Education and discrimination
As Black communities of Chatham-Kent developed, their members continued to experience discrimination socially, economically, politically, and legally. This casual and institutionalized racism was most evident in the education system in the 1800s.
Black communities of Chatham-Kent actively opposed segregation. However, in the mid-1800s white politicians strongly supported segregated public schools. Edwin Larwill was a political representative who won his seat in Kent County on a platform of anti-Black immigration and establishment. In the late 1840s, as the Elgin settlement was developing the Buxton Mission School, Larwill argued, “amalgamation is as disgusting to the eye, as it is immoral in its tendencies and all good men will discountenance it.”
Many white parents endorsed racial segregation in Chatham-Kent. School trustees manipulated laws governing public schools to achieve segregation despite the principle being illegal. The School Act of 1843 reads in part: “it shall not be lawful […] to exclude from any Common School […] the children of any class or description of persons.”
The School Act did not permit segregation; however, intervention in instances of discrimination rarely occurred. Despite illegality, segregation gained informal support, and eventually was permitted and required by law. By 1850, Egerton Ryerson, Chief Superintendent of Education for Upper Canada, revised the School Act, encouraging Boards of School Trustees to institute segregated education for Black children. Dennis Hill, a Black man from Camden Township, attempted to challenge segregation. His children, alongside all other Black children in the district, were required to attend a racially segregated school near Dresden, the British American Institute. In 1854, the Supreme Court of Upper Canada heard the case, but ruled Black students had to attend segregated schools if established “no matter the quality of the school or its distance from home.”
By contrast, schools established by Black communities were desegregated. In 1850, the Buxton Mission School opened to all children regardless of race. The Elgin Association recruited excellent teachers who taught primarily classical subjects. The quality of education rivalled local segregated schools and soon white parents of neighbouring communities were sending their children to the Buxton Mission School. The success of the Buxton Mission School led the community to establish two additional schools including SS #13 Raleigh.
The last racially segregated school in Ontario, located in Harrow Township, was closed in 1965 following extensive lobbying from the surrounding black community. The last segregated school in Canada was located in Nova Scotia and closed in 1983.
photograph, James Rapier, identified by
Superintendent Reports held by the Archives
of Ontario as the first teacher of S.S. #13 [Details]
