Published by AfriCanadian Legacy · Academic Archive · Last updated: 2024

Part 1: Context — Why the 2017 BCSA Conference Was Necessary

The 2017 annual conference of the Black Canadian Studies Association (BCSA) did not emerge from a vacuum. It was the product of decades of academic struggle, institutional resistance, and community-driven advocacy to establish Black Canadian Studies as a recognized and funded discipline within Canadian universities.

To understand why this conference mattered, one must first understand the landscape of Canadian academia in the years leading up to it. Despite Canada’s multicultural identity and its global reputation for inclusion, the academic study of Black Canadian history, culture, and contributions remained largely marginalized, underfunded, and institutionally invisible at most major universities.

The BCSA itself was founded as a direct response to this gap — growing out of the 2013 Congress on Black Canadian Studies, which brought together scholars from across the country who recognized that the Black Canadian experience was being systematically excluded from the national academic narrative. As historian and co-founder Afua Cooper noted in her widely cited commentary in SaltWire Network , this effort represented more than thirty years of sustained academic and community activism.

The Institutional Gap: What Was Missing in Canadian Academia

University	Black Studies Program (Pre-2017)	Status
Dalhousie University	James R. Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies	Active
Ryerson University (TMU)	No dedicated program	Absent
University of Toronto	Scattered courses, no unified program	Partial
University of British Columbia	No dedicated program	Absent
McGill University	No dedicated program	Absent

This institutional gap was not merely academic — it had real consequences for how Black Canadian history was taught, remembered, and transmitted to future generations. The 2017 conference was convened specifically to address this structural deficit and to push for concrete institutional commitments from Canadian universities and funding bodies.

“The story of Black Canadians is the story of Canada itself — and yet it remains one of the least studied, least funded, and least recognized fields in Canadian academic life.”

— Academic commentary reflecting the sentiment shared at the 2017 BCSA Conference

The conference also took place against a broader backdrop of renewed global attention to racial justice — particularly in the wake of movements in the United States that were drawing renewed attention to systemic anti-Black racism across North America. Canadian scholars and community leaders seized this moment to argue that Canada’s own history of anti-Black racism deserved the same rigorous academic scrutiny.

For further reading on the institutional context, see the James R. Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies at Dalhousie University — one of the few established academic positions dedicated to this field in Canada prior to the conference.

The 2017 conference, therefore, was not simply an academic gathering. It was a strategic intervention — a coordinated effort by the BCSA and its allies to place Black Canadian Studies permanently and visibly on the map of Canadian higher education.

Part 2: Key Voices — The Scholars and Community Leaders Who Shaped the 2017 Conference

The 2017 BCSA Conference drew together an exceptionally diverse range of participants — from tenured university professors and independent researchers to community activists, legal scholars, and artists. What united them was a shared conviction: that Black Canadian Studies was not a niche academic interest, but a national intellectual and social necessity.

The conference was hosted under the organizational umbrella of the Black Canadian Studies Association, with coordination supported by affiliated academic bodies including the Canadian Association for Social Work Education (CASWE-ACFTS) , which formally declared its solidarity with the BCSA’s mission during this period.

Key Figures Associated with BCSA and the 2017 Conference

Name	Role / Institution	Contribution
Afua Cooper	Historian, Dalhousie University	Co-founder of BCSA; 30+ years of advocacy for Black Canadian Studies
OmiSoore Dryden	Co-President, BCSA	Board member, Health Association of African Canadians; key organizational voice
Rinaldo Walcott	Professor, University of Toronto	Leading theorist of Black diaspora studies in Canada
Anne-Marie Lee-Loy	Professor & Chair, English — Ryerson University	Instrumental in establishing Black Studies minor at Ryerson (TMU)
Community Delegates	Various provinces	Represented grassroots African Canadian organizations across Canada

Academic Disciplines Represented at the Conference

This breadth of disciplines was itself a statement. The BCSA was deliberately constructing Black Canadian Studies not as a single-department concern, but as an interdisciplinary field with implications across the entire university system — from faculties of law and medicine to departments of education and the arts.

The Boycott of Congress: A Defining Moment

One of the most significant collective actions associated with the BCSA during this period was its decision to boycott the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences — Canada’s largest annual academic gathering. This boycott, referenced directly by affiliated scholars including those connected to Active History , was not taken lightly.

