Conferencing as a Site for the Mobilization of Black Feminist Identities in the Congress of Black Women of Canada,1973-1983

Introduction

Black Canadian women ¹ were actively organizing in the 1970s and 1980s, but not highly visible. Monolithic definitions of feminism and Black nationalist assertions were unviable ideologies that did not articulate their voices. The challenge, then, for Black women’s organizations was to define their experiences on their own terms and recruit Black women to their conferences. The Congress of Black Women of Canada’s (CBWC) conferences emerged from the racism in the women’s movement and sexism in Black nationalist organizations by addressing Black women’s race, class, and gender oppression. The CBWC’s conference work in Toronto (1973), Montreal (1974), Halifax (1976), Windsor (1977), Winnipeg (1980), and Edmonton (1982) was the mechanism or vehicle for mobilizing Black women in Canada. In actual and symbolic terms, the conferences sought to establish the priorities of race, class, and gender as salient points of Black women’s identities through their conference themes and programs.

This article selected these six conferences because while Black women shaped their feminist identities and their organizations from the space that developed within Black national organizations and the women’s movement, this description is often obscured in the sociological, feminist, and social movement literature. Research on the CBWC’s conferences can contribute previously ignored chapters to the scholarly literature. The CBWC conferences with their roots firmly embedded in Black communities, provided a crucial link to the emerging Black women’s organizations. Black women leaders such as Kathleen “Kay” Livingstone (activist), Rosemary Brown (Member of Parliament), and Juanita Westmoreland-Traoré (lawyer) played a pivotal role in demonstrating the leadership skills of Black women, as well as speaking about the burden of oppression under which they functioned. A scarcity of research on the CBWC leaders (Gooden, 2008; Small & Thornhill, 2008; Wharton-Zaretsky, 2000) exists in the 21st century, laying the foundation for examining the continuity of Black women’s activism through Canada’s socio-historical and economic development, slavery, the development of New France and British North America, Confederation, lay organizations, suffrage, and the movement. Canadian feminist scholars, in the process of excavating a wealth of information about the leadership roles of Black women in the CBWC conferences, make very little notice of the Black feminism sparked by the leadership. As this article on their conferences shows, Black women learned valuable skills and developed institutions from the gatherings and incorporated these resources into their national organizing. In addition, Springer (2001) writes,

Recent scholarship in black feminist’s studies and sociology is turning its attention to black feminist organizations as a parallel development to predominantly white women’s organizations, rather than as a reaction to racism. By recasting black feminist organizing in this light, we gain a shaper picture of the development of black feminist theorizing on the matrix of domination, as well as a better understanding of how black feminist articulated their agenda in concrete action. (p. 157)

For this article, I used archival data, conference reports, a brochure (1979), the National Secretariat (NS) newsletters, Rosemary Brown’s (1973) keynote address (conference), Dorothy Wills’s (1980) keynote address (conference), Executive Council minutes, and texts from the Canadian Negro Women’s Association (CANEWA) newsletter as the primary sources. These documents covered history, conference proceedings, objectives and statement of purpose, identity, ideology, institutions, and accomplishments. However, from the 1973 conference to the formation of the CBWC in 1980, the CBWC is currently operating and has approximately 29 chapters. In 2015, the CBWC is in its 42nd year of organizing.

This article is divided into three sections. In Section 1, I briefly outline Black women’s criticism of second wave feminism ² and the theoretical perspective guiding this analysis. Section 2 examines the CBWC’s conference themes. Section 3 analyzes the CBWC arguing Black women’s identities are shaped by their experiences, skills, and the reactions of others. The nature of their identities shape and are shaped by the quality of the conferences. The discussions and recommendations of these earlier conferences identified the differential impact of exclusionary practices of the dominant culture and the possibilities and limitations for changing Canadian society.

Black Women and Second Wave Feminism in Canada, 1973-1983

While feminist scholars asserted that the agenda of the woman’s movement of the 1970s was largely set by White middle-class university educated women, this has been overstated, with the effect of rendering invisible the struggles of Black women within the movement. Similarly, during the 1980s, Black feminist scholars stated that gender oppression provided a perspective for conceptualizing and asserting equal rights for all women. Many Black Canadian scholars used a Black feminist perspective to argue that gender is only one aspect of their oppression and exploitation. They have always considered the intersection of race, class, and gender as integral to their analysis. To this end, this section examines racism in the second wave feminist movement in Canada by noting “the absences and exclusionary feminist practices in the 1970s and the marginalization of black women within the woman’s movement in the 1980s” (Agnew, 1993, p. 211).

In the 1970s, paralleling the developments in Britain and the United States, Canadian women attended weekly consciousness raising groups to share their experiences. When Black scholars critiqued these groups for reproducing the racial stratification in Canadian society (Agnew, 1993), they recognized some of the problems inherent in White feminist practices. White women were discussing their personal experiences concerning their children, men, motherhood, isolation and sexual harassment, and they universalized the experiences of White middle-class university educated women as the basis of solidarity. They represented their interests, issues and perspectives of White women focusing on the family, sexuality, and socialization. Agnew (1993) writes,

Feminist practices initiated debates on these issues which were then elaborated in feminist scholarship. The identification with this agenda or alienation from it became a means of inclusion and exclusion because feminist regarded male supremacy as the most basic form of domination and all other forms of exploitation such as racism, capitalism and imperialism were regarded as extensions of male supremacy. (p. 221)

According to Agnew, Black women did not identify with this agenda because it erased their experiences and silenced their voices. They did not fit within the White feminist perspective because their social experiences were shaped by their race, class, and gender. For example, Vanaja Dhruvarian (quoted in Agnew, 1993) argued that in a racist and classist society, “the family was a source of emotional support, comfort for them and affirmed their identities as women” (p. 223). Black feminist acknowledged that sexism existed in the family, but they were reluctant to identify with women who were members of a dominant group on the basis of gender. The experiences of race, gender, and class discrimination increased their dependency on the family and the Black Canadian community.

