Facing Our History
Over the years that I’ve been putting out this newsletter, I’ve shared a lot of images and written quite a lot about the “old days” in Verdun. Just over two years ago I put together an exhibit to mark 120 years of our United Church presence here. It traced SouthWest United’s roots in Crawford Park United, formed in the 1940s, and Verdun United, which began as Verdun Methodist Church in 1899.
I loved learning about the individuals who built these churches, often with their own sweat. I love that there were cub packs, CGIT, young people’s bands and choirs, men’s groups and women’s societies … literally some group meeting in the church every day of the week back then. Seemingly, something for everyone. I felt proud of how church folk banded together in times of crisis – the Depression, two World Wars – to support each other and the wider community.
While digging through old pictures and documents, I came across one thing that didn’t make me proud: Blackface.
In the early decades of the 20th century, church cabarets and revues were not only fun for the whole family, they were good fundraisers. Unfortunately, in retrospect those events may not have been as inclusive as the participants thought. Well into the 1950s and even the 60s, many churches, including our two founding congregations, featured minstrel shows (white performers in stylized black makeup) as part of the entertainment.
I have to admit, when I stumbled across evidence of blackface in our church’s history, my first instinct was to sweep it under the rug. After all, this 120th anniversary was meant to be a celebration. Wouldn’t including references to blackface seem like condoning it? But leaving them out didn’t feel like the right thing to do either.
In February 2020, I attended a talk by Prof. Dorothy Williams about the history of blackface in Quebec. Dr. Williams is a respected academic and her research into the topic was a response to the persistent attitude that “we do not have that history here.”
I learned that minstrel shows had existed in the U.S. since the 1840s, but they really gathered steam after slavery was abolished. The stock characters of minstrelsy were created to send a message that people of African descent were stupid and lazy. Minstrel shows even suggested that Southern Blacks had been happier as slaves. All of this was a reaction to the fact that barely a decade after Emancipation, Black people had established universities and were demonstrating that they could compete with Whites in any arena.
There’s no question that blackface and minstrelsy were born in the U.S., but like everything from Model T’s to McDonald’s, they were successfully exported over the border. One thing that Dr. Williams’ presentation made very clear was that in the early decades of the 20th century, these shows were everywhere in North America. You’d have had to be living under a rock not to be aware of them. Minstrel shows were performed in English and in French in Quebec, in big cities and small towns.
Professional minstrelsy had petered out by the 1950s, but it lived on in amateur nights. The school, community and church groups that included blackface numbers in their shows probably thought of them as nostalgic. I’m sure they never intended any harm, but the perpetuation of stereotypes was harmful and continues to be today.
Ultimately, my 120th anniversary exhibit did not contain any references to blackface or minstrelsy. I didn’t feel able to adequately address it within that context.
My reasons for bringing this up now are partly selfish: after carrying it around for two years I need to get it off my chest. I also think it’s important to talk about the less admirable parts of our history, not to make us feel guilty, but to make sure we keep trying to do better. Lots of things that are acceptable in one time and place are recognized down the road as unacceptable.
As a white person I can’t pretend to know what it was like to be one of a small number of non-white people in our pews 60 years ago. I don’t pretend to know what it’s like now. As the United Church, we proudly assert that “all are welcome,” but I wonder how welcome a Black family would have felt sitting in pews on a Sunday morning and hearing an announcement about next Saturday’s minstrel show in the church hall…
I’m not writing this to single out our church or our community as racist. We weren’t any more or less racist than any other community across the country at the time. But that doesn’t make it okay.
I am writing this in hopes of starting a conversation. I think that conversation has to include asking ourselves, as a majority-white congregation: how are we unintentionally discriminating against and excluding people today?
We must not just say “all are welcome” we must live it. That means calling out friends or members of your congregation when they use offensive language. And it means listening with an open heart and not getting defensive when people of colour talk about their experiences.
We have come a long way as United Church, in our attitudes toward Indigenous peoples, the LGBTQ+ community, People of Colour, even women! There’s no point beating ourselves up for past transgressions, as long as we keep trying to do better. Rooting out our own prejudices may be a life-long effort, but it’s time well spent.
- Amy
Learn more about the history of Blackface in Quebec
Prof. Dorothy Williams was recently profiled as a Black Changemaker in Quebec: