Donald Carty Interview Transcription
Material Designation: [Audio-Cassette]
Researcher: Diana Braithwaite
Place: 24 McCowan Raod, Scarborough, Ontario M1M 3L9:
Producer/Organizer: MHSO
Date: May 25, 1982/June 28, 1982
Arrival: 1920s?
Size: 2 Tape ; 1 hour and 50 Minutes (60 minute tape)
Language: English
Note: Mat Submission Report No.: BLA-10925-CAR No. P/D
Class Number: BLA-7984-CAR
Reference Number:BLA-10925-CAR
Keywords: Carty, Donald / Africans-Canada-Interviews/
Immigrants-Canada-Interviews
Interviewer: Diana Braithwaite (DB)
Interviewee: Donald Carty (DC)
Transcriber: A. Chidzero
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0:08 Early childhood and family background. |
Diana Braithwaite: I’m interviewing Mr. Donald Carty, who lives at 24 McGowan Road in Scarborough. He was born on May 11th 1920 in St. John, New Brunswick. Mr. Carty has been an active member of the Black community for quite a few years. OK, Mr. Carty can you tells about yourself? Where were you born?
Donald Carty: I was born in St. John, New Brunswick, one of our Maritime Provinces, in 1924. I am one of seven brothers and right in the middle of them in fact. Now, you want to know where I was – sort of the chronology of it?
DB: Sure, you can tell me about you family.
DC: Yes, I was right in the middle and as I think back to that period it seems almost long, long back ago because everything was so different as compared to now. The pace was slower; there were many horses and wagons on the street. You could hear cars coming blocks away. One of our pet past times was to identify the car by the sound of the engine and it hear cars backfiring was a very common occurrence. It was a time when there was the bread man and the fish man and the rag man on the streets [and] the ice man. It was a time with the old fashioned circuses that came in on the big circus train and unloaded massive wooden wagons with teams of horses that were all colourfully displayed in all kinds of brass and silver harnessing and kind of a gay period in the course of the year when we have one or two circuses that would come to town. I lived in the east part of St. John on Frederick Street. I was very small and it seemed that from as early as I could remember we had moved from the Pit Street area which was known as the south end. The home location at 18 Frederick Street was more like on the outskirts of the city and not too far from the creek and it was kind of a busy sort of place but it was rather removed from the rest of the black community. At that time there were various concentrations of the Black community in places such as Old Indian Town. I heard them speak of the south end group or the north end group. It was a time when perhaps a goodly member owned their own home but a good many were rutting. At that time, round about the early/mid ‘20s – I was born in ’24 so by the time I got around to about 24 -about 5 and 6 years old I was right in the midst of the depression so you could be sure that there was a great deal of unemployment.
Jobs were scarce and I’ll always remember my dad going out and usually getting something to do, he was man of the sea in that he had hailed from the West Indies as a maid aboard a schooner. A very tall, very proud man and he would do anything rather than take any kind of public assistance. I don’t remember but my mom would say at that time he’d go and be away for some time. Whether it was working along the north shore – I don’t know the nature of the work but I remember him more precisely as the [inaudible] that loaded the big ships that came taking the coal from them and that was four months of mainstay of the family as far as work was concerned. Mom stayed at home and the dad worked hard. During that period we had a garden was some distance away from my home. It seems like quite a distance, because I would quite often go there with my dad and we had quite a massive amount of vegetables and what we couldn’t eat we usually gave to neighbours . As a matter of fact, we never had trouble with people coming in and taking vegetables because my dad was as big hearted as he was big and he would give very freely to people of the area. Because of this people sort of protected the lot and wouldn’t allow kids to go in and destroy it. He had a winning way about him. A big quiet man , who rather than talked was known by his more commendable aspects that words could not back up. There are various aspects of the life growing up that stand out very strongly in my mind – the rigidity and strictness of the family. My dad was a sergeant in the armed forces [inaudible] so we grew up with used to him giving commands so when he called it was front and centre and it was ”Sir!”. It was interesting because you would seldom hear a person being addressed as Sir except for a military or some paramilitary situation but that’s the way it was.
DB: Where was you dad born?
DC: My Dad was born in the West Indies. Possibly he identifies with St. Martins, I thought he was born in St. Martins for quite some time. But his family started around St. Martins and Gwayla(ph) and Santa Domingo. He came to Canada when Spanish speaking persons were more fluent in Spanish than they are in English. You can imagine it made quite an interesting courtship. I often remember my mom saying he’d speak a bit in English then suddenly switch to French or something else.[laughing] She wouldn’t know French or Spanish and just say yes and then he’d say yes in Spanish and she’d say whatever it is, it must be no.[laughing]
DB: Was your mother from…?
DC: My mother was Canadian born. I don’t know exactly where her people come from but her dad was born in Nova Scotia and I believe that her mother was born in and around the frediton (??)I think. Well anyway I think the most of my mother’s life was spent in St. John’s but I know in later years my grandmother had a farm. I used to work there as a young person.
DB: I’d like to ask you more questions about your parents. What was your mother’s maiden name?
DC: Her maiden name was Tyler.
DB: And you said she was born in Canada?
DC: Yes, born in Canada.
DB: Can you tell me more about her background? Did she have sisters and brothers?
DC: Yes, I believe she was the only girl among about 5 brothers and she was the eldest. There’s is only one surviving member of the family. That is my Uncle Seymour who is still alive today. They were all veterans of World War I. My uncle Seymour, who was veteran served in WWI and WWII. There’s quite a military history to the family as many uncles and cousins served. Of my immediate family there were 7 sons and 7 of us were in uniform during the war – 5 in the air force and two in the army. [Inaudible] My one brother had something to do with flight engineering. I’m not too certain but the other was in something to do with equipment. One a private officer in SLC(??). I forgot the term they use . It was so long ago – over 38 years that I’ve been out of the air force.
DB: Going on to your father’s family now. His born in the West Indies. Did you ever meet his relatives? Like your grandparents on his side?