Class differences created schisms in the movement. ³ Feminists attributed women’s sexual discrimination to capitalist patriarchy. Yet, the social experiences of Black women were different from White women. For example, the labor market was segregated by gender and racially stratified. Black women experienced discrimination from men and women as well. Black women analyzed the intersection of race, class, gender oppression, as well as the complicit role of the state in maintaining hierarchical power relations that subjugated Black women workers. ⁴ They concluded that race and gender played a central role in the structure and organization of the Canadian workforce, where Black female workers were perceived as cheap, expendable, and exploitable. Therefore, state policies were shaped by the demand for cheap labor and the crucial role of the state in demarcating the Canadian labor force along lines of race and gender.

In the 1970s, Black women were made invisible in the movement. Feminist practices which emphasized gender and ignored racism, classism, colonialism, and imperialism could not gain support from them. Their experiences and motivations for political activism have been a constant source of tension within feminist practices. This was illustrated by the emergence of the CBWC’s conferences in the 1970s, which made visible the lived experiences of Black women and the factors beyond gender in their lives.

In the 1980s, Black women had marginal representation in the movement. “The change from being invisible to being marginal was due to the criticism by black women concerning the racism and ethnocentric bias of feminist theory and the exclusionary activity of feminist practice” (Agnew, 1993, p. 223). Black Canadian women have publicly challenged the universalism inherent in liberal, radical, socialist, psychoanalytic, humanist, post-modernist, post-structuralist, ecofeminist, and existential feminism, all of which have ignored Canada’s history of oppression colonialism, imperialism, the legacy of slavery, and systemic racism

that produced lives of brutality, exclusion for some and lives of unearned and unrecognized privilege for others. By claiming to speak for all women, white women denied their social and economic advantages, perpetuated racism in their own theories and failed to make their movement relevant to black women. (Hamilton, 2004, p. 19)

These challenges led in different directions. Dionne Brand (quoted in Hamilton, 2004) has used “the writings of Karl Marx to intertwine an analysis of racism with the radical feminist focus on sexual hierarchy” (p. 19). Work belonging to this perspective on the intersection of race, class, and gender and this formulation has generated some important scholarship (Vorst, 1989). The Guest Collective (1986) and Resources for Feminist Research (1987) devoted an issue to women of color that included Black women. Women in Canada are now studying the lives of their predecessors to “provide answers to question of how they experienced oppression and exploitation [and] what priority they gave to different struggles at different periods of time” (Bristow et al., 1994). Black feminist analysis is trying to understand the historically specificity of complex power relations (Calliste, 1989; Silvera, 1983). The aim of the race, class, and gender intersection assumed the possibility of a coherent theoretical perspective that can address the interconnections among these three axes of oppression. Scholarship probing intersecting systems of domination and scholarship on intersectionality in explorations of Black women has drawn criticisms from White feminists. Michele Barret (quoted in Hamilton, 2004) has argued that “existing theories of social structure, already taxed by attempting to think about inter-relations of class and gender, have been quite unable to integrate a third axis of systemic inequality into their conceptual maps” (p. 20). For Black feminists, the point is that mainstream feminist theory must be examined for its racist assumptions. In particular, gender essentialism is silent on the privileges of Whiteness (Calliste, 1989).

Theoretical Considerations—A Black Feminist Synthetic Perspective

Although the CBWC is missing from the Black Canadian feminist and social movement organizational literature (Robnett, Meyer, & Whittier, 2002; Springer, 2005), when used as a case study, it can provide insight at the intersection of these two disciplinary fields. This article connects Black feminist thought with the resource mobilization perspective. The CBWC is part of a protest field that included Black Canadians and women. Yet, inserting the CBWC into the historical record of social movement organizations illustrates the impact of their complex identity in the formation of their conferences and organization.

Black Canadian feminist thought refers to a theoretical perspective that is grounded in the historical, social, political, economic and cultural experiences of black Canadian women (Bristow et al., 1994; Carty, 1991, 1993; Shadd, 1994; Wane, 2013; Wane, Lawson, & Deliovsky, 2002). According to Dionne Brand (1999), “theorizing about the experiences of black women provides the foundation that informs feminism relevant to Black Women in Canada” (p. 85). A Black feminist perspective asks questions and defines Black women’s issues at the intersection of race, class, and gender in Canada. However, while Patricia Hill Collins (1990) has addressed the matrix of domination affecting African American women, the Canadian context has not an analysis of Black women’s organizations in Canada. What constitutes Black feminism is still developing in Canada. The CBWC provides an articulation of the experiences and discourse of Black women.

Resource mobilization theory emerged in the 1960s to counter theories of collective action that defined movements as disorganized and the work of irrational activists. Resource mobilization theory (RMT) shifted the focus from the psychological causes of collective action to the structural precondition of resource mobilization (McAdam, 2012; Zald & McCarthy, 1977). What is of particular interest here is the model’s emphasis on the complex dynamics of movement mobilization and the role of purposive activists (movement entrepreneurs as well as participants), organizations, and the accrual and deployment of resources (members) in processes of demanding change. This model reorients our understanding of movement activity as rational action by those excluded from “normal channels of voice and power and provided a conceptual lens for understanding the role of specific social actors” (Cress & Myers, 2004, p. 280).

