Black History Month 2023: Black Resistance

A series of panels remembering achievements in the face of struggles.

Black History Month is a distinct period for honouring history, negotiating current realities, and imagining potential futures for Black communities. In recent years, the Harriet Tubman Institute has celebrated Black History Month by focusing on the achievements of Black people; looking back to examine their accomplishments as a path to move forward as well as to spotlight Black knowledge about health in its multiple dimensions, highlighting the work of Africans on the continent and of people of African descent across the diasporas, especially here in Canada.

For the upcoming Black History Month 2023, the HTI will focus on Black resistance with the aim of remembering achievements in the face of multiple struggles. Thus, HTI Black History Month 2023 will focus on activities related to the accomplishments of Africans and people of African descent, spotlighting some of our own leaders in our local community here in Toronto.

For the second year, the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research is proud to collaborate with the Harriet Tubman Institute (HTI) at York University on their BHM seminar series. For more information, please visit https://www.yorku.ca/research/tubman/black-history-month/

Black History Month 2023 Schedule

Opening Ceremony Honouring Mr. Winston LaRose 

In collaboration with the Resource Centre for Public Sociology and the African Studies Program 

Thursday Feb. 2 from 12-2pm EST | Virtual 

Speakers: VP Cote-Meek, Rosemary Sadlier, Prescod Cheryl, Gervan Fearon, Gwyn Chapman, Kofi N. Hope 

Register for the Zoom link here

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Honouring Rosemary Sadlier OOnt 

In collaboration with the Glendon Caucus d’Équité Raciale- Race Equity Caucus 

Thursday Feb. 9 from 3:30-5:30pm EST

Hyflex Room, York Hall A302, York University Glendon Campus 

This is a hybrid event–refreshments will be served in-person 

Register for the Zoom link here

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Calypso as Music of Resistance 

In collaboration with the Organization of Calypso Performing Artists (OCPA) 

Thursday Feb. 16 from 2:30-4:00pm EST

314 York Lanes, York University Keele Campus 

Presenters: Henry Gomez aka King Cosmos and Roger Gibbs aka Rajiman 

Register on Eventbrite Here

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Implications of Colonialism for Disease Outbreak Response in Black Communities

In collaboration with the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research

Tuesday Feb. 28 from 12:30-2:00pm EST | Virtual

Presenters: Dr. Harris Ali & Dr. Yvonne Simpson 

Register for the Zoom link here

Learn more about Dahdaleh faculty fellow Harris Ali‘s research. Harris will discuss his recent work on vaccine hesitancy and other COVID issues pertaining to the Black community in both Toronto and West Africa. Based on his research on the West African Ebola epidemic, he will also provide some reflections on the importance of the work of Frantz Fanon for global health research and decolonizing epidemic response within the context of the post-colonialist condition marked by suspicion and social resistance.

Harris Ali is a sociologist at York University who teaches courses in environmental studies, disasters, social theory, and environmental health. His studies focus on the social, political, and environmental dimensions of disease outbreaks and environmental disasters. He has conducted various studies on different types of infectious disease outbreaks in various parts of the world, including E. coli in Walkerton, Ontario, tuberculosis amongst the homeless in Toronto, community-based responses to Ebola in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Alongside his long-time research colleague and Dahdaleh Institute Faculty Fellow Roger Keil, Prof. Ali completed a comprehensive study of the 2003 outbreak of SARS in Singapore, Toronto, and Hong Kong. This culminated in an edited volume on SARS (Networked Disease: Emerging Infections in the Global City), which was recognized by The Globe and Mail as one of the “top ten books that offer lessons from past pandemics.” He is currently a co-principal investigator with Fuyuki Kurasawa on a Canadian Institutes of Health Research grant that involves big data analyses and AI to understand the role of social media in flaming and countering anti-Asian racism during the present COVID response.

Sponsors

The Harriet Tubman Institute presents Black History Month in collaboration with the The African Studies Program; Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research; Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change; Faculty of Graduate Studies; Glendon Office of the Principal’s Indigenous, Black, and Racialized Guest Speakers Fund; Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies.

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