NOT ALWAYS HAPPY IN CANADA BUT FOREVER JOLLY
Book Review
In The Black: My Life
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By B. Denham Jolly
An edited version of this review appeared in Huffington Post today
In
the Black, a new autobiography by activist businessman
and radio pioneer Denham Jolly, is going to have members of Toronto's white
community seeing red. It might have Black Lives Matter soldiers taking names
and making notes.
"To the white readers of this book, I
have to stress that for Black people the basic and continuing infringements of
our rights are not mere distractions. Canadians like to congratulate themselves
over our diversity, but … " Denham Jolly told me when we talked about his early
days in Toronto. Quoting from his just published book, he explains that
discriminatory policing (from carding to driving while Black) "remain part
of our day-to-day life and cast a long shadow over it."
From time-to-time over the past four decades,
Jolly and I have crossed paths. He doesn't remember me, but I will never forget
him. Handsome. Imposing. Strongly Opinionated (he writes that Toronto Mayor
John Tory should be impeached for going back on his campaign promise to the
Black community to end carding in the city). When we first met I was on a Joe job that took me to FLOW FM, (his
radio station – Canada’s first Black owned radio station)to pick up a donation
for the Caribana festival. Before my coat was off, or had taken a seat, he told
me what was wrong with the annual street parade and what should be done to fix
it.
I can't recall his exact words but I am sure
it had something to do with how Canada's establishment was "fucking
over" the volunteer driven Canadian Caribbean street extravaganza.
"Tons of cash is handed over to the Art Gallery of Ontario and to the
National Ballet, which generates 1/84th the amount of economic activity that
Caribana brings to the city (of Toronto). But government support to Caribana
continues to be minuscule compared to what is given to the National Ballet. It
(Caribana) is the greatest cultural event in the city."
I have supplied PR support to North America's
premiere Carnival festival on and off for almost 20 years and his Toronto radio
station FLOW - Canada's first urban (industry term for Black) station - had
pledged to the Canadian Radio and Television Commission when he got his first
broadcast license, that he would support Caribana and other worthy community
events. He was true to his words for as long as he owned FLOW.
Other encounters? Now and then I’d pick up
celebs staying around the city, including his Days Inn Hotel, and escort them
to FLOW. Carnival performers, Caribbean chefs and Black authors – there was an
endless line of famous people wanting to be interviewed by on-air staff
including talent show host Farley Flex and CP24 anchor Nathan Downer.
I lived a couple blocks from him in
Cabbagetown and often saw him on the street. I guess if he hadn't sold them off,
I might one day soon end up staying in one of his nursing homes.
" I am not a literary man, I couldn't
have written this book without the help of journalist Peter MacFarlane,"
he told me. " I think of myself as a serial entrepreneur and this book is
very much about business ... my business."
Jolly is a highly successful man. Born in Jamaica he came to Canada 60 years
ago to study at Guelph's College of Agriculture. He went on to study at the Truro Agriculture
School and finally Montreal's McGill University. He felt, and with
justification, that there were more opportunities and less cultural striation
in Canada in the Fifties than in colonial Jamaica.
When he graduated from McGill the government
told him he had to leave when his student visa expired. He returned to Jamaica to
do research on the ackee plant and to save enough money to apply to immigrate
back to Canada! His triumphant return to the Great White North only happened
after a chance encounter with a Canadian High Commission employee at a Jamaican
rum party!
One of his first jobs in Toronto was teaching
high school by day in the poshest part of town (Forest Hill), and managing his
just acquired boarding house at night in a not so posh ‘hood’. He acquired property,
lived frugally and his fortunes grew!
He moved briefly to Sault St Marie to teach
science. In the Soo he met a young white nurse, moved back to Toronto with her
and married. Jolly continued to acquire
rooming houses. He also branched out into nursing homes and medical testing facilities.
He modernized the business of nursing homes
not just in Toronto and Mississauga, but in Texas as well. Jolly soon also
became the publisher of the iconic, but now closed, Black Contrast Newspaper.
Almost everything he touched
did well, except for his brief career as a Fuller Brush salesman ("I ended
up with a closet full of brushes"). He even owned an ill-fated Caribbean
sailing ship - the not so Jolly Dolphin.
His burning desire to own a radio station
that would play Black music and be the voice of the Caribbean Canadian people
was a 12-year chunk of his life. He blames political interference and white privilege
for the setbacks he had to overcome before FLOW went on the air back in 2001.
According to In The Black, Liberal politicians were publically supportive of
Jolly’s radio station dream, but behind closed doors worked against him to help
the CBC and other stations get the licenses he sought. "Liberal
politicians are
dishonest, they told me I was going to get
a license but gave it away to a country and western radio station,"
explained to me. "Campaign left and rule to the right – they made Mulroney
look good"
His business smarts came from his Father
Cappy (short for Capital) Jolly. Cappy gave his son Duddy-Kravitz-like advice
which he follows to this day -
"Don't work for anyone but yourself. And buy property."
The book is frustrating in that Cappy plays
only a minor role in this story. We don't know much more about Cappy, nor his
four sisters and brothers, nor his wife Carol, their daughter Nicole and twin
sons Michael and Kevin. His divorce is a
single paragraph and there is scant reference to Janice Williams, the new love
of his life.
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B.
Denham Jolly
Odd for a very private man involved in the
communication business to say so little about himself in this - his self titled
life's story. It is an autobiography where I suspect the author has kept out all
the juicy parts of his 80+ years on the planet. We never learn what is beyond
his passion for the world of business.
The curtain is only lifted when Jolly talks about issues of race and equality
in Toronto and the people he fought the good fight with - former Minister of
State Jean Augustine, Violet Blackman, Caribana’s Charles Roach and Dudley
Laws.
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It makes for interesting reading
to see just how many activist causes Jolly dipped his toes in. He started the Black Business and Professional Association and
was a vocal member of a seemingly endless string of action groups and
committees.
He talks about demonstrating
against the police when a mentally disturbed Black man, Lester Donaldson is
shot by an officer in a Toronto rooming house. “After the demonstration, a
number of us, including Charlie Roach and Jean Augustine, went to a meeting
called by Dudley Laws to launch a new organization, the Black Action Defense
Committee.”
“BADC,” he writes, “was formed to fight against this sort of
police killing. I was named with fifteen
others as part of the founding group, but in this case the moving force really
was Dudley Laws.”
“ Sure, there probably is a file with my name on it,” said Jolly
when I asked if the police investigated him as much as they did Dudley Laws.
“In 1991 the police were clearly obsessed with nailing the hides of uppity
Blacks to the wall.”
“BADC marched to the US Consulate on University Avenue (in
Toronto) to underline that you could find the same brutality against Blacks in
Canada that we had seen in the U.S.”
As time passed Jolly’s time was spent more in keeping his radio
station socially responsible than in marching in the street. He was named
to the YMCA and the Toronto
International Film Festival and he was cited
for his cultural contributions when he won the Black Media Pioneer Award and
the African Canadian Lifetime Achievement Award.
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