A Black feminist synthetic model frames this analysis of the CBWC conferences to demonstrate the synthesis of thought in the social movement literature in terms of the experiences of Black feminist epistemologies. Specifically, Black women in the conferences form their identities in relation to conflicting social narratives of ideologies supported by institutions. The CBWC’s conferences mediate the culture by challenging and reworking their respective stories of identity individually and collectively. What is the social construction of their subjectivities within the processes of identity production and discursive displays of experience? This question demonstrates the relationality of the CBWC conferences as a substantive site for investigating often overlooked and yet fundamental issues of inequality and for questioning the dominant modes of discourse. An awareness of this interpretive framework as part of a counter hegemonic force will lead to forms of consciousness that expose structural inequalities and allow for social change.

On the one hand, the idea of conferencing involved the converging processes of self-consciousness as an active meaning creation activity that connected the past selves in the present to transcendent possibilities. On the other hand, conferencing was a recognition of the ongoing social constructions that as participants learn to know themselves and to understand others through sympathetic introspection. These collaborative exchanges were based on mutual recognition that exists in all forms of interactions. The CBWC’s emphasis on inclusion, membership, and active participation communicated connectiveness, as evident in the various themes of the conference workshops. The conference topics were used as self-referential tools to interpret experiences in order to understand racialized, gendered, and classed positioning within the Canadian culture. Conferences and their workshops provided degrees of ideological rootedness or consciousness that were perceived as emancipatory. They served to facilitate self-actualization—in terms of identity—by transcending the rigidity of the dominant culture. Conferences were much-needed venues or sites that provoked reflection that led to forms of political activism. Representation of race, gender, and class at the conferences meant advances were made toward resistance. The effect of getting together was profound, revealing the presence of that which had been concealed in the mainstream—the voices of active Black Canadian feminists. Emerging from these conferences was a collective self-analysis based on the concept of identity. Conceptually, the conferences stimulated the individual’s capacity to change oneself and one’s own society or milieu. Given the intersectional configuration of these women, groups and organizations, race, gender, and class all directly influenced the growth of the conferences.

Themes in the CBWC’S Conferences

Between 1973 and 1983, the CBWC mounted extraordinary activities to ensure that Black women had a voice concerning their issues. The CBWC’s conferences were organized around six themes: (a) The Black Woman Today, (b) The Black Woman and Her Family, (c) Crisis of the Black Woman, (d) Impetus, the Black Woman, (e) Concerns for the Eighties, and (f) Black Women and the Workplace. The CBWC developed a social change agenda coupled with education to change attitudes.

Hosted by the CANEWA (1951), approximately 200 Black women attended the first conference, titled “The Black Woman Today,” held in Toronto, Ontario, at the Westbury Hotel, April 6 to 8, 1973 ( The Canadian Negro Women’s Association, 1973, p. 4). The theme set the stage for participants to discuss Black women’s concerns and connect with those already seeking social change. Connecting consciousness was the explicit goal for much of the 3-day discussions on Education, Concerns of the Single Female, Youth Programme, and the Immigrant Female. In her keynote address, Rosemary Brown (1973), Member of Parliament, stated that

there were a number of liberation movements sweeping this land - racial, economic and of course the feminist movement. . . . I believe that through this movement we can fight for black people as well as women of all other races, even as we fight for black people, we fight for black men as well as black children and black women. (p. 1)

As Black women were positioned within the structures of power differently from White women and Black men, they were marginalized along race, class, and gender lines. Most accurate statement was that at the present time, they were fighting against racism, classism, and sexism. Brown (1973) saw the conference as the logical response to combat the multiple and intersecting oppression that created the conditions of Black women’s lives.

Based on the positive response from approximately 500 participants to “The Black Woman and Her Family” held at the Mount Royal Sheraton Hotel, November 8 to 10, 1974, the Coloured Women’s Club (1902) collaborated with local Black organizations to sponsor the second CBWC conference in Montreal (The Coloured Women’s Club, 1974, p. 2). The workshop offerings on the Health and Welfare, Youth and Education, Immigration, Economics and the Black Family, and the Triple Repression of Black Women were issues shaped by the economic resources Black women deployed. Yet, the theme examined the family using a Black feminist perspective. The family as put forward by the majority of White feminists meant that all women’s experiences were the same, regardless of socioeconomic differences. Yet, this conception erased the discrimination that Black women faced based on their racial and economic differences from White women. The result was an elision of women’s differences in the interest of a common woman’s movement agenda. CBWC women placed their experiences at the center of analysis to critique the White feminists as privileging a Eurocentric masculinist perspective on the family that was far from natural, but was embedded in a specific race and class formation. In doing so, the desire for Black Canadian women to represent the Black Canadian family, women, men, and children, was aligned with the reality that Black women were also competent organizers and had long been a part of the Black community’s public sphere.

Taking the conference concept one step further, the delegates devised a plan for a National Congress Committee (NCC). On May 21 to 26, “1975, African Nova Scotian women in collaboration with a number of groups convened the third Congress, which was [held at the Halifax Sheraton Hotel] under the theme Crisis of the Black Woman” (Small & Thornhill, 2008, p. 432). Maxine Brooks (1976), Edith Cromwell, and Small and Thornhill (2008) do not refer to the workshop topics. However, on this occasion, Brooks (1976) recalled that “copies of the resolutions passed at the second conference were distributed for reference and to discuss their implementation” (p. 1). Cromwell (1976) asked the “delegates from each region to meet and pick their representatives and an alternate” (p. 2). At the end of the meeting, the delegates had formed four regional bodies in Ontario, Quebec, the Atlantic region, and the Pacific region who were responsible for drafting a constitution, goals, and bylaws. They formed the NCC, a planning committee, that would implement and oversee more resolutions from the 1973 Toronto conference and the 1974 Montreal conference.