DC: No I didn’t. He, at a very early age, went to sea with his uncle who was a sea captain and you could envision that long before the turn of the century. He must have been about 24 when he married and that must have been about 1902 so maybe he was born in 1875, I’ll have to look it up. You could envision at that time the islands were an extension of the colonial system and they were largely importers of agricultural products. I understand that my dad’s father was ship wrecked in those ships and you could imagine that in that time most of the women worked in the homes of the White overseers and most of the men tilled the soil or went to sea. I understand that quite a lot of my father’s brothers were lost at sea in the course of the course of storms and shipwrecks and that sort of thing. When he left home , I guess it must have been around the age of 13 or 14, I don’t believe he returned but he did keep in touch with his family from time to time and at one point his father did want to come back and sort of take over the family holdings. You could also imagine at that time that women were just women and they didn’t regard them as being persons at all in terms of being able to accept responsibility or any of that sort of thing. Just viewed as a keeper of the home and a rearer of children.
So, he didn’t go back and it was over 50 years before contact was made with the family again when my brother who was administering without us went down there on a church assignment. During the time that he was there , he inquired with the people where he had gone. He knew that somewhere around Santa Domingo or even Barbados that there were some scattered remnants of the family. So, as you can imagine over the years the family could have extended through many of the islands there and it’s not unusual to run into a Carty in one of those areas. He was quite amazed with the vitality of his aunt, my father’s sister. She at the time must have been around 85 and she says that she could go up and downhill with no problem and he was puffing to keep up with her.[laughing] They had quite an extensive piece of property and she gave him a piece of the family holding. Interestingly enough, the first generation of many direct descendants of one of the islanders that left the island could still go back and could still vote and still take part and be considered citizens. I thought that this was rather interesting. Anyway, the brothers, they were all lost at sea and you could imagine the great pleasure on the part of the family in knowing that Albert wasn’t lost at sea and that he had gone on to Canada after having virtually every port of the seven seas and sailed on virtually every imaginable kind of sailing vessel during which time he was shipwrecked two or three times.
DB: Albert was your father?
DC: That’s my father yes, and so when he put into St. Johns. This was a great turning point in his life. It seems that at that time or whatever he put into any point, his interest was his constantina(???) and his pipe and he remained aboard ship and he’d play his constantina and smoke his pipe despite the urgings of his fellow mates to go ashore. One chap that was particularly close to him told him that he’d like him to go to shore – that the people were beautiful and that he’d really like them. He said as a matter of fact, “I’ll introduce you to my girlfriend and she’ll show you around and introduce you to the community”. As a subject of persuasion he did go ashore and unpredictable as events would be, not only did he meet this young lady but he courted her and [inaudible] her. I think he went to sea a couple of times before he came back and finally settled down taking up residence but he was a pilot on the harbour for a couple of years and he’d get out and get the ships and bring them in. Of course you can imagine at that time there was still quite a number of sailing vessels and his height was the sea and he never did want to go too far from the waters. I can remember as a young fellow going with him and sitting on the pier and he’d have his fishing rod and get in to his sea stories or get into his sea chanteys. I kind of felt that I was rather a favourite of his. It seems that although he only mentioned the seven sons, that there were others that during the war and they died when – I don’t know if he was here or away at the time – but I know that there was a Ralph and an Albert but seemingly I looked very much like Albert, his favourite son that died at the age of 8 as a result of typhoid fever that he contracted when dad was overseas in WWI. It seems that he was a member of some troops that went out looking for a lost boy. It had rained overnight and he didn’t have a ground sheet and he got typhoid fever.[Inaudible 22:10 -16] but he was a very talented person that even at the age 8 and 9 he was writing his own music and he played a baby tuba that he would prop up on a chair but he was quite an accomplished piano player as well as playing lots of other instruments. I suppose he was very much in dad’s thoughts but it would only the odd occasion that he would mention anyone other than those who lived.
DB: You mean this was in your family or?
DC: In my family. So when I say seven sons I should more rightfully say that there were others but in my time there were only seven that I grew up with.
DB: What made your father choose New Brunswick and settle there?
DC: A pretty girl. The war came along in 1914 and he went over to number two construction battalion where – I might have heard my mum speak of him or might vaguely know of him being there – he was sick there and I believe he died the states but he was instrumental in the formation of the number two construction battalion in an all-black unit which consisted of blacks from Nova Scotia and Ontario and I suppose…
DB: Quebec and all across Canada.
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24:25 The Black community in St. John. |
DC: Yes. In the number two construction battalion in 1914.I have a picture downstairs of two of the instrumentalist in the brass band. It was a 60 piece brass band that went overseas with them. I don’t believe that at any other time there was a brass band in Canada so St. Johns had this distinction. Sometimes we often assume that [Inaudible 25:06-10] or that blacks were outcasts but we mustn’t overlook the fact that even in this time and even at that they had stores, boarding houses, barber shops, restaurants and that sort of thing and successful pubs. The whole economy of the life in Canada clutched pretty much to the economy of the area. I remember at one time, in the Maritimes there were many black families and when things became depressed or job opportunities became limited many moved to the states and similarly to Ontario. Those that stayed and a good percentage in Nova Scotia remained on the land because they may have felt that the land was perhaps impoverished but it gave them a sense of being their own and a source of lively hood. For those that depend on industry or service jobs those were among the more unfortunate. I admire those who stayed on the land because it provided what is today a very strong historical base for many in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick because the communities were very successful. In fact Preston and various other communities down there were founded by members of the black community that would take an area, build it up and have their own homes and sustain themselves in a wonderful sort of way. Now, I visited Nova Scotia but I’ve never been in the areas where there has been a large concentration of black families but I was in Cheraw (ph) in the areas there where there were black homes and they were something to behold. They were reconstructed and there was quite a co-operative spirit among the people in family homes and I was at church in the community. In most of these communities, for what they were striving was a church and a school but to assume that they were ever a totally dependent people might make no sense as this was done out of necessity and not out of desire and it has been purely to generate, to survive and to achieve and to look back on history. I suppose any black community in Canada-it is remarkable what they were able to do under the dire circumstances and is one reason why I highly commend you in this effort to get histories of these communities or through the reflections of people. Now, you have to bring me back to square one because I’m somewhat lost here.