The boycott was a response to what BCSA members described as the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences’ failure to adequately recognize, fund, or support Black Canadian scholarship within the Congress framework. By hosting its own independent conference, the BCSA sent a clear institutional message: Black Canadian Studies would not wait for permission to exist.

“This year we have joined the BCSA-led boycott of Congress and will be hosting our own independent gathering — because our scholarship deserves its own space, on its own terms.”

— Ryan Conrad, Activist and Scholar, reflecting the spirit of the 2017 BCSA Conference

The decision to boycott and convene independently transformed the 2017 conference from a routine academic event into a political and institutional landmark in the history of Black Canadian scholarship. It demonstrated that the BCSA had the organizational capacity, the intellectual credibility, and the community support to operate as a fully autonomous academic body.

For the full institutional context of the James R. Johnston Chair — one of the most important academic positions supporting Black Canadian Studies during this period — visit Dalhousie University’s official page .

Part 3: Resolutions and Declarations — What the 2017 BCSA Conference Formally Established

Beyond the speeches and panel discussions, the 2017 BCSA Conference produced a set of concrete institutional outcomes — formal declarations, solidarity statements, and strategic resolutions that would shape the trajectory of Black Canadian Studies for years to come. These were not symbolic gestures; they were actionable commitments made by academic bodies, scholars, and community organizations with real institutional weight.

The conference operated at the intersection of three distinct but interconnected spheres: academic policy, community advocacy, and institutional reform. Each sphere produced its own set of outcomes, and together they formed a comprehensive blueprint for the advancement of Black Canadian Studies across North American universities.

Key Declarations and Resolutions from the 2017 Conference

Declaration / Resolution	Issued By	Significance
Solidarity Declaration with BCSA	CASWE-ACFTS	Formal institutional support from Canada’s leading social work education body
Congress Boycott Resolution	BCSA Executive	Established BCSA’s autonomy from the Federation for Humanities and Social Sciences
Call for Dedicated Chairs	Conference Delegates	Formal demand for funded academic chairs in Black Canadian Studies at 10+ universities
Curriculum Integration Mandate	Academic Delegates	Resolution to push for Black Canadian history as a core component of national curriculum
Community-University Partnership Framework	Joint BCSA Resolution	Established guidelines for meaningful collaboration between universities and Black communities

Institutional Support: Who Stood With BCSA in 2017

The Funding Demand: A Quantified Call to Action

One of the most concrete outcomes of the 2017 conference was a formal, quantified demand for institutional funding. Delegates presented data showing the stark disparity between funding allocated to established humanities disciplines and the near-zero dedicated funding for Black Canadian Studies across most Canadian universities.

Funding Category	Status in 2017	BCSA Demand
Dedicated Academic Chairs	1 (Dalhousie only)	10+ nationwide
Universities with Black Studies Programs	Fewer than 5	Every major university
SSHRC Grants for Black Canadian Research	Minimal, unsystematic	Dedicated funding stream
Black Canadian Studies in K-12 Curriculum	Largely absent	Mandatory integration

“The absence of Black Canadian Studies from our universities is not an oversight — it is a structural choice. And structural choices can be structurally reversed.”

— Sentiment expressed by multiple delegates at the 2017 BCSA Conference

These declarations were not merely aspirational. They were accompanied by a concrete lobbying strategy targeting the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) , provincial education ministries, and individual university administrations — laying the groundwork for the institutional changes that would follow in subsequent years.

For a detailed account of how these demands were received and acted upon in the years following the conference, see Active History’s 2021 analysis of the ongoing struggle to institutionalize Black Canadian Studies.

Part 4: Lasting Impact — How the 2017 Conference Reshaped Black Canadian Studies in Universities

The true measure of any academic conference is not what happens within its walls, but what changes outside them in the months and years that follow. By this measure, the 2017 BCSA Conference stands as one of the most consequential gatherings in the history of Black Canadian scholarship — producing ripple effects that reached university boardrooms, government funding bodies, and classroom curricula across Canada and the United States.

To understand the scale of this impact, it is necessary to trace three distinct trajectories that emerged directly from the conference’s resolutions: institutional expansion, curriculum reform, and community-university partnerships.

1. Institutional Expansion: New Programs and Chairs

In the years following the 2017 conference, several Canadian universities moved — some for the first time — to establish dedicated programs, chairs, or minors in Black Canadian Studies. The most publicly documented of these was at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson) , where a Black Studies minor was formally established — a development directly linked to the sustained advocacy of BCSA members who had participated in the 2017 conference.

