They Call Me George

As I travelled on the train, I thought of all the train porters who came beforeRokhaya Ndiaye, and who left a legacy of social change in Canada as part of theCivil Rights Movement and indeed the entire Black experience in the Americasand beyond. But nobody is more deserving of recognition than Stanley Grizzle,whose tireless efforts for change make him effectively the hero of this book.Following the Second World War, Stanley Grizzle and his fellow porters foughtto create a new Canada by embodying a citizenship that reflected the entire diver-sity and dignity of humanity itself. The train porters battled to make normal what isnow socially routine, and even taken for granted, in our daily living: Black workers'ability to hold a wide range of jobs and to be hired and promoted in the civil service; and for Black people from Africa and the West Indies to immigrate and be-come citizens of Canada.

We should always remember this was not a fight they were guaranteed to win.We should also not forget that Canada wasn't originally intended to be a multicultural society. Official multiculturalism in Canada was a fluke of history. Somethought of multiculturalism as democracy gone wrong. Against great odds, thesleeping car porters sacrificed themselves and all that they had to put a stick in thewheels, figuratively speaking, that were driving Canada toward a different destination. The train porters turned Canada black, brown, and a host of other shades.Yet this important piece of Canadian history has yet to be fully told.

From They Call My Georgeby Cecil Foster2019. Published by Biblioasis.