DB: Ok, I’ve got a lot of information about your parents now what was it like for you growing up in New Brunswick. First of all, the community, you mentioned it but could you go more into detail.
DC: There must have been about – and this is a pure guess – maybe 500 black families in the St.John area, they extended up to St. John river, but the attrition over the years of good many men moved away. In St. John, as I can only recall from what my parents tell me, there was a place there with towns in the north end and south end with a great concentration of black families .
DB: Where these families born in Canada or did they come from different provinces?
DC: I found that for the most part there was quite a West Indian community there and then there was quite a number who generationally had been there for quite some time most of the West Indians that arrived were usually seamen that decided to settle there.
[31:25 End of side 1A]
…they married into the community and as opportunity permitted they would have their families come from the West Indies then there were Americans and blacks from various other areas .There wasn’t the restriction that we experienced years later and I suppose getting into the latter ‘20s and into the ‘30s there were open expressions that it was going to be a white man’s country so regulations made it difficult for blacks to immigrate from the West Indies. I remember when I was here early such discussions would ensue that they questioned the abilities of blacks to remain in Canada because of climatic conditions and that was ridiculous because –
DB: This was the government?
DC: Yes, of course, they came to Mackenzie King at one point and made a statement that “there was no colour problem here, we just didn’t let them in.”
DB: When was this in?
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2:28 WWII participation. |
DC: Mackenzie’s period. He was in office for quite some time but interestingly enough this was during the period of World War I. There were people that readily said that they didn’t need and black people, or black men. This was a white man’s war. You heard mutterings of the same thing during World War II which quickly dissipated but as I look back again to my own family and growing up, I suppose the things that stand out very strongly in my mind was that my mother was a very small but very determined woman who had a quick temper but very kind heart. My dad was very quiet and said very little and the seemed beautifully matched because he even said that it was love. It was interesting that the things that they impressed on us was that people tend to accept you on the level you present yourself and dad, being an old disciplinarian, always insisted on good appearance, education and keeping the boys active so we were in virtually every kind of organised activity that there was so we just didn’t have any time to get into mischief. Scouting was a big thing with the family and music was a very big thing my older brothers were quite active in music circles in St. John they played duet piano, classic and it was a time that church concerts were quite a thing and church tended to be quite a centre of activity. I wouldn’t necessarily say more so than today but there was an emphasis there because there weren’t the many more distractions that we have socially today so they were calmed down quite a bit and as a consequence when you spoke of Carty boys you spoke of it synonymously with scouting or with music because of the determination on the part of my mom and dad that we should qualify ourselves with something worthwhile. Just going through the depression there was no real upswing in economic opportunity until the war came along in which everybody was thrust either into the service or into munitions plants and this part was where the family sort of scattered coast to coast as there was a lot of service involvement. My dad was an air raid worker I can remember the sirens and I can remember the black coats. The first brother to enlist was my brother Doug and I guess he enlisted about the day after the declaration of war and I well remember the day. It was in September it was about the time that my dad usually entered his model shipping exhibition. Building model ships was a very big thing in his life because it was one way that he’d never forgotten the sea and he’d build brigantines and you name it, full rake simpsons (??) I have one downstairs and my brother has one and there’s one in the museum in St. John , New Brunswick the rock terrace. I can remember that exhibition was counselled in the wake of the eminence of war and I can remember Chamberlain’s speech talking about peace in our time and I can remember the ranting of Hitler talking about no further deferral aspirations and the Sudetenland and all the rest that went along – its attack on Poland and his further expansions of territorial aspirations. Things moved really quickly at that time my older brother enlisted in the air force, to be soon followed by Bill as the years went by and that was in the 39. I think my other brother Clyde enlisted in maybe ’40 or ’41 , I’m not sure. Then right down the line each of us enlisted.
DB: What was your occupation before you enlisted in the army?
DC: Well, I was never much of a scholar. The war came along as an excuse to get out of school because I wasn’t too happy with school. Academically I wasn’t much of a student although in my own area of studies, I had the thrills of history or whatever it was that interested me I usually excelled on the level I was at school but I just wasn’t very school oriented, I was a very independent person. So I got to the stage where I was looking kind of big for school and you’d walk down the street and you’d get the eye from people and that’s it. Well, you’re a pretty big guy and you should be in the service you know. And you begin to walk out there and you’re – it’s funny thing about war time and this peculiar kind of silent compulsion of feeling that you have to get out there whether you want to or not. Whether it’s a matter of face or prestige anyway one day you make up your mind and go down and enlist and that’s it. So, I went into the air force and that’s the time I came to Ontario. In ’43 I had my basic training. The furthest I got away from Canada was Newfoundland where I was for maybe 11 or 12 months. I had signed up for the pacific and I had all my natals(??). Everything and was just about ready for going away from training when Japan capitulated. I was in Duport(??) Nova Scotia and I can remember the voices walking out of the station. The service police didn’t bother stopping them because all of the boys were happy about that. That was the time they had the big riot in Halifax. Maybe your parents told you about them when they turned over the streetcar and it was probably going by at the stage when they were feeling pretty good. I guess that even though Halifax is a naval and military town that the citizenry must have been fed up to the teeth with them because they didn’t seem cooperative and of course the navy boys that were involved resented this and it didn’t take much to get them all in a destructive mood. Yeah, they really messed up Halifax that day.
DB: What was the cause of it?
DC: Well, I think that the car was going back to the barn and they wanted to get onto the car and the car just couldn’t get past them. I don’t know exactly but it went on for a few days. So, that was the maritime bit. Now after I came to Ontario it was quite a shock to look at these tall, massive buildings. There I looked like a real little hick town boy. Another fellow and myself, we’d come out and were looking at these massive buildings that seemed to go up and up and up. I’ll never forget this woman. She was obviously a press photographer and she was out there and she took our picture as we were gazing all over the place looking at these big buildings. So I took my [inaudible 12:10-12:12] here and I spent most of my time in Canada and then Newfoundland but I liked Toronto and I decided that Ièd return to Toronto after the war if I got back. So, I did when I got back in ‘49. I got my discharge in ‘46 .