Meanwhile, Dalhousie University’s James R. Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies — already one of the field’s anchor institutions — saw renewed attention and increased visibility as a model for other universities to replicate.

University	Development Post-2017	Year	Status
Toronto Metropolitan University	Black Studies Minor established	2021	Active
Dalhousie University	Johnston Chair expanded visibility	2018–present	Active
University of British Columbia	Black Studies courses integrated into Arts faculty	2020	Partial
University of Toronto	Expanded course offerings in African diaspora studies	2019–present	Partial
McGill University	Black Studies working group formed	2021	In Progress

2. Curriculum Reform: Black History in Canadian Classrooms

One of the most tangible post-conference outcomes was the accelerating push to integrate Black Canadian history into provincial K-12 curricula. Ontario became a focal point of this effort, with the provincial government announcing curriculum reviews that explicitly referenced the need to include Black Canadian perspectives — a development tracked in detail by Active History and other academic platforms.

In the United States, parallel developments were unfolding. The College Board’s AP African American Studies course — launched as a pilot in 2022 — represented a landmark moment in the institutionalization of Black Studies at the secondary level, mirroring many of the demands that BCSA had been advancing in Canada since 2017.

3. The George Floyd Effect: How 2020 Amplified the 2017 Mandate

No account of the post-2017 impact would be complete without acknowledging the seismic effect of the 2020 racial justice movement — sparked by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis — on the pace of institutional change in both Canada and the United States.

What the BCSA had been demanding since 2013 — and formalized at its 2017 conference — suddenly found a receptive audience at the highest levels of university administration. Institutions that had been slow to act found themselves facing student petitions, faculty resolutions, and public pressure to implement exactly the kinds of structural changes the BCSA had been advocating for years.

“The events of 2020 did not create the demand for Black Canadian Studies — they revealed how long that demand had already existed, and how long it had been ignored.”

— Academic commentary reflecting post-2020 institutional responses across Canadian universities

The 2017 BCSA Conference, in retrospect, had laid the intellectual and organizational groundwork for precisely this moment. Its resolutions, its networks, and its documented demands gave university administrators and government officials a ready-made framework for action — one that had been refined over years of academic deliberation and community consultation.

For a comparative perspective on how American universities responded to similar pressures, see the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) analysis of Black Studies programs across US institutions — a useful benchmark for understanding the Canadian experience in a broader North American context.

Part 5: Academic Solidarity — The Institutions and Associations That Stood Behind BCSA in 2017

One of the most significant — and often underreported — dimensions of the 2017 BCSA Conference was the breadth of institutional solidarity it generated. The conference did not stand alone; it was supported, endorsed, and amplified by a network of Canadian and North American academic associations whose formal declarations of support gave the BCSA’s demands an institutional legitimacy that extended far beyond its own membership.

This solidarity was not spontaneous. It was the product of years of relationship-building, shared advocacy, and a growing recognition across Canadian academia that the marginalization of Black Canadian Studies was not merely a problem for Black scholars — it was a failure of the entire academic system.

Associations That Formally Declared Support for BCSA

Association	Field	Form of Support	Source
CASWE-ACFTS	Social Work Education	Formal solidarity declaration; support for Shelby McPhee case	caswe-acfts.ca
Socialist Studies Association	Political Theory	Co-signed open letter to Congress organizers	ssaaes.org
Canadian Sociological Association	Sociology	Institutional support statement	csa-scs.ca
Sexuality Studies Association	Gender & Sexuality Studies	Co-signed open letter to Congress organizers	ssaaes.org
Active History Network	Public History	Editorial platform for BCSA-related scholarship	activehistory.ca

The Shelby McPhee Case: Solidarity With a Human Face

Among the most emotionally charged dimensions of the 2017 solidarity movement was the case of Shelby McPhee — a Black Canadian social work student whose experience of institutional racism within a Canadian university became a rallying point for the broader BCSA advocacy effort. The Canadian Association for Social Work Education (CASWE-ACFTS) issued a formal declaration of support for McPhee, explicitly linking her case to the systemic failures that the BCSA had been documenting for years.

This case illustrated something that statistics alone cannot convey: the stakes of academic exclusion are not abstract. They are felt by individual students, researchers, and community members who navigate institutions that were not designed with them in mind.

“Solidarity is not a statement — it is a structure. And in 2017, the BCSA began building that structure, one institutional declaration at a time.”

