In summing up her career in the field of nursing, Margot Blackman says, “I was happy to use my nursing and teaching skills for the enlightenment and education of many West Indians and other nurses in our local hospitals.” As an over-achieving secondary school student in Barbados, Margot went straight into teaching when she graduated from Modern High School in 1951.
In 1956, she then accepted a scholarship to attend the St.John Episcopal Hospital School of Nursing in Brooklyn, New York. A year or two after she graduated, she was sponsored by the Jewish General Hospital to move to Montreal and was provided with a two-year bursary to attend McGill University. After her graduation from McGill, she taught for three years at the Jewish General Hospital School for Nursing Assistants.
Margot then moved to Vanier College where she taught in the Nursing faculty for almost 24 years before her retirement in 1995. In addition to her brilliant nursing career, Margot also excelled in her service to the community and in her unwavering commitment to the well-being of Black people in Montreal. Her work spans the spectrum of organizations and institutions, including St. Paul’s Anglican Church, Union United Church, The Anglican Diocese of Montreal, and the Negro Community Centre and with Barbados House Montreal Inc., which she served for three one-year terms.
She also excelled as an author and journalist. She was a founding member of the Afro-Can and Afro Canadian newspapers, and dedicated member of Montreal Community CONTACT. In 1982, she published a book of Bajan Proverbs. In her many years of service to Montreal, Quebec and Canada, Margot achieved wide-ranging success as a nurse, teacher, journalist, advocate, counselor philanthropist and community organizer.
Yet her most endearing quality remains as a person blessed with the capacity to accept people as they are.
REMEMBERING MARGOT BLACKMAN 1932 – 2025