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12:34 Army attitudes towards black men and overcoming stereotypes. |
DB: What was it like to be in the service as a black man in those days?
DC: Well, I suppose it pretty much depended on the individual. For most of my life I was in an area where it was a normalcy for me to see a black person and when I went into the service I was basically a very proud individual; as I was in uniform or not. I ran into some peculiar situation as I wasn’t a person of very great brawn so I had to fight verbal battles rather than get into fisticuffs and usually it worked very much to my advantage that way. I can remember various incidents, one in particular. These fellows thought they were going to have a joke at my expense so they put on the minstrel bet. One of them came up to me and asked me “How y’alls doin’” that sort of thing. I said “I’m doing splendidly thank you and how are you today?”. His voice began to weaken as he went through this kind of panama. I said. “I assume you’re from the southern states. You have quite an abnormal accent. I’m not acquainted with that type here. Where are you from?” By this time he had turned all kinds of colours and literally wilted into his suit. So, this was my chief attack in situations because I found that I always remembered what my dad had told me. Those who choose to have humour at your expense quite you can turn the table very skillfully that without resorting to force. On numerous occasions I have used the same tactic very much to my advantage. I knew that they expected withdrawal so I spoke very precisely. They expected me to dance and be the kind of fluid silver screen kind of stereotype of a laughing and dancing and singing which I had no desire to emulate. It was quite interesting the funny situations we ran into. I remember this one particular woman, I thought she was being very nice, that commented I just love to hear you people singing and you dance so nice. I said, “I appreciate credit when credits due but regrettably I tried to dance for years and I certainly have no voice for singing. I wish those were two of my accomplishments.” And so, they look at you, Oh! . I found that very much to my advantage that if I was going to do anything or at any topic of discussion, I’d make a point of becoming very informed and I’d wax very eloquently. Very often I was found to be the centre of, not so much normal, attraction but they’d say, “Go to Don, he’s the authority” and I rather laugh at that at this stage because here I thought that I wasn’t going in just as an individual but I figure that many of them saw me as an extension of the stereotype. Well, I was going to be the contradiction of that and I thought that I was very successful. As you can imagine the fact that blacks were not too plentiful in Canada and many of these farm type boys and girls where brought up in an environment where they felt that you must become the embodiment of the stereotype they saw and they would go away blubbering when they found that you were far from that. If there’s was anything achieved it was that I felt that I carried myself in such a manner that a couple in one station referred to me as the country gentleman. It was a case of gaining an advantage of a situation by putting someone down with words and I usually managed to do it very skillfully and slip out of the situation and leave them wondering. Quite often they assumed that I was well to do somebody from somewhere. There is always a situation when it comes to dating in the service you like to feel that you’re a person and you date not a colour but you date a woman. I’ve never felt that I should show any preference but as it turned out I stayed where I was comfortable. I didn’t feel that I had to make any mark to prove to somebody that they’re a human being and I found that quite often it was a subtle uphill fight to destroy stereotypes and to be acceptable as a person. We do appear to be a novelty because we’re both black and intelligent but I think that the tremendous influx of blacks from the West Indies and men in the colonial crew and whatever they did had a very high profile and certainly destroyed a lot of the misconceptions that people had because they looked good and believe me the male female chemistry has no conscience when it’s a matter of a handsome boy meeting a desirable girl. I don’t know but I think I would consider it normal in view of the fact that when you live in a society in which differences are accepted as norm or to be viewed as a normal situation. I ran into many apologetic situations where people felt that you were still at a time that you didn’t call a person black because that was considered insulting and you’d sort of speak of races or you’re an illegitimate part of humanity that hadn’t belong. So, I urged them to – instead of getting the one of you’s – I mean one of your people they’d say or coloured person. I would emphatically say that you’re talking about a Negro or I’d put it in a context that exuded total acceptance on my part but I found that I got through it and am none the worse for the experience. That’s the peculiar thing about people. In spite of the stereotypes created, people tend to meet you and at some point they admire you and it becomes fast fleeting that they face reality. You meet some very solid friends spread across the spectrum. I remember one incident in Nova Scotia, when this black chap was refused entry into a dance hall and he was a veteran back, wounded, and these white folks were going to tear the town apart. They said, “just say the word and we’ll tear the place up.” You know, because a lot of them served with black fellows and they didn’t go for this sort of thing.
As I look back, 30 years ago it seems a little hard for me to realise how long ago but yet how fast fleeting time is and how entrenched those attitudes are. I don’t know what the situation is here today but I’m sure that it’s changed considerably. The big change comes with the surge of economic opportunity that I suppose stemmed out of the war . The conditions must have been much better after World War I because they went into industry that was previously denied them. Because they were needed, they proved they had the ability and they did the job and they were able to get homes and had the means of giving their children better educations and we find that this surge toward economic consolidation seemed to follow along with the necessities of war. One of the greatest problems has always been the high transiency level of black communities because of this economic uncertainty and I think that one must realise that out of the groups that are here that have self-contained economies, we’ve always been on provided employment than becoming self-employed or becoming employers. I think as far as blacks are concerned we may not lack an educational base but more assuredly, today we indeed have many young people who have tremendous abilities but we just have to learn to organise our potential. I think that perhaps the earlier generations of blacks a hundred or more years ago organised their potential more effectively than we who are in a society where we know when you think it isn’t going to rain you don’t carry your own umbrella. In the same way when you know there’s no jobs out there you’re going to tend to work more effectively, have more respect for each other, protect each other a little more. I think that there was more of that at that time certainly than there is today as we have assimilated. |
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24:50 Post-war shift in sense of community amongst Black Canadians. |
DB: What is the reason for that difference of how the people were before and how they are now?
DC: Well, I think the more intense the pressures, the more sense of the need to collectively resolve your own problems. I’m not saying the fact that we need we need persecution to achieve – I’m simply saying a sense of awareness that today as you would expect and hope for gradual assimilation economically, socially, culturally into the system because we are Canadians. We are first a human being and then a black person and then a Canadian and however you would so choose to go. I do not feel that we should – I mean as obvious as a nose is on your face you don’t have to go out an every time you walk tell someone that you’re a women- this is self-evident. Because you’re a human being basically anyone should be accorded the common decencies and courtesies because you are a member of society and not for any other particular reasons other than you’re a human being.
