The International Decade For People Of African Descent 2015 - 2024
List of Noteworthy Achievements and Events
At the end of January 2020, Canada Post released a stamp to commemorate the Colored Hockey League which was established 22 years before the NHL. “The stamp features images of players from the Colored Hockey League that operated from 1895 to the 1930s and lists the catchy names of some
Glasgow University in Scotland will pay £20 million over the next 20 years in slave trade reparations. The fundswill be used to support the Glasgow-Caribbean Centre for Development Research, a joint initiative between theUniversity of the West Indies and Glasgow University.
Government of Canada awarded $25 million dollars over five years in recognition of the United Nations IDPAD for projects and capital assistance to celebrate, share knowledge and build capacity in Black Canadian communities.
The federal government supports the creation of a national institute for Black Canadians, an idea proposed by a pan-Canadian group of Black organizations.
Canadian writer David Chariandy wins the Toronto Book Award for the award winning novel Brother 2018
Canadian writer Ian Williams wins the Scotiabank Giller for the novel Reproduction 2019
Canadian novelist Esi Edugyan wins her second Scotiabank Giller Prize, for her novel Washington Black.
Honourable Mia Amor Mottley, QC, is the first woman Prime Minister of Barbados.
LIFT EVERY VOICE AND SING JAMES WELDON JOHNSON (1871-1938)
Lift ev’ry voice and sing,
‘Til earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the list’ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on ’til victory is won.
Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
‘Til now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.