One year later, the Hour-A-Day Study Club (1934) and the NS “representing black women from the Maritimes, Manitoba, Prairie, Ontario and Quebec provinces” (, 1977, p. 5) organized the fourth conference. The event was held at the Holiday Inn in Windsor, Ontario, on August 19 to 21, 1977 and “Impetus, the Black Woman” was the theme. The word impetus was symbolic of the historical, social, political, and economic forces that affected the lives of Black women. To counteract these forces, the objective of the over 219 participants from Canada, the United States, and Bermuda was to “establish a National Executive Body to implement the resolutions of the Congress” (Report of the, 1977, p. 3). Four workshops were offered to discuss 18 conference papers on “Early Childhood Education and Youth, Nutrition, Youth, Immigration and Human Rights, Economics and Small Business, Jamaican Immigrants, Consciousness Raising and the Multicultural Black Woman and the Criminal Justice System” (Report of the 1977, p. 1) that linked a range of local and national issues to the organization’s anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-classist agenda.

The CBWC reminded Black women of what was absent from the present meeting and what they could examine at their future conferences. On November 21 to 23, 1980, “approximately fifty black women met in Winnipeg under the theme Concerns for the 80’s,” Esmeralda Thornhill, Agent de formation, Service de I’éducation, wrote in a letter dated November 26, 1980. The conference workshops focused on Education, Family and Childrearing Practices, Economic Activities, Careers, Religion, and the Family topics.

The challenge for black women in the eighties will have to be multifaceted, encompassing all of the vital areas of society, which include all of the five basic institutions to be found in every society. These basic institutions, in which we must become totally involved, in order to effect desirable and permanent change in the eighties include: family, education, economy, government and religion. (Wills, 1980, pp. 5-6)

Wills recognized that the CBWC operated within established channels and power structures, drawing on existing institutions and taken-for-granted understandings to challenge the structural domination of the state. In doing so, the CBWC became a vehicle for the establishing the priorities for empowerment and authentic community engagement. The 1980 Winnipeg conference furthered the conversation around Black women’s issues which took off a decade ago and continued to inspire Black women in the ’80s. To continue this mission, the CBWC was incorporated as a registered non-profit organization, with a membership list that included 300 names (NS of the National Congress of Black Women, 1980). The CBWC hired Juanita Westmoreland-Traoré as its legal counsel on matters concerning fundraising and community issues.

The CBWC was active and continued its operations in 1981. The organization’s Executive Council held meetings in January 23 to 24, 1981, and July 11, 1981, that showed that the steady growth of CBWC chapters across Canada was significant for the leadership and daily operations of the organization. One of these implications was that the CBWC had the financial standing to run a national organization with local chapters. CBWC members were contributing dues to the national budget and the organization could formulate a realistic organizational budget because it knew how much members would contribute each year. The Executive Council was also managing the flow of information between the:

chapters and the National Council [supported and contributed] to the community. The Executive Council implemented workshops for members which black women would build their skills in leadership, communication, employment potential, acquaint members with the political process and procedures for action. Programmes and events sponsored by the Chapters were done in such a manner that it would not only benefit all women participating, but exert positive credibility of the organization and in the community itself. (1981, p. 2)

Thus, the CBWC carefully thought about its course of action, programs, and its resources to sustain the organization.

Finally, the sixth CBWC conference was held on August 20 to 22, 1982, at the Hotel MacDonald in Edmonton, Alberta under the theme Black Women and the Workplace. Black women have been working in Canada since the establishment of New France. The historical legacy of slavery and colonialism as an aspect of the practices and rationale for capitalism and imperialism has shaped the work and the working conditions for Black women since they first set foot in Canada. They have been disproportionately represented in low-paying jobs and faced a network of practices that exclude them from promotions and hirings. A Black feminist perspective was used in the workshop discussions of Health Hazards—What Are We Exposed To?; The Added Impact of Racism As a Health Hazard in Our Workplace; Black Women and the Question of Pensions: Alone and Penniless; and Black and Female: The Double-Edged Hazard in the Workplace to show the processes of race, gender, and class intersect to rationalize the creation and sustaining of social and economic inequalities and the possibilities for social change.

Developing the Agenda: CBWC Issues

During this period, the CBWC’s collective identity significantly influenced how they defined Black women’s issues as feminist issues. Emerging from the same sociopolitical and economic conditions as Black community organizations and the woman’s movement, the organization was aware of the ways in which these movements ignored the intersections of race, class, and gender. Black women organized their own conferences to address their needs. The CBWC’s emphasis was on elucidating and undermining systemic barriers to equality of opportunity in the workplace, immigration policy, education, health care, multicultural policy, and revealing discourses on work that showed the intersection of capitalist, imperialist, patriarchal, and racist relations in shaping Black women’s exploitation.

How have the issues about work, women, children, and men been formulated from 1973 to 1983? These issues are addressed under the categories of Black women, youth, and education, Black women and triple oppression, Black women and the movement, Black women and pay equity, Black women and immigration, Black women and racial profiling, Black women and institutionalized racism, Black women’s health, Black women and multiculturalism, and Black women and sexuality. These categories themselves will grow as more studies are completed on the CBWC and will serve as a barometer for the continuities and changes in the lives of Black women during this 10-year period. In this discussion, try to keep in mind the following. The CBWC was raising questions, defining issues, making recommendations, developing analysis, and publicly acknowledging issues. How did the CBWC develop a Black feminist agenda? Let us look more closely at these 10 issues, the context in which they were formulated and the CBWC’s reflections on them. In this section, the analysis of the CBWC’s issues demonstrates their attempt to disseminate their particular views about the concerns affecting Black women and their families.

