BCRC – Arts, History, Heritage & Culture

Living History

The Black Community Resource Centre presents “Living History: 100 Years of Black History, Culture and Heritage“, an oral history project seeks to preserve and share the history of Montreal’s English-speaking Black Community.

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What is a Memoryscape?

Memoryscapes are sound walks that invite you to experience hidden history of a place by listening to the memories of inhabitants, both historical and contemporary, as you walk through it. With the support of Heritage Canada, the Black Studies Center, Concordia’s ICED, the U.N.I.A, the Round Table on Black History Month, Youth In Motion, and other local organizations, the BCRC’s project has give 15 Black Youth the opportunity to create Memoryscapes of sites, organizations, and landmarks of cultural and historical significance to the English-speaking Black community of Montreal. The youth became the projects Research Interns and use cultural geography, documentation, and audio history approaches to observing, recording, and videotaping this history.

Montreal’s Hidden History

When we understand our history, we understand our place in the world. Our sense of self is reinforced through the stories we attach to our history. Therefore, it seems safe to say that losing one’s history can be asking to losing sense of one’s place in the world. Since the 1900s, Black immigrants have made significant contributions to Montreal and this history needs to be preserved and told. It is therefore our intention to follow our history, and the expansion of our contribution beyond the geographic confines of Little Burgundy, into the larger Montreal society. Our project, “Living History: 100 Years of Black History, Culture and Heritage” plans to achieve this, through the creation of memoryscapes, which will add an oral history component to the Black History of Montreal.

Thanks to our Partners

This project has been funded by the Government of Canada. We also acknowledge that without our great partners, this project couldn’t be possible. A special thanks to our partners; Youth In Motion, the Black Theatre Workshop, Concordia’s Vanier Library, Concordia’s Centre on Oral History and Digital Story-telling, the Black History Month Round Table, Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network, Concordia’s ICED, the UNIA, Centre d’histoire de Montreal and Dawson College’s Oral History Department.