Recommended reading

Here are some titles that may help you in your research into Ontario’s Black history:

Go to School, You’re a Little Black Boy, The Honourable Lincoln M. Alexander: A Memoir, by Lincoln Alexander (Dundurn Press)

Early African American Classics, by Anthony Appiah (Penguin Random House Canada)

The Freedom Seeker: The Life and Times of Daniel G. Hill, by the Archives of Ontario (online exhibit)

Bromley: Tireless Fighter for Just Causes, by Bromley Armstrong and Sheldon Taylor (out of print)

Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or, Life Among the Lowly, by Harriet Beecher Stowe (Penguin Random House Canada)

Land to Light On, by Dionne Brand (Penguin Random House Canada)

"We're Rooted Here and They Can't Pull Us Up" – Essays in African Canadian Women's History, by Peggy Bristow (University of Toronto Press)

The Road to Dawn: Josiah Henson and the Story That Sparked the Civil War, by Jared A. Brock (PublicAffairs)

A Love Letter to Africville, by Amanda Carvery-Taylor (Fernwood Publishing)

‘Membering, by Austin Clarke (Dundurn Press)

Black Matters, by Afua Cooper and Wilfried Raussert (Fernwood Publishing)

Copper Woman and Other Poems, by Afua Cooper (Dundurn Press)

The Hanging of Angélique, The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montréal, by Afua Cooper (HarperCollins Canada)

The Underground Railroad: Next Stop, Toronto!, by Afua Cooper, Adrienne Shadd and Karolyn Smardz Frost (Dundurn Press)

Season of Rage, by John Cooper (Penguin Random House Canada)

The Refugee – Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada, by Benjamin Drew (Dundurn Press)

The Promised Land: History and Historiography of the Black Experience in Chatham-Kent's Settlements and Beyond, edited by Boulou Ebanda de B’béri, Nina Reid-Maroney and Handel Kashope Wright (University of Toronto Press)

Half-Blood Blues, by Esi Edugyan (HarperCollins Canada)

Washington Black, by Esi Edugyan (HarperCollins Canada)

They Call Me George: The Untold Story of Black Train Porters and the Birth of Modern Canada, by Cecil Foster (Biblioasis)

Emancipation Day: Celebrating Freedom in Canada, by Natasha Henry (Dundurn Press)

The Book of Negroes, by Lawrence Hill (HarperCollins Canada)

The Dream Keeper and Other Poems, by Langston Hughes (Penguin Random House Canada)

A Sporting Chance: Achievements of African-Canadian Athletes, by William Humber (Dundurn Press)

Perspectives of Black Histories in Schools, edited by LaGarrett J. King (Information Age Publishing)

African Canadian Leadership: Continuity, Transition, and Transformation, edited by Tamari Kitossa, Erica S. Lawson and Philip S.S. Howard (University of Toronto Press)

Sharp Flashes of Lightning Come from Black Clouds: The Life of Josiah Henson, by Jamie Ferguson Kuhns (The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission)

Ontario’s African-Canadian Heritage – Collected Writings, by Fred Landon; editors: Frederick H. Armstrong, Bryan Walls, Karolyn Smardz Frost (Dundurn Press)

North of the Color Line, by Sarah-Jane Mathieu (University of North Carolina Press)

Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present, by Robyn Maynard (Fernwood Publishing)

The Sleeping Car Porter, by Suzette Mayr (Coach House Books)

Black Canadians: History, Experience, Social Conditions, Second edition, by Joseph Mensah (Fernwood Publishing)

Willie: The Game-Changing Story of the NHL’s First Black Player, by Willie O’Ree and Michael McKinley, with a foreword by Jarome Iginla (Penguin Random House Canada)

My Brother’s Keeper: African Canadians and the American Civil War, by Bryan Prince (Dundurn Press)

One More River to Cross, by Bryan Prince (Dundurn Press)

Africa’s Children: A History of Blacks in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, by Sharon Robart-Johnson (Dundurn Press)

The Reverend Jennie Johnson and African Canadian History, 1868-1967, by Nina Reid-Maroney (Boydell & Brewer)

Trailblazers, by Tiyahna Ridley-Padmore (available through Indigo)

Harriet Tubman: Freedom Seeker, Freedom Leader, by Rosemary Sadlier (Dundurn Press)

The Journey from Tollgate to Parkway: African Canadians in Hamilton, by Adrienne Shadd (Dundurn Press)

The African Samuri, by Craig Shreve (Simon & Schuster)

Family Secrets: Crossing the Colour Line, by Catherine Slaney, with a foreword by Daniel G. Hill (Dundurn Press)

I’ve Got a Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad, by Karolyn Smardz Frost (Dundurn Press)

Steal Away Home, by Karolyn Smardz Frost (HarperCollins Canada)

“The Man who became Uncle Tom,” by Clint Smith (from The Atlantic magazine)

Underground to Canada, by Barbara Smucker (Penguin Random House Canada)

The Underground Railroad Records, by William Still (Penguin Random House Canada)

A Fluid Frontier: Slavery, Resistance and the Underground Railroad in the Detroit River Borderland, by Karolyn Smardz Frost and Veta Smith Tucker (Wayne State University Press)

Beatrice and Croc Harry, by Lawrence Hill (Harper Collins Canada)

Gutter Child, by Jael Richardson (Harper Collins Canada)

Talking About Freedom: Celebrating Emancipation Day in Canada, by Natasha Henry (Dundurn Press)

Uncle: Race, Nostalgia, and the Politics of Loyalty, by Cheryl Thompson (Coach House Books)

The Day-Breakers, by Michael Fraser (Biblioasis)

The Ontario Heritage Trust’s magazine Heritage Matters also frequently features articles related to Black history in Ontario. Examples include:

Inside Uncle Tom's Cabin, February 2005

Inside Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Wayne Kelly

Our cultural heritage places, February 2006

The birth of Black History Month, by Karolyn Smardz Frost

Your history, our heritage, September 2006

“I’ll use my freedom well,” by Steven Cook

Celebrating 40 years of conservation, February 2007

Carving out a place in our history, by Wayne Kelly and Steven Cook

From slavery to freedom: Commemorating the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade, August 2007

Slavery in Ontario, based on the research and writing of Dr. Afua Cooper and assistant Neeka Morris, Dr. Karolyn Smardz Frost and Adrienne Shadd
Timeline to freedom
Chloe Cooley and the limitation of slavery in Ontario, based on the research and writing of Colin McCullogh

Engaging citizens in community conservation, February 2008