Eyes and Ears Of The Caribbean Canadian Community
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Eddie Grant, Prime Minister Manley shaking hands with Al Hamilton Contrast publisher with Anthony Hill 1980
| Five Veteran Shooters Were the Eyes Of The Caribbean Canadian Community Back In The Day |
Ears, Eyes, Voice: Black Canadian Photojournalists 1970s - 1990s is
an exhibition that brings together important visual works by the five
“shooters”. Their combined collection of photographs is a comprehensive and
rare record that have documented over three decades of stories about the history
of Toronto’s Caribbean Canadian community.
Organized and circulated by Black Artists’ Networks in Dialogue
(BAND), this exhibition was originally shown two years ago in their downtown
Toronto headquarters as part of the citywide Contact photography festival. This time around the show is hanging in a
public art gallery and community art centre located in the heart of Burlington.
Ears, Eyes, Voice will bring back both good and bad memories from the streets of Toronto. There are pictures of reggae star Peter
Tosh at the O’Keefe Centre; Caribana as a giant Blocko on University Avenue, and
large Africa Liberation Day marches taking over downtown streets.
Back then Bathurst and Bloor was “the Caribbean area”, and growing
tensions between the Black community and the police resulted in violent confrontations,
which the photographers captured. The Art Gallery of Ontario’s photography
expert has curated the show; Dr. Julie Crooks who brought together the five
battle scarred talented and skilled photographers who let their cameras do
their talking/
The names of the four men and one female photographer should ring
bells with Caribbean Camera readers.
Their pictures and by-lines appeared weekly in Share, Pride, Contrast,
the Toronto Sun and many other papers that have long since ceased publishing.
Jules Elder is a journalist who
has worked in radio, television, print and online. From 1978 to 1997, he was
the Managing Editor of Share Newspaper, and later he became Associate Producer for the OMNI TV show, In
the Black; and was a columnist with the Toronto Sun (1998-2004). He is a founding
member of the Canadian Association of Black Journalists,
Eddie Grant was a regular contributor to the late great journal, Spear:
The Magazine about Truth and Soul (1971 – 1987). He contributed to
both Contrast and Share newspapers.
Grant continues to take pictures in
Toronto and from time-to-time his pictures appear in the Caribbean Camera.
Diane
Liverpool took news photos throughout the 1970s and 80s in
Toronto for the Contrast weekly newspaper.
The Globe and Mail newspaper described Liverpool as ”one of the few
black female photojournalists working in Toronto during that time”.
Journalist and photographer Al Peabody also worked for Contrast and
worked freelance for The Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star in the 70s and
80s.
Jim
Russell began his career in the early 1970s freelancing with
the Toronto Sun. He also shot pictures for Contrast, Share and many
other publications. His coverage of the Miss Black Ontario Pageant
showcased a cultural happening in a way in which the Caribbean Canadian community could
not find in white mainstream media.
Also showing at the Burlington Art Gallery during Black
History Month is Voices in Black Canadian Narratives, an
exhibition honouring the work of artists Joan Butterfield, Nicole Alexander,
and Ian P. Grant
By Stephen Weir - Caribbean Camera
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