Quote:
Originally Posted by Drybrain
I think Africville was A: More distinct from the mainstream of the city, and B: There's a racial element, obviously. I doubt Halifax was a tremendously inviting place for black people in the early and mid-20th century, and this was a mostly self-sustaining community independent of the rest of town
Also, Africville was an African-Nova Scotian community going back close to two centuries. People could trace their lineage back through generations of Africvillers. So that's different from some transient slum neighbourhood.
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The "thought provoking" part of all this is that I was referring to in my post:
A) Africville and the area at the focus of this discussion were both considered slum areas at the time, and were thus both included in the "urban renewal" projects of the mid 20th century. I'm not sure that I would say that either area is more distinct than any other. It, like all other neighbourhoods had its uniqueness, yet also shared commonalities.
Also, it was common for poor peoples' rights to be overlooked by municipalities back then, and I'm not sure that the inner-city areas would have received the services that Africville was denied had they not been put in place by default due to the city's development in the previous century. I wonder if some of this might be due to the inner-city areas having initiated by being planned development whereas Africville seemed to "happen" more as a settlement at the outskirts of town (as it was at the early 1800s), I'm not sure. I do believe that the Africville community should have later been recognized as such and thus services should have been put in place - an opinion shared by many that is well documented from many sources.
B) There were African-Nova Scotians living in the other "slum" areas back then, as well as Asian-Nova Scotians, European-Nova Scotians, First Nations people, etc. I'm sure that racial discrimination plagued all of these neighborhoods, as it had (and continues to) in neighbourhoods worldwide. Remember that racism is not a unique characteristic of Halifax, in fact Nova Scotia was considered a safe haven for people of African lineage escaping slavery from the southern US back in those times. This is how Africville itself received its start.
Also, I think you are trying to bolster your argument by making an unfair generalization in calling areas other than Africville "transient slum neighborhoods". I'm sure there were transient people in all areas, but there were also families who lived there for many reasons, financial being one of them. Regardless, it was "home" to them, it was their community. So, although you can't put a definite racial spin on this situation, there was discrimination happening towards the "slums" (perhaps based more on financial situation than anything). It would be difficult to try to deny that the "slum" neighbourhood received treatment that was different than more affluent areas of the city.
Another interesting, thought-provoking point is that although we like to demonize the planners and municipal officials of the time, I believe that deep down they really felt that they were doing "the right thing". While perhaps naively ignoring social and cultural implications, they believed that eliminating unsafe, unsanitary neighborhoods with many associated social ills would somehow cure everything by displacing the people to new, clean housing elsewhere in the city. They spent considerable public money to do so, but as someone123 points out, failed to consider the root of the social issues and thus simply moved existing social problems to a new location. Not trying to justify what was done, but trying to consider the situation in a balanced manner.
To sum up, there's no question that the whole Africville situation was appalling on many levels, and I'm sure a good portion of this was racially motivated, but I also don't think it's fair to cast off what happened in other neighborhoods as being inconsequential, since the actions and results to the residents were similar in both cases.
In my opinion, for the sake of fairness, I think that we should try to look at all situations with the same 20-20 hindsight and throw away the rose-coloured glasses. Our goal should be historical accuracy considered from many perspectives, IMHO.
Hopefully we never repeat the mistakes of the past.
Please note that my intention is not to spark a debate on Africville but to hopefully try to add some context to this thread.
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