New school resources explore the history of Black women on P.E.I.

Students in Prince Edward Island will soon have more resources to learn more about the history of the province’s black community.

New videos have been produced as part of the Black Women’s History Project, covering the history of women in PEI from enslavement to the present day.

“This is a story that people didn’t care about and it wasn’t documented and it wasn’t preserved. So we lost a lot of that,” said Debbie Langston, a diversity adviser at the Department of Education who has been working on the project for two years.

A few years ago, while working as a service worker in schools on the island, Langston noticed a lack of resources to teach black history to students, particularly black women’s history.

“I think there’s a lot of people on PEI who are descended from some of these enslaved people and don’t have a clue,” Langston said.

“I think it’s part of history that we need to acknowledge and part of history that we need to celebrate because these people were integral to creating the society that we currently live in.”

The resources will be made available to 7th grade social studies teachers in October, accompanied by the instructional videos filmed at the Black Cultural Society of PEI

There will be components dealing with slavery, the life of an enslaved woman and a former Charlottetown neighborhood known as The Bog. At its peak, The Bog was home to up to 200 members of the island’s Black community in Charlottetown’s West End.

Each lesson is accompanied by a video that gives more context to the story.

The video production project was itself a celebration of culture. Those who film, direct, and in many cases act are members of the island’s black community.

“We’re trying to collect stories on Prince Edward Island that spotlight the voices of black women throughout history,” said Aaron Sardinha, education and policy coordinator at the Black Cultural Society, who directs the videos.

“We’re trying to tell these stories in a way that’s never been told before — through narrative, through fiction, through poetry — and trying to truly embody what it means to be a member of the black community on Prince Edward Island. “

Tamara Steele, executive director of the Black Cultural Society, can be seen in one of the videos.

“I’m really excited about it. It’s not something we’ve seen in PEI, and it’s really needed… Black women on PEI is a really amazing place to start because we hear a lot about black history on PEI, but often it’s in terms of what men have done,” she said.

Steele said teaching and learning about black history needs to be expanded beyond Black History Month, which begins Wednesday, and become part of the school curriculum.

“If it’s part of the curriculum, then we’re teaching the kids that other people exist, other cultures exist and other cultures have existed here at PEI,” Steele said.

It’s nice to see that the black community is “alive” and committed to the project, she said.

For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians – from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community – click here Being Black in Canadaa CBC project that Black Canadians can be proud of.