THE MONTHLY GLEANER | FEBRUARY 14 - MARCH 16, 2022 | www.jamaica-gleaner.com | ENTERTAINMENT 19 BLACK HISTORY MONTH Neil Armstrong/Gleaner Writer TORONTO: FILM-MAKERS Jennifer Holness and Sudz Sutherland will be emphasising to their audience that Black History is Canadian History in a new series ‘BLK: An Origin Story’ that will be aired on the History channel starting the last weekend of February. It is a powerful 4-part, one-hour documentary series that will deliver deeply compelling, previously unknown stories about Black people who have helped to shape Canada’s story. It traces from the early settlers of Ontario to the gold rush era of BC, from the Maroons of Nova Scotia toMontreal’s vibrant Little Burgundy neighbourhood. Holness came to Canada from Jamaica at age six and her husband, Sutherland, was born in Canada to Jamaican parents. “The thing we were acutely aware of growing up was that we did not belong because the society, our classmates, anybody who had white skin, was very comfortable in telling us to go back where we came from and they were all very certain we were immigrants.” The word ‘immigrants’ was never associated with white people who, in fact, were immigrants. “What we didn’t understand growing up was that there was a plethora of Black Canadian history that actually places Black folks on Canadian shores from the very beginning.” Black Canadians were some of the first non-Indigenous people to settle in communities across the country, with the first recorded Black person to arrive being Mathieu da Costa, in 1608. This was only preceded by four years when the first Europeans, Pierre de Monts and Samuel de Champlain, landed in 1604. Holness says it is absolutely important to know that Black people contributed to the building of this nation and brought great value to it. It was the recollection of feeling like an outsider that spurred the couple on to do this new project through their production company, Hungry Eyes Media. The film-maker says early in her life she knew that on the east coast there was an exchange of salt fish (cod) and rum to Canada, and the popularity of the Screech Rum there. She knew of the connection to Jamaica and subsequently found out that some Jamaican Maroons ended up in Canada. This piqued her curiosity and when they started creating the show she only wanted to tell the Maroon story. In Halifax, however, she told the story of three epic migrations with the Maroons being one of them. “The main reason that happened was because of COVID because in order to tell that Jamaican Maroon story I’d wanted to obviously tell the story on Canadian soil, but I wanted to go back to Jamaica and find the Maroons there and see what the connections were, and I also wanted to go to Sierra Leone because a number of the Jamaican Maroons who came to Canada went to Sierra Leone.” Holness says she is proud to be able to tell this Canadian-Jamaican story because somany people do not know anything about it. The Halifax episode will première on February 26 at 9 p.m. on HISTORY. Every Saturday afterwards another episode will be shown – Ontario, then Montreal, and finally, Vancouver. “Honestly, we wanted to honour our ancestors with this because growing up here I remember being in school seeing horrible films about Black history. You’d see a film and it was always about slavery and we were always victimised and it was always white Quakers rescuing us. It was horrible stuff and I wouldn’t say that I was emotionally scarred but I would feel uncomfortable as a kid, so as a film-maker both Jen and I said you know what we’re not going to do films like that, we’re not going to try to traumatise Black children while they’re watching it,” says Sutherland. Acknowledging Canada’s 200 years of slavery and the Underground Railroad, he says it is a very complex history but it has been sanitised and simplified for too long. “What we’re trying to do is tell people that Canadian history is a lot more diverse and a lot more complex than you think it is.” Holness says blacks have gone through a lot and the fact that these stories are new to many Canadians is going to be very compelling. Sutherland says as film-makers they wanted to recognise the sacrifices and achievements of their ancestors, noting that there were people who bought themselves and their family out of slavery, and did other amazing things which never get acknowledged. Jamaican-Canadian film-makers create Black History series Jamaican-Canadian film-maker Sudz Sutherland. Jamaican-Canadian film-maker Jennifer Holness. CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS NEW YORK, NY: BLACK WORLD Media Network (BWMN), a multimedia digital platform, premières on February 3, in conjunctionwith Black HistoryMonth. Offering audio and video live streams and on-demand content, BWMN will aggregate and curate news, information, and commentaries from a wide variety of news agencies, websites and publications across the black world. In the coming months, BWMN will produce and distribute original programmes and podcasts hosted by prominent scholars, activists, journalists, policy and systems analysts and leaders in various professions, a release from the network details. The centrepiece of BWMN is Black World Radio, a 24-hour, fully-licensed audio streaming service that features news, commentaries, spoken word, conscious, progressive black music and public service announcements from the diaspora and the pan-African world. BWMN is the brainchild and legacy project of Don Rojas, director of communications and international relations for Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW) founded by Dr Ron Daniels in 2002. Don Rojas said, “I am thrilled and humbled to be at the helm of this information gathering and sharing tool, which is not only a place to learn, communicate and connect, but also a space for great voices to be heard.” Rojas, who also serves on the board of IBW, is well poised to steward this online operation. He has served as executive director and CEO of Free Speech TV, general manager of New York’s Pacifica Radio station WBAI and executive editor of the Amsterdam News. In addition, he worked as the press secretary to the late Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop from 19791983; and created The Black World Today (TBWT), an online news and commentary site that launched in 1996. Rojas has assembled a highly skilled and experienced team to launch this milestone platform. Rick Adams, chairman of the IBW board of directors and former radio host, is production assistant; Rennie Bishop, former programme director of NewYork’s WWRL serves as programme assistant. The team is rounded out with Dr Todd Burroughs, news editor and researcher, and Michael Codrington, livestream manager. Multimedia platform débuts in Black History Month
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