DB: I’ve heard quite a few times that the black community was closer than it is now. Do you think that was because of the size?
DC: Well, If you go to a place and there’s no hotel for you to go to. You’ll hopefully had someone say that you go there, visit Mrs. so-and-so who’ll put you up tonight or here you’ll get a meal. Because the social amenities that were extended to the normal population without discrimination, without the fear of abuse- you had to depend on your community for survival. But with the opening of society in which you can have the amenities and go to restaurants, go to hotels, do anything that the rest of the citizenry does – this is indeed your privilege and your right. It’s just like when we’re a child we reach out for our parents hand because we’re afraid of falling. The older we get, we’re more independent and so we’re able to go along on our own. Sometimes a child pushes away a parents hand not to say I don’t need you anymore but it’s a case of saying well I can do it all by myself. Today in society, I’m very pleased with the young people who’ve finished their school, have gone out into jobs and they’ve made their own circle of friends, they’ve associated with whom they so choose. Sociability is a matter of choice not a matter of colour unless the philosophy of a political society. What is the whole matter of racism but an attempt to show superiority? Historically we know that there’s no such thing that anyone group has ascendancy over the other in terms of physiology. It’s a matter of environmental conditioning and opportunity.
So, we look out in our streets today. We are indeed a big city this Toronto, with over two and a half million people. Quite cosmopolitan in that you go down the street, you can see Asians and Caucasians, you can see Blacks and White and company. In our schools you have quite a massive mixture in which they’re first concern with one another is thinking of a name not necessarily colour not necessarily colour grouping. Of course I do understand the day when you take a people out of a particular environment if they can’t speak the language, if they are foreign to the culture; there is a kind of comfort and a clingage among those with whom you’re familiar with and those whose culture you understand and so there’s a tendency for perhaps Asians. Perhaps Blacks from the West Indies to have to have a particular kind of clingage but as they merge into the society and gain confidence and they reach out into their larger community family, if you know what I mean. I know that there tends to be conflict and the press likes to take a situation. Some two people report an incident of two or three people as a race riot because it sells papers. As long as there`s this peculiar attitude in society of we and they, we`re going to run into conflict but this does not mean that you as a person should not desire to have your own home and to say that my friends come to visit me I can show them the hospitality of my home and , to make it on an even larger basis, to say that just as the community at large has restaurants, hotels, what have you – these come as an acquisition purely not necessarily about racial achievement but should be viewed as a human achievement.
[31:25 End of side 1B)
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01:16 Post-war discrimination and job prospects. |
DB: I`d like to go back to 1946 where we left off. For the Black race a lot of people have had to struggle for the search of employment and economic opportunity. Did this affect you in the 1940s and how did you act toward this? [Extreme distortion 0:00- 1:15]
DC: [From 1:16]… in terms of turning things around as far as opportunity for the black man was concerned. I use this term loosely but I’d like to specify here. There is a tendency for us to use terms and assume that many people understand them but to me, even though the term may seem obvious, physical identification of a people – It lacks in that it gives no specific culture, geographic or other instances that would allow us to recognise that we as a people have come from many points and have been parts of many cultures. In consequence, just to generalise leaves a great deal to be desired. I like to think of myself as a Canadian of Afro extraction and when I say that I do not dismiss the fact that my Dad coming from the West Indies, me being there and I suppose even if we were to take an estimation of how many generations have come by in the past 14 years. I`d make a rough estimation that possibly there’s been about 22 generations. Now, when we think of it in this sense, we find that we`re not very far removed from slavery. There are families in Toronto today that can look back on 5 generation span. So, take 5 and 22 you get 17 ; so it`s not so long ago. As I was saying, I`d like to think of myself first of all as a human being and an expression of God. Geographically I was born here; historically my descendancy is from the continent of Africa. To go back beyond the ancestry of my people; I came from the West Indies, my mother`s people were born in the Maritimes possibly and my dad`s from the islands in the Caribbean. We must look at our self as a composite being of mixture of all the people who had come across our paths in the course of historical assimilation. We are people with a very dominant gene that invariably we always recognise our source. There is something physically that seems to show through that is very strong driving and identifying for us regardless of the complexion. Specifically, in Canada one of the major problems of seeking opportunity which, out of necessity meant migration. Many Blacks had moved at least following WWII and during WWII from rural areas in Canada to the larger or urban centres. Large numbers moved from the Maritimes to Ontario and my coming to Ontario was motivated first of all by a promise I’d made to myself that I liked Toronto and I was stationed here during the war and I decided to come back. Plus the fact during the time I was in St. John, I went out job hunting and I walked the streets for many months and it was disillusioning not to be able to get a job. To have job promises when you go to a place and they tell you it’s been just filled and if you were to phone back they’d say “Oh yes, we have a job open come right in”, and you know that it was a pure racial thing. A peculiar kind of subterfuge that we faced in our country then and still today but fortunately there is a governmental acceptance of the principle of equality of all Canadians regardless of race creed and colour . This is being pumped into the media to a large extent in recent years and I commend them for it and though it’s still there, it takes persistence, it takes attention to make people realise that we’re all migrants basically . It seems that the higher your profile, the more victimised you are according to the level of your differences but again, even in spite of that, as I pointed out before there’s hardly one vocation that you can’t find that our people have identified with successfully and have been accepted in that role .
