海角社区

Black members of 海角社区鈥檚 Class of 2022 celebrated the completion of their degrees in-person at the fourth annual Black Grad event on Sunday, May 1 at the Omni Mont-Royal. The event, inspired by similar ones at Harvard, Yale and the University of Toronto, honours graduating students ahead of next month鈥檚 Convocation 鈥� and highlights their accomplishments despite the institutional, economic and socio-cultural barriers to accessing higher education.

Organized by the Black Students' Network of 海角社区 (BSN), the 海角社区 African Students Society (MASS) and African Studies 海角社区, the ceremony invited Associate Professor Patricia Faison Hewlin, Senior Development Officer Joy Bennett and Dean Yolande E. Chan, who joined Desautels Faculty as 海角社区鈥檚 first Black Dean in 2021, to address attendees.

Dean Chan highlighted to graduates that their education carries significant responsibility and inspired them to use it to do good by pointing to the story of Viola Desmond, the Black Nova Scotia woman who was removed from a movie theatre in 1946 for sitting in a whites-only section, issuing a challenge to segregation and racism in Canada nearly a decade before Rosa Parks.

鈥淲hat you may not know is that Viola literally went out of her way to be educated, travelling to cities in the U.S. and Canada, including Montreal, to train to be a beautician,鈥� Dean Chan said. 鈥淪he then turned around and opened the Desmond School of Beauty Culture to educate other Black women. Her students were encouraged to open businesses to provide jobs for still other Black women. She gave back.鈥�

鈥淲hen we look at Viola Desmond鈥檚 story, it鈥檚 clear that life is not primarily about comfort. It鈥檚 about recognizing where you and I have advantages where we鈥檙e privileged, and using these privileges to give opportunities to others, and living courageously, boldly. And every one of us is writing a story like Viola鈥檚, or even like mine. A little page of history.鈥