Washington Black and Rogues In Paradise - Halifax: Safe Harbour, Hard History
A boy floats in a balloon above the sugar plantations-- an image of escape that lands, unbelievably, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Fiction gives us the sensation; history offers us the frame. Halifax when provisioned the Caribbean sugar economy with timber and fish, then ended up being a waypoint to dignity: a safe house for freedom applicants leaving in the Underground Railroad. On the harbour's edge, Africville informs a harder truth-- neighbourhood, faith, and music forged under pressure, later eliminated, still kept in mind. From that lineage came Barbadian migrations that altered Canada's culture and politics: think Austin Clarke's prose, Cameron Bailey's movie theatre, and Senator Anne Cools's civil service-- doors opened, stories broadened. The Atlantic bridge runs both methods: rum and sugar north, fish and lumber south, and throughout it all, people bring memory.
Watch now and explore the history behind the escape.
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