I’m kind of getting ahead of myself. I came up here job hunting because I couldn’t get any work down there and I experienced a great deal of discrimination as I was fulfilling a promise of making this home. I came up here on my unemployment insurance and my first job was arranged in advance for me by my brother Bill. I worked as an orderly in the Toronto General Hospital. Orderly, not really. I was doing maintenance work more or less but I don’t know what class vocation I would have been. After I finished my work I had lots of time for reading. I did a lot of reading and worked on short hand and various other things. I kept looking around for opportunities to open for me. When I left there I went to a cabin making firm. I was there for a short while until I was laid off. There was a span off unemployment and then I worked at Canadian Tyre in the billing section and recorded accounts on the electric typewriter for some time and then from there there was another stint of unemployment. Then I finally went on the railroad as a porter. Portering has certainly changed vastly today from what it was during those periods. Portering was really the job that Black’s gravitated towards because there really wasn’t much else. At the Pullman Porters CNCP , it was almost synonymously accepted that that’s the black man’s job. At that time you never saw anything but a black face to portage uniform. I went to it resentfully because I couldn’t find what I wanted and I had to have something as a mainstay. I remember my training period and getting my first car and my utter indignation with the travelling public because I was a very proud person and I can remember when they’d offer me there quarters and 50 cents for weeks I said thank you very much but no thanks. They’d look at me in amazement because I felt that it was stupid to take this pittance and I didn’t need that . So quite often I’d find myself engaged in discussions with people and I’d wax on a number of issues. Of course they’d come through with the old cliché, “you aren’t like the rest of them.” You’d remind them, “I’m very much like the rest of them.” My distinctions is only that I’m an individual with my own approach to life and my attitude to which I feel I’m completely at right to express and anytime and anyplace I so choose. There were a lot of American students that used to come out for the summer and so they would board the CNCP . DB: Where they coming up from school or…?
DC: When I say coming up here, I mean coming up from the United States. For summers they’re on the road then go back and continue schooling. For many Canadians this was the beginning and a dead end road for a lot of them at that time because even then in spite of their qualifications jobs weren’t readily open. I could talk with people, boys on the road, of almost any educational level that I so choose a lot of them had to accept reality and say, well here we are, and maybe an opportunity would open so they would work a long and surpass their feelings, whatever they were. It was in opposition to my nature so I got away. I served there from ’49-’52 and at the time I decided against the route. I was fearful and I was sure that I was going to throw somebody out that train and I remember coming very close to it one time and I began to get nervous stomach and all the rest of the symptoms that went along with it so I said, To hell with this!. I explained to the people in the yards that I wanted to continue my schooling and that the yard, they wrote, was not appropriate for this sort of thing and that I would like to get into the yards. Well, I did get into the yards and interestingly enough I was amazed at the reaction of some of the older porters who accepted the route to stand that long. One man in particular said that I should have come to him for advice and he would have told me what to do or he’d have figured I made a big mistake going to the yards. The yards, even though it gave me a sense that I was doing a job and I didn’t have to come in contact with a public which too many of them were so impressed with their own importance that they had to show it by putting other people down. They all seemed to need a scapegoat and if you were somewhere on the bottom of the ladder they took great lightens in making you feel that they were doing you a great favour by even seeking your service . Of course this wasn’t always generally the case. You found that often kind of element and you found a lot of very fine people. I found that often the well paid and well-assured; they went about you and they very quietly blended into the framework of things. It was just the young upstarts who thought they had the world by the tail and they went about with their secretary running behind them; trying to put on as if they’re some great corporation executive. These types you could see through them. Student type and – oh, you met many types. Soon you have a growing sensitivity just by noticing after a few minutes what kind of person you have and you [inaudible 14:44-47]. Anyway, I was working at the yards and during the period there I met another chap who, I don’t know whether he had been running or not, anyway was working the yards and told me that he like me was trying to get away from it. I had left the yards a couple of times to go into printing jobs. During the time I was there I attended The Institute of Technology and took a course in Graphic Arts and I tried to get out into it but when you’re buying a home and you’re raising a child and you’re offered $21 a week it doesn’t go very far. He disappeared after a while and informed me that he got taken out of the post office and time went on and then finally I got a call about Christmas and I left the yards and went to the post office and I’ve been there ever since.
DB: That was in what year?
DC: That was in ’56.
DB: OK
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16:03 Settling in Scarborough and raising children in a predominantly white community. |
DC: So from ’52 to ’56 I worked in the senior retirement centre. I started as a cleaner then I worked my way up to oiler. There were a lot of labour unrests around the time and I found that I didn’t need being at work a few months yearly as a result of strikes. So, since that time I’ve been at the post office and its provided me the means of income based on my terms. This is the second house that I’ve bought and its given stability. I moved first from my quarters in the Dundas and Broadview area in the East end.
DB: Do you remember the street name?
DC: Yes, it was on Dundas.
DB: Oh, Dundas.
DC: It was a little house which I renovated when I’d come home from work as I’m working the night shift. I’d come home in the night; work on the house about 5 hours before I’d go to bed. Same thing year after year. This is up until the time I got called by the post office. When I moved out here I had my oldest son John (??) I don’t remember, but I believe Albert and Diane was born – I don’t rightly remember I’d have to check that out. I was breaking new ground. As far as I could see it, for miles I was the only one in the neighborhood. It was interesting that the kids gravitated toward a house after school to meet Albert. I think Albert just had a natural attraction for children and at the time I came out here, one person who later found out had taken up a petition amongst the neighbours to get me out of the neighborhood. Yes, taking up a petition to show that they didn’t need me in the neighborhood at all.
DB: Who were they going to present the petition to?
DC: God knows. This person later on whispered in the house and its amazing the assumptions that people have before they meet you and so bloody self-righteous about their own person.
DB: Was it a woman?
DC: Yes.
DB: Did she feel that she was doing the right thing?
DC: She thought she was doing the right thing. A lot of the neighbours refused. My next door neighbours who’d been there ever since I’d been there and told her flatly, “They’re my neighbours. I’ve got no fault to find with them and I’m never signing your…”. It was through them that we found that it had been circulated around. The kids had a share of fights and I was over to the school numerous times during the period that they were growing up there and every time they’d see me coming over, they’d know that I was very indignant about something. But, they were outstanding in music at the school and they were liked by the kids at the school and there were a lot of kids who would use abusive names and they didn’t get away with it because Diane would beat them up, Albert would beat them up. I remember one classic case where Albert got in a stew with one of the students that suddenly called him ”nigger” and then pretended that it didn’t happen so Albert just smoldered and in this particular time he’s in the bathroom when he called him “nigger”. There’s shouting and screaming and crying and the teacher’s running and all of them putting this kids head down the toilet. He could scream like a man of war , you know![laughing] So they brought Albert out and not one but 5 teachers; and he’s just a little fellow but he was determined that he was not going to take any of that sort of thing. It was quite interesting. I was kind of annoyed with the school . Gilbert, I wanted him to go on and he quit school and it wasn’t ‘till later that he went back and got a university level. Albert, he went to one of the schools in the west end, I forgot the name. Perhaps you remember? Was it Maple?