Black Women, Youth, and Education

Schools are institutions that socialize children, sustain fundamental inequalities, and fail to acknowledge the connection between identity, culture, and experience. The CBWC was challenging the “Eurocentric curriculum, existence of racism in Canadian society and a teacher’s approach in early childhood education, elementary school and secondary school” (The Canadian Negro Women’s Association, 1973, pp. 1-3; The Coloured Women’s Club, 1974, p. 17; Edith Cromwell and Maxine Brooks, 1977, p. 12). Sharleen Massiah’s (youth committee member) general sentiment was that

black students are made to feel inferior. . . . Black students resent the fact that the contributions of blacks to society are not included in the courses of study. . . . Textbooks and other literature are geared to white middle class families. (Report of the First National CBWC, 1973, p. 1)

Cynthia Taylor’s (The Hour-A-Day Study Club, 1977) paper on “Early Childhood Education” argued for “black women to use preschool to instill a critical black awareness in their children so that they can help them to counter the negative social constructions of blackness in Canadian society” and develop resilient children (p. 12). The CBWC’s youth and education workshops expanded the connections between gender, class, and racial oppression to the oppressive aspects of the experiences of Black children in educational institutions. In this respect, the education workshop illustrated how this organization related to Black children and the members accepted this as part of their mission. In addition to coming together to forge a consciousness about issues which were hitherto ignored by the dominant White culture, the conferences forged an agenda of action. The CBWC encouraged Black women to step to the forefront of Black leadership to form “a national education committee . . . to call for changes to the Catholic, Protestant and Private Boards of Education” (Report of the First National CBWC, 1973, p. 3). A list of CBWC concerns was sent to the Board of Education in Ontario after the conference. A project undertaken by this committee was a Rap on the Triple Oppression held at North Mount High school in April, May, and June 1975. Sylvia Cheltenham confirmed in the 1974 Report that the first CBWC chapter was the “Montreal Regional Committee (MRC) has been established and it has begun the implementation of the Resolutions adopted by the Congress” (p. 24).

Black Women and Triple Oppression

Iris McCracken, workshop moderator, noted that the term triple repression “referred to the repression by class, sex and race that resulted in the inordinate burdens and pressure on black women” (Report of the Second National CBWC, 1974, p. 8). The CBWC constituted a Black feminist organization because of its recognition that race, gender, and class were multiple aspects of Black women’s identity. What is significant about the CBWC’s feminist development is that Black feminism was not solely concerned with race work or the National Action Committee (NAC) on the Status of Women’s focus on gender; but they also wanted to eradicate gender- and class-based oppression. Black women saw the poverty of the working class as integral to the oppression of Black women and a priority for the organization. The CBWC was a significant contributor to Black feminist collective identity that was subject to constant redefinition by Black feminists based on their interactions with one another and the social movement community. Such an assertion creates a more complex picture of the CBWC’s conferences. The CBWC’s Black feminist collective identity was polyvocal from the start.

The CBWC sponsored workshops directed at the relationship between Black women and Black men in community organizations. Integral to the triple repression of women workshop was the organization’s attempt to disseminate their particular views about Black feminism to confront sexism within community organizations. One delegate’s comment was “that [some] black men in general, fail to recognize or appreciate the intelligence, feminism and the expertise of black women” (Report of the First National CBWC, 1973, p. 1). The CBWC was confronting sexism within Black organizations because of the divide erected between racial and gender struggles. Black men perpetuating sexism in the movement in the interest of supporting patriarchy failed to recognize the Black women. In effect, Black men deemphasized their gender because they prioritized racial identity in the struggle for Black self-determination. The delegates did recognize sexism in some Black men because Black women held positions in Black organizations that while not senior, carried responsibilities critical to surviving racism. Kay Livingstone’s, founding CBWC member, community work was instrumental to the 1973 Conference and recognized as such by Black women and men. However, women’s differing positions in the conference did not create a permanent barrier to constructing a Black feminist identity. The reaction of Black women to her activism was the seed of the Black feminist consciousness emerging from Black organizations. The CBWC interpreted the reaction to this workshop differently. Delegates were adamant that their conferences include Black men. They believed that because of her activism, Black women, men, and children’s perspectives converged around Black feminism, but that they needed the discussion to come together or connect consciousness for action to defend the concerns of Black women and their families. Delegates incorporated Black men and children’s identities into new theorizing on the intersection. The transition from a monist politic grounded in an either/or paradigm (Black or female) to recognizing multiple identities or intersectionality was made in one great leap. By extending the Black feminist perspective to include simultaneously the fight against racial, gender, and class oppression, Black women questioned male supremacy and discussed the meaning of Black womanhood. As Black women were doing this, some Black men were turning to gender in the form of reassertions of masculinity through the Black nationalist movement.

Black Women and the Movement

The CBWC engaged in activities that put them at odds with some White feminist organizations as they struggled to expand the definition of what constituted feminist issues. They had already approached Aboriginal women and Quebec Native Women’s Council about forming a coalition. Their request led CBWC members to debate the dynamics of oppression and power relationships beyond the Black/White paradigm. In the 1974 Report (Immigration, Economics and Black Family Workshop Resolutions), the CBWC expressed “its solidarity with Indigenous peoples and communicated with the Quebec Native Women’s Council to explore ways and means of collaboration in the struggle for justice” (pp. 11-12). Beryle Jones (1983), president of the Manitoba chapter, stated that no woman is an island unto herself and therefore encouraged the CBWC to form links

with other organizations, especially women’s organizations that share common goals. Starting closer to home we have tried to establish links with the Liaison Committee of West Indian Organizations and through this committee, indirectly all other organizations under its umbrella. We relate to women of different ethnic backgrounds through our membership with the Citizenship Council of Manitoba, our affiliation with the Council of Women of Winnipeg, the Advisory Council on the Status of Women in Manitoba and we recognize all women in all the world as we celebrate the annual International Day of Women. (p. 1)

In addition,

it was proposed that the Congress make representation to the Canadian authorities in support of the demand for refugee status by Haitians because of the political and economic conditions in Haiti. It is a fact that the economic repression is political, in as much as it is the direct result of the political regime. (Jones, 1983, pp. 11-12)

Many participants believed that the work of the CBWC would be strengthened if they worked in coalition with other political women’s groups on specific issues. The CBWC’s position held that the complexities of intersecting oppression were more resilient than the distinctions of the particular women’s organization and that the CBWC should be open to other women’s groups to join them. This position incorporated a multicultural, multiethnic, and multiracial alliance that broadened the organization’s agenda. The group formally established solidarity with First Nations, Black Canadian and Caribbean women’s groups based on an anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-imperialist ideology. The CBWC felt that such an ideology would illustrate its member’s belief that people’s issues could transcend their differences and organizing would be much more effective and unified in solidarity across race, class, and gender. The CBWC linked differences of culture, race, and ethnicity to the fight against common exploitation by capitalism, sexism, and racism in communities of color.

Black Women and Pay Equity

When Black women first examined the remunerations for men’s and women’s work, they realized that Black women earned less in the marketplace, not because they were “less productive, less educated, less skilled” (Hamilton, 2004, p. 78), but because they were Black women. For example, 29.4% of Black women graduated from university, about 85% earned less than CAD$16,000; of these half earned less than CAD$8,000, although a very small percentage of them were in the upper income categories (Mensah, 2002). CBWC members June James and Daphne Howard (1982) wrote,

Women continue to swell the ranks of the lowest paid workers because a significant number are in fact underemployed. Statistics clearly demonstrate that women with grade 12 and post secondary education are in stereotyped jobs with no upward mobility both in government and private sectors, whereas men with similar educational training are able to move upwards into senior ranks. (p. 2)

As a result, Black feminist supported a set of policies aimed at pay equity legislation.

The CBWC’s main strategy for implementing this demand has been to work in coalition with women’s groups to mobilize for pay equity legislation. The federal pay equity legislation applied to all employers under its federal jurisdictions. Such legislation was mobilized by the slogan “equal pay for equal work.” (James and Howard, 1982, p. 2).

therefore recommended that legislation is enacted for equal pay for work of equal value which will at least enable women to obtain their fair share of income while working, and as a result better self esteem, better motivation and during their retirement years better pension . . . One suggestion for employment equity measures is the assurance that hiring and promotion of provincial and municipal governments reflect the population composition. Fifty-two percent of the population are women and visible minority groups. Therefore the presence of visible minority women in all aspects of the workplace, including various levels of the administrative and executive appointments through employment equity is a goal we strongly endorse. (p. 2)

In this way, pay equity was motivated by an analysis that implied that it was an individual problem for a few female employees who were discriminated against by a few misguided employers, and the practice of paying women low wages was justified (Hamilton, 2004). This legislation relied on an analysis of power that rested within a Black feminist analysis. It was true that invoking the state to correct such inequities could be part of the solution. For the CBWC, liberal reforms like pay equity and employment equity had “ineffectual wording of the equal pay article (No. 43) which would still leave discretionary powers to the employers” (Report of the Second National CBWC, 1974, pp. 11-12). They lobbied the government to enforce the process that required that pay equity was taken seriously and encourage employers to make mandatory goals, standardized reporting requirements that compared jobs done by men with those usually done by women. When “a plan is constructed and implemented conscientiously, the result is salary increased for those traditionally doing female jobs” (Hamilton, 2004, p. 78). Therefore, the CBWC challenged gendered and racialized hierarchies in the labor market, while eroding the economic advantage of employers to devalue Black women’s work, channeling them into work ghettos where the pay is always lower. The CBWC mobilized Black feminist identities to address the issues of economic justice such as fair wages and nondiscriminatory employment opportunities. These factors could potentially allow more women into the upper echelons of the workplace and were necessary for economic survival.

Black Women and Immigration

The CBWC disputed the founding nation’s narrative as an accurate description of the socioeconomic and historical forces that founded Canada. Immigrants from Britain and France were not the only people who played a significant part in nation building (Satzewich and Liodakis, 2010). African people, Aboriginal peoples, and immigrants from other nations have been in Canada for centuries and their history was linked to the histories of colonialism and imperialism, cultural genocide, the legacy of slavery, and institutional racism. “Black people in Canada have a common African origin and heritage and common problems that stem directly from their racial origins” (Report of the First National CBWC, 1973, p. 4). The CBWC was giving due recognition to the impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade on the past and present lives of Africans and African descendants throughout the world. They were giving serious consideration to the global power and wealth imbalances affecting Africans and African descendants created by over 500 years of colonialism and the creation and maintenance of neocolonial policies and practices. By paying specific attention to the fact that African descendants have historically experienced a multiplicity of oppressions, activists were calling attention to the intersecting forms of discrimination and systemic exclusions which affect their access to employment.

