Welcome from the President
For years stories were told about the Black Loyalists, the Black Jamaican Maroons and the Black Chesapeake Refugees who settled in Nova Scotia, made homes, established communities, some who gave up and others who stayed to build a lasting legacy. The Black Cultural Centre began telling this story in 1983. Now you can join visitors from across Canada, the U.S., Africa, Asia, Europe and South America who have all discovered a part of history that they had not experienced before. Perhaps a visit to the Centre will reveal to you the important link between Halifax, Nova Scotia and Freetown, Sierra Leone.
The Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia welcomes you to experience the story of why thousands of people with African heritage came to be Canadians, in Nova Scotia, almost a hundred years before Canadian confederation took place in 1867. At the same time when African men and women continued to be captured, chained and forced into servitude, thousands of free Black settlers arrived in Nova Scotia from the USA and Caribbean. This Centre is the only place where you can unravel the riddle of voluntary migration that brought this population to Canada during the turmoil and upheaval following the U.S. War of Independence and the War of 1812.
The Centre’s history of settlement is revealed through artifacts, charts and images including some that explain how to organize more than 20 small remote villages so that their populations can work together with people beyond their own local community. At the Centre you can explore a unique Nova Scotian organization, the African United Baptist Association, which provides that unity of purpose.
The Black Cultural Society of Nova Scotia proudly presents the exhibits and programs at the Centre.
Leslie Oliver, President
Black Cultural Society of Nova Scotia