. The challenges did not emerge overnight and will not be resolved overnight. But every step forward matters. Every mind changed matters. Every policy reform matters. Every child who grows up believing in their own worth and dignity matters.
Returning to Wonder
I wonder at the resilience of a community that survived slavery, discrimination, and urban renewal yet still produced jazz legends and civil rights leaders and judges and nurses and porters and mothers and fathers who loved their children fiercely.
I wonder at the grace that allowed me, at fifty-seven years old, to find a family I never knew I had, to meet a mother who was told I was dead, and for the first time, a connection to generations who came before.
And I wonder at what we might build together, if we commit ourselves to individual and communal action that accountably dismantles racism and systemic barriers to full inclusion—in ourselves and in our institutions.
Let us grow together, love together, learn together. No matter what happens, let us be our best, be a community, one community. Now. Forever. And for always.
