The Fire That Time
Transnational Black Radicalism and the Sir George Williams Occupation
9781551647371
9781551647395
Distributed for Black Rose Books
The Fire That Time
Transnational Black Radicalism and the Sir George Williams Occupation
In 1969, in one of the most significant black student protests in North American history, Caribbean students called out discriminatory pedagogical practices at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia University), before occupying the computer center for two weeks. Upon the breakdown of negotiations, the police launched a violent crackdown as a fire mysteriously broke out inside the center and racist chants were hurled by spectators on the street. It was a heavily mediatized flashpoint in the Canadian civil rights movement and the international Black Power struggle that would send shockwaves as far as the Caribbean. Half a century later, we continue to grapple with the legacies of this watershed moment in light of current resistance movements such as Black Lives Matter, calls for reparations, or Rhodes Must Fall. How is the Sir George Williams “affair” remembered, forgotten, or contested? How is blackness included or occluded in decolonizing dialogues?
The Fire That Time addresses those questions while it commemorates and reflects upon the transnational resonances of Black protest and radical student movements. Through several thoughtful essays, scholars examine the unfinished business of decolonization and its relationship to questions of pedagogy, institutional life and culture, and ongoing discussions about race and racism.
The Fire That Time addresses those questions while it commemorates and reflects upon the transnational resonances of Black protest and radical student movements. Through several thoughtful essays, scholars examine the unfinished business of decolonization and its relationship to questions of pedagogy, institutional life and culture, and ongoing discussions about race and racism.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Foreword: Kaie Kellough
Introduction: The Fire that Time
Nalini Mohabir and Ronald Cummings
Part 1-Remembering the Sir George Williams Affair
50 Years Ago: Reflections on the Sir George Williams University Protests
Clarence Bayne, Brenda Dash, Philippe Fils-Amie, Nancy Warner, H Nigel Thomas
Interview with Dorothy Wills (Title TBC)
Imara Ajani Rolston
Interview with Elizabeth Charles on Valerie Belgrave (Title: TBC)
Nalini Mohabir & Oceane Jasor
Interview with Juanita Westmoreland (Title TBC).
Christiana Abraham
’Re/mediating the Protest: The Role of the Student Press in Challenging Dominant
Media Narratives of the Sir George Williams Affair’
Christiana Abraham
The Sir George Williams University Protests in the ? Abeng ? Archives
Ronald Cummings
On Fire:The Crisis at Sir George Williams University (Montreal) and the Worldwide Revolution of
1968
Michael O. West.
Part 2- The Sir George Williams Affair and Black Power in a Global Context
Montreal in the Caribbean Cold War: Reading Haitian and Cuban Connections
Amanda Perry
Sowing seeds of revolution: Assessing the impact of Black Power on the Caribbean
Jerome Teelucksingh
Walter Rodney, the Black Power Movement and Race in North America and the Caribbean.Nigel Westmaas.
Student Activism in the early years of the National Joint Action Committee
Alpha Obika
Sir George Williams’ Affair and Black Power movement in 1970s St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Ayanna Bobb
The Sir George Williams Affair and the Black Power Movement in Jamaica
Rupert Lewis.
“? On Many If Not All Possible Fronts”: Radical Pedagogies and Revolutionary Solidarities of
Caribbean Students in Exile
W. Chris Johnson.
Afterword
Foreword: Kaie Kellough
Introduction: The Fire that Time
Nalini Mohabir and Ronald Cummings
Part 1-Remembering the Sir George Williams Affair
50 Years Ago: Reflections on the Sir George Williams University Protests
Clarence Bayne, Brenda Dash, Philippe Fils-Amie, Nancy Warner, H Nigel Thomas
Interview with Dorothy Wills (Title TBC)
Imara Ajani Rolston
Interview with Elizabeth Charles on Valerie Belgrave (Title: TBC)
Nalini Mohabir & Oceane Jasor
Interview with Juanita Westmoreland (Title TBC).
Christiana Abraham
’Re/mediating the Protest: The Role of the Student Press in Challenging Dominant
Media Narratives of the Sir George Williams Affair’
Christiana Abraham
The Sir George Williams University Protests in the ? Abeng ? Archives
Ronald Cummings
On Fire:The Crisis at Sir George Williams University (Montreal) and the Worldwide Revolution of
1968
Michael O. West.
Part 2- The Sir George Williams Affair and Black Power in a Global Context
Montreal in the Caribbean Cold War: Reading Haitian and Cuban Connections
Amanda Perry
Sowing seeds of revolution: Assessing the impact of Black Power on the Caribbean
Jerome Teelucksingh
Walter Rodney, the Black Power Movement and Race in North America and the Caribbean.Nigel Westmaas.
Student Activism in the early years of the National Joint Action Committee
Alpha Obika
Sir George Williams’ Affair and Black Power movement in 1970s St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Ayanna Bobb
The Sir George Williams Affair and the Black Power Movement in Jamaica
Rupert Lewis.
“? On Many If Not All Possible Fronts”: Radical Pedagogies and Revolutionary Solidarities of
Caribbean Students in Exile
W. Chris Johnson.
Afterword