Washington Black - From Cane Fields to Cold Harbour
A kid flies in a balloon above the sugar plantations-- an image of escape that lands, unbelievably, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Fiction gives us the feeling; history offers us the frame. Halifax when provisioned the Caribbean sugar economy with lumber and fish, then ended up being a waypoint to self-respect: a safe house for liberty seekers fleeing in the Underground Railroad. On the harbour's edge, Africville informs a harder fact--  neighbourhood, faith, and music forged under pressure, later eliminated, still kept in mind. From that lineage came Barbadian migrations that changed Canada's culture and politics: believe Austin Clarke's prose, Cameron Bailey's cinema, and Senator Anne Cools's civil service-- doors opened, stories widened. The Atlantic bridge runs both methods: rum and sugar north, fish and lumber south, and throughout all of it, individuals carrying memory.
Enjoy now and satisfy iconic Barbadian-Canadians who made a mark.
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