TRANSCRIPT

WM - Wilma (Miller) Morrison, interviewee / NP - Natalie Przybyl, interviewer

WM: My husband's family they, they were really into history as well, family history. They had pretty much put together a lot of it and they never threw anything away, so they had proof. Uh, they were real picture takers; there were always pictures and things of, of the family. And so, um, it was nice sort of running into this man who would dare to go out and find this history, and, and the history of communities that we were unaware of. We knew about um, you know, Chatham, Dresden, North Buxton... Because we all used to gather together at certain times, um, for Sunday School Picnics, or for Church Conferences, we would get to meet each other, so we would, I would know people in Collingwood and Owen Sound, uh... Not all the people, but a number of people in each of the communities, we would know about them. Toronto; we had a church in Montreal at that time. Um, when I, there was just a lot of interaction. But there never was very much at this end, for some reason or other, I don't know, why, uh, why the history wasn't gathered at this end. Uh, which was such a shock to me when we opened the library [Norval Johnson Heritage Library, now housed in the St Catharines Public Library's Special Collections] and this, the information began flooding in. But it's, once again, not from the black community, from the community at large. We're really happy that we had a facility here to be able to collect it. And, I, 1 of the reasons I suppose, is... this sort of... I don't know... hesitant... about celebrating our, our being in Canada. Um... hesitant about talking about slavery, you know? And I, I think the onus is... is so wrong. We're teaching our young people of the negative things that... You know, as I tell the groups that, when they come in that, uh... [background interruption] What was that?

NP: [indecipherable, possibly - maybe it was the Minister?]

WM: ...um, what, ah, that there wasn't anyone on the shore of Africa saying I want to go on a cruise! So people are here and they, they... They suffered greatly to get here; they suffered greatly once they were here, because they weren't accepted into the community, and there's still a lot of negativity directed at it; at, towards the, the community. Which is what, what I can never make people understand, that, that people hav... it's necessary to regard people as individuals. As opposed to groups. And, um, so, really and truly the selling point has to be our, our own young people to tell them that they must have pride in the people from whom they've descended. Where it's always been sort of the back door negativity. And, no; black people in Canada have accomplished a great deal; to the point where we now have a Governor General who looks like us. But it, it's, it's a hard sell. And the other thing is, uh, I am greatly unsettled because our young people are not contin... continuing into post secondary education and I don't know the reason for this.