1607

• Mathieu Da Costa was a navigator and interpreter of African descent who worked for the French and the Dutch during the explorations of the "Atlantic world" including the St. Lawrence River, in the late 1500s and early 1600s.

1793

• The Slave Trade is abolished in Canada.

Carrie Mae Weems
From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried, 1995
dye coupler prints under etched glass in wood frames stained black
67.9 x 57.7 x 2.1 cm each (integral frame); image: 45.8 cm diam. (each)

1861-1865

• American Civil War, a conflict between the northern and southern states in which the economics and morality of an enslaved labour force was a key issue.

Timothy H. O'Sullivan
Guard Mount, Headquarters of the Army of the Potomac 1864
albumen silver print
17.4 x 22.4 cm

1880

• In the late 1880s, railway porters emerged as leaders of African Canadian communities. Through their unions, such as the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and the Order of Sleeping Car Porters, they gained recognition for Blacks within the labour movement.

Orson Wheeler
Negro (Tommy Simmons), 1933
bronze
67 x 34.5 x 45 cm

1922

• Discovery of Tomb of Tutankhamen in Egypt. Artists become interested in depicting men and women of African descent.

Maxime Du Camp
Middle Egypt. The Sphinx 1852
salted paper print
15.5 x 20.8 cm

1926

• First Negro History week to honour achievements of people of African descent in science, medicine, sports, literature and the visual and performing arts.

1963

• 200,000 people march for Black civil rights in Washington.
• President John F. Kennedy assassinated.

President Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy arrive at Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963
Photo: Free-Stock-Photos.com. NARA

1965

• President Johnson begins massive military intervention in Vietnam.
• Black voting rights march in Alabama, 78 Blacks injured.
• Six-day Black riot in Los Angeles, 34 killed.

President Lyndon Johnson and General William Westmoreland with troops in Vietnam
Photo: Free-Stock-Photos.com. NARA

1968

• Black Civil rights leader Martin Luther King assassinated. Rioting erupts in 62 cities in the United States

Martin Luther King addresses a civil rights rally in Washington, D.C.
Photo: Free-Stock-Photos.com. NARA

1995

• In December of 1995, the Parliament of Canada officially recognized February as Black History Month, following a motion introduced by the first African Canadian woman elected to Parliament, Jean Augustine, P.C., M.P. of Etobicoke-Lakeshore in Ontario and Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister.

1996

• The Mathieu Da Costa Challenge was launched by the Department of Canadian Heritage, to celebrate the contribution of Aboriginal peoples and Canadians of all ethnic and racial backgrounds to the building of Canada.