Juanita Westmoreland-Traoré, workshop moderator, pointed out that “during the settler period, black families in different regions of Canada suffered the effects of overt and covert racism” (Report of the Second National CBWC, 1974, p. 10). Her insights were representative of the views of the majority of CBWC delegates who agreed that a series of systematic discriminatory practices had historically been maintained by state-controlled economic institutions. During the Loyalists migrations to British North America, many Black soldiers who fought for the British in the war also moved to British North America. They were forced to live in exclusively Black communities in Birchtown and Shelburne and work on farms that were too remote or small to achieve economic prosperity (Mensah, 2002; Walker, 1985). Large numbers of Loyalists became tenant farmers, working for White Loyalists under sharecropping agreements that created a system of indentured servitude that was similar to slavery. Black Loyalist families were thus forced into lives of poverty. Racism, classism, and sexism in immigration policy were more properly defined as a system of power relations that rationalized and normalized differential treatment at the institutional level. ⁵ Institutionalized racism in Canada resided in the historical and contemporary treatment of those now identified as Black Canadian. Westmoreland-Traoré statements captured the historical patterns that continued to shape the issues of race, class, and gender relation affecting Black people in Canada.

The CBWC responded to calls from Black immigrants to address grievances that were shaped by global issues. The insidious apartheid system in South Africa culminated in the pernicious imprisonment of Black adult and child activists. The South African government used the ideology of racism as a justification for their exploitation and inhumane treatment of the student activists. In this case, the racist South African State played an important role in sustaining a racial order by limiting the rights of Black South Africans. To the CBWC, Black Canadian women were part of an international movement of people who fought racism and they were engaged in transnational activism that the organization linked with its local action. Shyrlee Williams (The Hour-A-Day Study Club, 1977) said,

whereas the world community has condemned the apartheid regime as one that constitutes a crime against humanity; whereas mankind as a whole is still moved by the horror of the Apartheid system, we take the occasion of this convention to cry out “No More!” Thousands of black people, including very young children, are held in South Africa’s prisons, subject daily to torture. Many have already died under strange circumstances. Whereas we recognize that apartheid is just another word for racism in South Africa, be it resolved that the Congress urges the Canadian government to join the international community and press for the immediate release of all people who have been imprisoned for their heroism in pursuit of the destruction of the Apartheid system. Be it further resolved that the Canadian government be instructed to use its recently acquired seat in the United Nation’s Security Council to initiate a resolution to maintain both economic sanctions and an arms embargo against South Africa. (p. 51)

Through their conferences, the CBWC was trying to pressure the Canadian government to place sanctions against the South African government, and in doing so, they helped to make the case of the Black South Africans known in Canada. Therefore, the CBWC used its national activity to campaign for the rights of Black child and adult activists in South Africa.

Black Women and Racial Profiling

The way that the criminal justice system dealt with Black men was an issue for the CBWC. It was alleged that Black men were unfairly stereotyped and targeted by the police. One of the CBWC’s most well-known cases concerned Albert Johnson, a Jamaican Canadian resident who was shot in his Toronto residence by the police in August 1979. The NS sent a letter to Roy McMurtry, the Attorney General of Ontario, requesting an investigation into his killing. “[They wanted] charges to be filed against the police officers in question; and the formation of a Citizens Review Committee to look into the complaints against the police; rather than have the police themselves conduct the inquiry” (NS of the National Congress of Black Women, 1980). They sent copies of the letter to Mr. Johnson’s family, the National Black Coalition of Canada and the Editor of Contrast Magazine, a Black community newspaper. The CBWC engaged in activities that continued to expand the definition of what constituted feminist issues. Work on behalf of Albert Johnson and his family was a useful example of the contention between Blacks and Whites around certain issues as race, class, and gender issues but not all three. Sensitized to the police’s treatment of Black men, the NS knew firsthand the importance of applying a Black feminist critique to Black men’s experiences, in particular. For example, long before the contemporary recognition of racial profiling and racialization, the NS through advocacy brought to light the connections between police violence and shootings based on institutional racism, masculinity, and classism. The organization used the Johnson case as an example to highlight police violence in its members’ geographical area. The case of Albert Johnson raised concerns about institutional racism because allegedly it did not take the shooting of Johnson seriously as it would have if Johnson had been White.

Black Women and Institutionalized Racism

Institutional racism was an issue for the CBWC. Racism is defined as a system of power relations that rationalized and normalized differential treatment at the institutional and personal levels. In practice, institutional racism was reflected in the ways that social institutions operated by denying groups fair and equitable treatment. In this case, institutional racism resided in the historical and contemporary treatment of Black Canadians. The racial conflict between Blacks and Whites was not about culture (Hamilton, 2004). The Black Canadian population is part of the “African diaspora that was initiated by European slave traders over three centuries ago and included immigrants and refugees from many African countries, the Caribbean and indeed throughout the world, who have been arriving ever since” (Hamilton, 2004, p. 111).

Black people have been in Canada for centuries, yet, they found themselves the targets of discrimination aimed at limiting employment, job promotions, housing, education, and public services. Walker (1985, p. 20) argued that the systemic inequality Blacks experienced during this period was reinforced by a “discriminatory pattern of physical violence, assaults, harassment, inflammatory slogans and vandalism” that existed in many parts of Canada. Empirical studies (Clairmont & Magill, 1974; Frideres, 1973, 1976; Krauter & Davis, 1978; Ramcharan, 1982) and reports filed between 1975 and 1983 by Human Rights Commissions (Ontario, British Columbia, Nova Scotia), Canadian Civil Liberties Association, school boards, universities (Institute for Behavioural Research at York University), and municipal, provincial, and federal governments documented the racist context experienced by “visible minorities” and the widespread structural discrimination to which they were subjected. Within this sense of need, Black women began to organize CBWC conferences, chapters, and national organization to address racism in Canadian society, in large part by providing an organizational base for hundreds of Black women across Canada to participate in community politics—a simple act of empowerment.

