Dear Jackie

After a stint with the minor-league Montreal Royals, Jackie Robinson was the first Black man to play in Major League Baseball and a key contributor to the civil rights movement in the United States. When Robinson broke the colour barrier in professional baseball in 1946, the impossible seemed possible in a segregated North America. All Montrealers Black and white cheered him on and treated him like a hero. But did the white majority use the historic moment to perpetuate the myth of a post-racial society?

When Robinson played for the Royals, the neighbourhood of Little Burgundy in the southwest part of the city was home to 90 per cent of Montreals Black community and known as the Harlem of the North. It had its own churches, community centres and clubs. Marcus Garvey established a local Universal Negro Improvement Association in Little Burgundy. Malcolm Xs parents met there.

But after Robinsons departure from Montreal, the neighbourhood came on hard times. The municipal government led by Jean Drapeau carried out a brutal plan for urban renewal in the area, destroying the heart of Little Burgundy. Its residents were driven out, as was its soul.

This poetic and intimate film tells the personal stories of the residents of Little Burgundy through interviews and testimonies, using a vrit style. Dear Jackie explores racism and racial inequality in Montreal and Quebec and is a tribute to the perseverance of one of Canadas most important Black communities.