Long razed, settlement not forgotten

HALIFAX, Novia Scotia -- Once, music echoed through Africville, Canada's oldest black community. Men on guitars and pianos jammed on weekend nights until early morning. When Duke Ellington visited -- his wife had family there -- the whole community turned out, 400 strong, to play or just listen to the jumping tunes.

On Sunday mornings, the choir at Seaview African United Baptist Church sang. Black people throughout Nova Scotia came for the sunrise Easter service in the seaside community, on the edge of Halifax. If you want to feel the spirit move, people said, go to Africville on Easter morning.

But Africville is silent now. Between 1967 and 1970, it was flattened by bulldozers as part of a Halifax urban-renewal effort. Today, the site consists of container piers, a bridge abutment, and an underused seaside park. The only sign of the once vibrant area is a triangular metal memorial engraved with the names of original settlers.

With the destruction still vivid, the former residents are suing Halifax for the loss of their homes, community, sense of belonging, and haven from a city they say was painfully racist.

''We had our refuge in Africville," said Irvine Carvery, president of the Africville Genealogical Society, the residents' organization that is behind the lawsuit. ''In town there was racism all the time. But you could always go back home and feel good about yourself -- feel like you were a man, feel like you were a woman. You come in town and be made to feel less than. But you always had your church, you always had your community."

The city is leaning toward some type of compensation, Halifax officials say. They are talking about rebuilding the Baptist church as a cultural center about Africville and blacks in the Maritimes. The center would employ guides, attract tourists, and provide a fitting memorial for a lost community, said municipal spokesman John O'Brien.

But for some, that is not enough. The Genealogical Society wants affordable housing, as well. Some former residents want individual compensation. A few want the city to rebuild Africville -- house by house, all 80 of them -- and give it to them to live in.

Shortly before the demolition, a Halifax newspaper wrote of Africville: ''Soon, mercifully, it all will be forgotten." It could not have been more mistaken.

Africville is the subject of books and exhibitions at local universities and cultural centers. Last spring, the United Nations issued a report recommending that Halifax compensate the people who had lived in Africville.

Former residents told of their plight at a UN conference on racism held in South Africa three years ago. They said delegates had been shocked to learn that racism existed in Canada, which they saw as an exceptionally tolerant multicultural mosaic. ''They said: 'Canada? Not Canada!' " said Denise Allen, a child of Africville who lives in Halifax. ''I told them that slavery was Canada's best-kept secret."

Africville was not Halifax's only black settlement. It was not even the largest. Blacks have a long history in the Maritimes. Some were slaves of Canadians. Some were Loyalist freemen or American colonists' slaves promised freedom by the British in Canada. Later, Maroons -- black Jamaicans who rebelled against British rule and were exported to Nova Scotia -- arrived, as did Southern slaves who followed the North Star to freedom.

But Africville had ''the mystique," said Donald H. Clairmont, a sociology professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax who researched the community during the 1960s and cowrote ''Africville: The Life and Death of a Canadian Black Community." ''Africville doesn't go away. People don't seem to forget it."

For one thing, it is clear from the name that Africville was black. ''Africville was the only place with a name that denoted the people," said Henry Bishop, curator of the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia. ''And what happened? They destroyed it."

Halifax viewed it as a slum with polluted well water and sewage in the streets, yet the city helped to foster the substandard conditions. Residents paid city taxes. But Halifax denied them basic services like plumbing for water and sewers, street lights, paved roads, and police protection.

Ironically, the American civil rights movement and urban redevelopment -- both intended to benefit poor blacks -- helped bring about Africville's end. In the early 1960s, the Canadian national press, after investigating poor black neighborhoods, wrote scathing reports about conditions in Africville.

Embarrassed Halifax officials consulted Albert Rose, an eminent urban planner from Toronto, and a group of liberal Nova Scotian volunteers, black and white. They recommended that Halifax buy out Africville's residents, move them into public housing, and raze the community.

Nobody consulted the people of Africville. Nevertheless, the efforts were well-meaning, Clairmont said. At the time, he said, experts thought that relocation and urban development could cure substandard housing.

''The least advantaged and poorest were being moved all over the place -- from the Arctic, to the slums of St. Louis and Boston, to Halifax," he said. ''It was couched in terms of new opportunities for people and a golden era of beautiful cities. The urban planners leading the parade suffered from considerable hubris."

Most Africville homeowners -- including ones with no proof of ownership -- were paid between $500 and $1,000 for their homes. Many former residents say city officials were threatening; O'Brien, the municipality spokesman, denies that.

Some Africville residents were delighted to take the money and move away, Clairmont said. The community was scattered.

The majority of the residents moved into housing developments in downtown Halifax.

The transition -- from a rural black community to an urban one with white neighbors -- was not successful, several people say.

''We weren't wanted," said Donald Brown, 45, whose new white neighbors unsuccessfully petitioned to oust his family.

In the early 1980s, two women -- childhood friends in Africville -- realized that their children were growing up without knowing their cousins. They organized a reunion. For the first time since relocating, Africville people got together and shared their memories. The Genealogical Society was formed, and the gatherings eventually led to the lawsuit.

No dollar amount is mentioned in the suit. People's ideas of a satisfactory figure cover a vast range. The Baptist church replica and cultural center would cost about $2 million, with the city providing land and services and the federal government the construction, O'Brien said. Affordable senior housing would cost between $20 million and $30 million, Carvery said. Allen says the city owes $500 million to rebuild and return Africville and to cover individual compensation.

But city officials say they are not considering paying individual compensation or rebuilding Africville in its entirety.

Barry Barnet, minister of the new African-Nova Scotia Affairs department, said he is optimistic that some type of agreement can be reached by spring. ''All agree that something needs to be done. But when it comes to housing for former residents -- that's where the city has a hard time," he said.

Carvery said if an agreement is not reached soon, tensions could boil over. ''When I think about the disrespect given to my parents and grandparents, it's all I can do to contain my anger," he said.