DB: Borden.
DC: Yes. I thought it was beneath his capacity and I felt that the teachers just took the attitude: well, here we got a black kid; they’re not going to go anywhere because of the situation. They thought they were being kind to string him into occasional work or fields that they just took the attitude that they weren’t capable of anymore. I do feel that in the early age, teachers instill the sense of inferiority and a lack of confidence in them and particularly others and it wasn’t until extra-curricular work like getting him into drumming and getting karate that he felt and found that he could do everything better than anybody else and he became an absolute perfectionist in whatever he did.
DB: How do you think that the teachers sort of instill this sense of inferiority in the child?
DC: Well, what did you get in you History class? When it comes to talking about Africa, they never envisioned the fact that here you were in Canada and had everything that the rest of society had. They didn’t look at the fact that there are great cities in Africa. They wanted to talk about natives with spears and big lips and bones in their head and this had no frame of reference to acknowledge that there was there was merit over there and that there were thousands of blacks there and they in no way indicated that we’re active in every phase of life and made a tremendous war contribution. They can only remember musicians or dancers or things like that. Of course, it was a peculiar kind of, let’s get this thing over with quickly as possible, because they talked about it and you could sense the discomfort because they’re dealing with something that – the urgency was a sense of historical guilt or what have you. Then again you wanted subtle situations in the class where in the relationships with other students this name calling and this sort of thing. It’s amazing how children emulate society; I remember one case during the period of the riots. I think it was William’s kid.
DB: Is this was 1960? Can you give me a year?
DC: I remember this is moving out quite a number of years after that now. I think the kids peered there at that school. All my kids went to that school and finished at that school from 1 to 7 or 8 or whatever it was. I was a friend of a man who travelled to a school who went up into in to the ‘60’s and there about . His child went to a school up in Masson Rd. The kids got it in their head: Ah see what they’re doing in the United States – they decided they were going to beat up one of the black kids and the teacher looked out and saw about 100 kids chasing William’s son and cornering him. So he went into this. The principal had to go after this in a hurry. So he got the kid out of the situation and took the students in the school and gave them a talk on the wrongness of this sort of thing. You see the susceptibility of children due to media impressioning. I’ve kind of wandered a bit.
DB: Well Ok. Just to go back a bit. We were speaking about the school system and you children. This would be more in the ‘50s and ‘60s. What other reactions did you get from your community?
DC: Well. I’d sent kids over to the school or to the local church but none of them wanted to go because they felt that they were treated more as a novelty rather than a person and you could sense the kind of situation. The kids didn’t want to have anything to do with this kind of hypocrisy so I didn’t insist on it. For the most part I would take them to the- I’m a member of the Baha’i community so I used to take them out very often with me to Baha’i functions and take them down to the first Baptist church but most of the social and cultural activities centred around here and they had a lot of young friends and they seemed to merge in. So maybe you can bring me back on track.
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27:19 1960s civil rights |
DB: OK, Let’s move on then to the ‘60s. What was the ‘60s like?
DC: This was the period of the civil rights movement to a large extent. This was a period in which I feel that Blacks in Canada were profoundly affected by what was happening across the border. This was the period when the term “I’m black and I’m proud”, this was the period when the Afro came into being. I think for the first time there was a sense of I am Black, I am proud and I’m growing my hair the way I want it. Prior to that everyone was trying to straighten and conk and other things to make it look like everything but what it was. There was a great deal of spillover and I think there was tremendous sense of frustration among Blacks over there and Blacks here in that there was discrimination in different places. Discrimination in hotels and restaurants and there was discrimination in immigration. I was up to city hall, up to Queen’s Park myself with a deputation on the question of relaxing the restrictions on immigration of people from the West Indies as Frost was the premier of the time I was rather amused the old [inaudible] saying that we don’t discriminate we have here a -mentioning period by name- fine fellow and they give you a great tutorial on some one individual. I remember commenting to him that one drop doesn’t fill a pale. They had the pressures of conditions at the time and all the talk about all what democracy’s supposed to stand for. To have gone through the war and find that all the grand pronouncements about loyalty, patriotism and self-determination should be something that was just attributed to you were of acceptable complexions or acceptable ethnic group. So, the Black community did not take this passively. There were organised groups, there were deputations and they did everything they could to bring about a change and I think it was around this time that Baker introduced his …[undecipherable at 30:17] [End of side 2A]
Changing pattern and to have people come to terms with the reality that they’re no different from the human beings ; that the people they hate or use abuse, insult, humiliate, that they in the same circumstances would react the same way. We all breathe, we all need food we all need heat and shelter and all the rest that goes with it. We’re all immigrants, some voluntary, some involuntary but a lot of progress been made. It’s during this period that Danny Braithwaite got Black sambo band in the school, if I possibly remember. But, it’s been an uphill struggle and now it’s only in recent years, probably the past 20 years, that we’ve seen the immigration restraint change. We’d gone through the Vietnamese war, the Korean War and, I don’t know what there was, [inaudible]. I know there was another woman in the immigration department that mentioned, there were various test situations that mentioned that the Black community and groups brought a lot of attention to this and gradually they began to change immigration law. This accounts for the large number of West Indians in Toronto today in other areas. I’d certainly like to make it known that some of the new arrivals who had the impression that the people who have been here haven’t tried to achieve or change things. They’re forgetting that the people that have been here have done the ground work. They faced the humiliation, the discrimination and the abuse and those that come in didn’t walk in on red carpets but they walked in and their carpet was certainly laid down by the Black people and the people of concern who wedged and unceasing campaign to bring about our democratic in our government as far as immigration is concerned. |
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03:35 Occupation as a postman. |
DB: Your job as a post man. What was it like?
DC: When I started? First pretty hard, Not without its humorous incidents that most people look and look twice perhaps the occasional perhaps the occasional [inaudible] came up on the side walk to see what they were really seeing.
