Reflection on Black History Month by Chris Brittain

By The Rev. Canon Professor Chris Brittain, Dean of Divinity and Margaret E.Fleck Chair in Anglican Studies

When I was enrolled at Trinity as an MDiv student, my first field placement was at a church on the far western edge of Etobicoke, in a parish that couldn’t afford to pay a priest. I remember feeling that it took hours to get there on the streetcar. Three students were assigned to lead worship each Sunday, under the supervision of the area bishop, who was then Victoria Matthews. I think the only reason I was asked to be part of the team was because I could play the guitar (the parish couldn’t afford to pay an organist).

Early on in this missional experiment, the team invited the local member of Parliament to attend a Sunday service. To our surprise, we got a warm acceptance, and this is how I met Jean Augustine. She was the first black Canadian woman to be elected to Parliament and serve in the cabinet. I remember being struck by her warm and enthusiastic presence.

One year later, Jean Augustine brought a motion to the House of Commons, which proposed that the month of February be recognised as “Black History Month.” Here she recalls the context in which this motion was introduced. I learned significant things about the African-Canadian experience listening to her, which I was grateful for during my time living in Halifax, where I interacted with former residents of Africville, a historic Black-Canadian area of the city that was forcibly demolished to make way for more “important” city building projects.

For me, commemorations like Black History Month are not about history lessons, nostalgia, or virtue-signalling. Instead, this is a time for thanksgiving, respect, and hope. It makes an enormous difference – to our life as a community, as a country, as a people of faith – which histories we remember and how we remember them. The Eucharist itself emphasizes the importance of memory, as we are urged during every holy communion to “Do this in memory of me.”

In their recent book of meditations, For Such a Time as This, Hanna Reichel writes,

Use memory to create empathy, not to immunise yourself.
Use memory to enlarge your capacity to feel, to care, and to dream.
Use memory not to bind yourself to the past, but to make the future possible.
“Never again” means “never again for anyone.”

We can remember the past failures of human beings and our churches in a healthy manner when we also remember that we are sustained and embraced by God. Almost as important is to remember that those who have been marginalised in history have also found ways to be creative agents who have shaped the world for the better – women like Jean Augustine and so many others who have contributed to the health and vitality of our churches and societies.

May you remember well this February, and may you give thanks and find hope in what you recall.

Chris Brittain
Dean of Divinity and Margaret E.Fleck Chair in Anglican Studies

“Remember the wonderful works God has done, God’s miracles and the judgments God has uttered.” (Psalm 105:5)

Categories: College News; Theology