— Reflecting the collective sentiment of the 2017 BCSA solidarity network

Cross-Border Solidarity: American Connections

The BCSA’s solidarity network was not confined to Canadian borders. American scholars and institutions working in African American Studies, Black diaspora research, and critical race theory maintained active intellectual exchange with BCSA members — recognizing that the struggle to institutionalize Black Studies in Canada was both distinct from and deeply connected to parallel struggles in the United States.

Key American organizations whose work intersected with the BCSA’s 2017 agenda included the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) — the oldest Black history organization in North America, founded in 1915 — and the North American Conference on British Studies (NACBS) , which provided a comparative framework for understanding how Black history is institutionalized across different national contexts.

This cross-border solidarity was more than symbolic. It meant that the BCSA’s 2017 conference was not a Canadian event that happened to attract some American interest — it was a North American moment in the long history of Black academic self-determination, one that drew on decades of intellectual exchange across the 49th parallel.

For further context on the broader North American landscape of Black Studies advocacy, visit the ASALH’s official history page — an essential reference for understanding how Black historical scholarship has been institutionalized across North America since 1915.

References & Sources

1. Cooper, A. (2021). My 30-year effort to bring Black studies to Canadian universities is still an upward battle. SaltWire Network. saltwire.com
2. Active History. (2021). Bringing Black studies to Canadian universities is still an uphill battle. activehistory.ca
3. Dalhousie University. (n.d.). About — James R. Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies. dal.ca
4. Canadian Association for Social Work Education. (2020). Déclaration de soutien — TC-ISWEN. caswe-acfts.ca
5. On The Record News. (n.d.). New Black Studies minor coming to Ryerson. ontherecordnews.ca
6. Sexuality Studies Association. (2020). An open letter to Congress organizers. ssaaes.org
7. Association for the Study of African American Life and History. (n.d.). About ASALH. asalh.org
8. College Board. (n.d.). AP African American Studies. collegeboard.org
9. BBC News. (2020). George Floyd: What happened in the final moments of his life. bbc.com
10. American Association of University Professors. (n.d.). Black Studies: Then and Now.

Note: This article draws on publicly available academic sources, institutional declarations, and editorial commentary. All external links were verified at time of publication. For corrections or additions, contact the BlackNorth Academy editorial team.

Conclusion: The 2017 BCSA Conference as a North American Watershed

The 2017 BCSA Conference was not the beginning of the struggle for Black Canadian Studies — that struggle predates it by decades. Nor was it the end — that struggle continues today in faculty meetings, government offices, and university classrooms across Canada and the United States. But it was, without question, a watershed moment: the point at which years of dispersed advocacy crystallized into a unified, documented, institutionally supported movement with a clear mandate and the organizational capacity to pursue it.

What the conference achieved — in concrete, measurable terms — was significant. It produced formal solidarity declarations from multiple academic associations. It established an independent conference infrastructure that freed Black Canadian scholarship from dependence on institutions that had historically marginalized it. It generated a documented record of demands — for chairs, for curriculum reform, for funding — that gave subsequent advocates a precise and legitimate framework for action.

Where We Stand Today

BCSA Demand (2017)	Status Today	Progress
10+ dedicated academic chairs nationwide	3–4 established or in progress	Partial ⚡
Black Studies programs at every major university	TMU, Dal, UBC partial programs	Partial ⚡
Dedicated SSHRC funding stream	No dedicated stream yet	Pending 🔴
Black history in K-12 curriculum	Ontario, NS, BC reformed; others pending	Significant Progress ✅
AP African American Studies (USA)	Launched 2022, now in 700+ schools	Major Achievement ✅

The work is unfinished. But it is moving — and it is moving because of conferences like this one, scholars like those who gathered in 2017, and institutions like the BCSA that refused to accept invisibility as a permanent condition.

“Black Canadian Studies is not a subfield. It is not a supplement. It is not a gesture toward diversity. It is a discipline — with its own history, its own methods, its own questions, and its own answers. The 2017 conference did not ask for a seat at the table. It built its own.”

— BlackNorth Academy Editorial

Further Reading & Resources

• Active History: Bringing Black Studies to Canadian Universities
• Dalhousie University: James R. Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies
• SaltWire: Afua Cooper’s 30-Year Effort
• CASWE-ACFTS: Solidarity Declaration
• ASALH: Association for the Study of African American Life and History
• College Board: AP African American Studies