The institutional racism that Black people experienced during the 1970s and 1980s was reinforced by a discriminatory pattern of harassment that existed in the Montreal taxi industry. In their presentation to the Quebec Human Rights Commission, the CBWC (1983) stated that

Our members have a tradition of fighting racism all over Canada and now where more than here in Montreal where many of the families of our founding members have settled for generations. . . . The Congress is of the opinion that recent developments in the taxi industry reflect not only long standing injustices within the industry, but, the general situation of black people confronting racism in all facets of life, be it housing education or employment . . . Black drivers complain of police harassment serious enough to cut into their earnings. Members of the public discriminate by refusing to get into cars driven by black drivers. The public is further encouraged in their discriminatory practices by companies that accede to telephone requests for white drivers . . . Cab companies stated that black drivers are bad for business. (pp. 3-4)

Dealing with racism in institutions such as the taxi cab industry, it was clear that the CBWC defended the rights of Black working-class men.

Black Women’s Health

The CBWC took the lead in bringing awareness about race-based health disparities and how Black women were disproportionately affected by health conditions on account of their race, gender, class, and other factors that contributed to these disparities. At the conferences, they brought together medical doctors, nurses, and community members to discuss various issues, from preventative medicine, diseases of the breast, and common surgical problems in women, geriatrics, and the black senior citizen, foster care and the black family, social welfare system’s affect on blacks seeking assistance, the care and needs of Black foster children, contraception, and sickle cell anemia, from a professional and personal perspective (Report of the First National CBWC, 1973; Report of the Second National CBWC, 1974). The CBWC’s focus on health was to educate and advocate for the health of the Black Canadian communities. Talking openly about health issues before considered private began the process of linking the symptoms of racism, classism, and sexism to the health care system and institutions, rather than attributing problems to personal failings. Returning to the health and welfare workshop, Black women could rethink their health care issues and a host of other issues as access to health care and the race, class, and gender oppression that put their health at risk.

Black Women and Multiculturalism

Multiculturalism encouraged the maintenance of the ethnic and cultural identities of all Canadians. As an ideology, multiculturalism promoted the ideas of tolerance of cultural diversity and that such diversity was compatible with national unity and socioeconomic progress. For the CBWC, one weakness of multicultural policy was its limited effectiveness in changing Canadian institutions, whose practices reflected systemic and institutional racism. For example, immigrants and their children have historically been incorporated into a national identity whose symbolic character is fundamentally British, but separately regarded as Canadian (Brand, 1994; Bristow et al., 1994; Carty, 1991; Cooper, 2002; Dei & Calliste, 2000; Li, 2003). Heather Crichlow (1988), CBWC member, argued that multicultural policy should be based on a strong commitment to equality among people, adding that “folk-dancing and amateur theatre were quite meaningless if people were excluded from participation in mainstream Canadian society.” Inez Ellison’s paper (The Hour-A-Day Study Club 1977) “The Black Woman, Black Consciousness and the Women’s Movement” reminded the delegates of the importance of persistently asking the question: How do Black concerns fit into this picture? We need “loud and persistent demands for elementary human rights in fair housing practices, in equal treatment opportunities, in educations and in access to social services” (p. 41). She reminded Black women to mobilize to address the discrimination against them in Canadian society and actively calling on delegates to take a position against the injustice they were experiencing in their communities across Canada. Multicultural policy was challenged by the CBWC and other groups interested in redefining notions of nation to address issues of racism and discrimination. They believe that the fictive nature of multicultural policy masked an unjust history of colonialism, imperialism, slavery and genocide, and systemic racism (Bannerji, 2000).

Black Women and Sexual Orientation

The CBWC’s Manitoba chapter articulated lesbian-positive and anti-heterosexist principals to the CBWC’s vision. The organization included discussions of sexuality in their meetings and did interrogate heterosexism as an oppressive force in Black women’s lives, regardless of sexual orientation. The Manitoba Chapter laid one foundation for challenging heterosexism and including sexual orientation in the Manitoba Human Rights Act. They presented a brief to the Manitoba Human Rights Commission regarding possible amendments to the Human Rights Act and they recommended that sexual orientation be added to the prohibitive grounds of discrimination. James and Howard wrote: “at present the rights of gays and lesbian are subject to the beliefs and vagaries of members of the community. The inclusion of sexual orientation in the Act would guarantee the rights of these individuals” (1982, p. 2). The CBWC laid the foundation for challenging heterosexism and including lesbianism as an integral part of the Black feminist movement.

Conclusion

From 1973 to 1983, the CBWC organized six national conferences in Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, Windsor, Winnipeg, and Edmonton to define Black women’s issues for themselves and put a public face on their views. Their collective identity which encompassed race, class, and gender concerns came through their conference themes and workshops. The Black Woman Today (1973), The Black Woman and Her Family (1974), Crisis of the Black Woman (1976), Impetus, the Black Woman (1977), Concerns for the Eighties (1980), and Black Women and the Workplace (1982) themes were shaped by the sociopolitical and economic contexts. The CBWC drew links between aspects of Black women’s lives once considered invisible to concerns such as youth and education, triple oppression, the woman’s movement, Black women, pay equity, immigration, racial profiling, institutionalized racism, health, multiculturalism, and sexuality. The CBWC’s conferences were more than an empirical space for the gathering of similarly circumstanced individuals and groups. The conferences served as a time for the recovery, affirmation, and mobilization of Black feminist identities, that is, a time for connecting consciousness. An analysis of the CBWC’s conferences on its own merit, as a force to be reckoned with in Black and women’s movements, offers a valuable case study for the comparative examination of social movement organizations through the lens of multiple identities.