DB: Because you were Black?
DC: Yes. Then I do remember various incidents, of course I got to know them later. A white woman was constantly complaining about me walking over her lawn, breaking her flowers and so on and so forth. So, they told me about it but she continued to say that I was walking all over her lawn and doing all kinds of things to her property. They went out and they watched me for several weeks and they found out that this wasn’t the case so they confronted her about hating Black people and she went on a tirade about not liking Black people or something [inaudible]. You run into all kinds of situations but a lot of them get to you; a lot of them don’t. You find that after people get to know you they begin to recognise that you’re an individual; you’ve got to live that life they do.
DB: How did life change over the years?
Carty: How did it change? Well in terms of my person to person relationships with people. I don’t really feel that I was hassled because I just a door to mailbox contact and you dropped your mail and you just kept going. The only thing that has changed is probably the work conditions that the length of walks had been reduced and the changing from the five weeks or six week pay to a five week pay and from a 48 hour week to a 40 hour week and the gradual improvement of the wages over the years and contracts.
DB: What would be the actual job as a post-man like? I’ve heard before that the post-man catches the people unaware sometimes.
DC : You learn a great deal about people by the mail that they received. Like if you decided to just notice the addresses of one person’s mail over a period of time. You’d notice what firms he did business with, you’d notice if he was prompt because of the nature of the bills that came, you’d know his religion, you’d know his lot. You’d get a drift of the birthdays of the family that occurred, when there was a new arrival in the family, when the family decided to split up and so on. It tells you a great deal about the public.
DB: Did you come into contact with people? Do you have people that you’ve never really met?
DC: Well, just recently. I’ve been delivering to a house for two and a half years and just the other day saw the man that lived there. |
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7:25 Religious beliefs and world view. |
DB: What about your involvement in the Baha’I community?
DC: What is it first of all? Well the Baha’i faith is a world religion. That acknowledges that there is but one God and really one religion when you start to think that the teachings of all the other major religions are the exponent of the same thing. The only differences between religions are those that are manmade because I think it’s fundamental between the religions of the world that they all seek the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of all men. Although, religions have been a great unifying factor. For some peoples they’ve also been a great destroyer in that they have taken the extension of the – under the guise of religion so much has been done. Take the early conquest of Canada. Priests came out and, in my mind, softened the people by taking the converts and the traders followed in behind them and they’d send out their armies to protect the trade routes there. The country was lost. The native pursued the Bible and he lost his land; he lost his country. This is virtually the same thing that happened in Africa following the guise of helping these poor people. They don’t give a damn what happened to them as long as their soul was saved, you know. Under the guise of religion too they thought of you as – it’s always warped to satisfy and protect the sense of guilt of the perpetrator of these crimes against humanity. They dismiss the Black man as being a bearer of wood and carrying the water and they justified this with the Bible. They took the story of Ham who was supposedly turned black because he was evil and they say, “Oh, Black men are the children of Ham”. But you know, people can so easily hide behind their prejudices and apply religion as the salve to justify their ends.
I was attracted to the Baha’i faith because it went beyond the limitations of religions that said- well we are the one and only and despised all others. I accepted it because I found that it was not merely a dogma but I found people attempting to live within the frameworks of their teachings. It was attractive to me because I found that it inspired people to their nobility as a human being where others say that you were born in sin and that you have to climb to acceptance. We would make people aware that they were created nobly and if they debase themselves it is because they have the will to do so. I think that to me this is a more nobler concept in which you can accept yourself and accept the rest of humanity. A noble faith that embraces virtually every country of the world. The administrative headquarters and spiritual centre is in Israel . Haephas(??) The president of the Persian garden at Mount Carmon(??). It is the outgrowth of the Muslim teachings in the same way that in the same way that Christianity is the outgrowth of the Judaic teachings. I think that looking into the history of all the religions that one – if you look at the basic essence tends to say that there will be a revealing that will come that will bring humanity to all truth. The important thing is that we be able to recognise this. When you think of this as being carried up by the cloud into a new heavenly kingdom; I see it from purely the practicality of that there’s a change, a new world. I see it in terms of a change of attitudes and minds. Your heaven is where you make of heaven; your hell is where you make it. I don’t dismiss the fact that we are a multi-dimensional creature. We presently know the physical plain and I feel that if we believe in God then it must be spiritual dimension of reality. We can only cope with these things if we bond out of this plain so I don’t worry about that which I don’t have to counter. I hope to see it in terms of the reality of relationships of people and recognition of the attributes that would ennoble man such as understanding love and compassion and these things. I was particularly attracted to the social attributes of the religions which advocated the oneness of all men, the equality of men and women. To acknowledge that a woman has a profound role in the family and at one point infers that if there’s a preference of education going to the male or female, the woman should have the preference in view of the fact that she is responsible for the child for the most of that child’s growing up. I suppose if you’ve got a well-educated mother at a very early age she can bring about a tremendous impact on that child’s life not only in terms of social education but even academically. Some mothers have done a tremendous job in equipping children more admirably than the regimented, sometimes very bigoted institutions of learning.
To fail to acknowledge that we all do have a role, to acknowledge that we’ve got one humanity, that this should be a world economy, this should be a standardised weights and measures system. We can’t separate spiritual well-being from the application in terms of our everyday life. If your religion in no way reflects on your attitudes and you relationship to your fellow man, if it is only a thing in which you make a Sunday afternoon testimony then you forget it totally, then it’s a waste of time. It’s only a bit like the old expression – unless your deeds equal your words. We don’t need something to escape into- we admittedly as we evolve I suppose. It is so important that man have a sense of belonging to something beyond or greater than themselves. I suppose there have been countless examples all down the line of history – a preoccupation with that there must be something after this life. There’s been so many books on the market by remarks of people who claim that they’ve gone to that twilight zone or they’ve experienced it, this wishing to honour their lives. But so much for that.
DB: Well I think that finishes off the interview.
DC: Well, Thank you.
DB: Thank you very much. I enjoyed it. A lot of material was covered.
[End of side 2B]
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Donald Carty Interview Transcription 