True North Review – students protest apartheid due to protests in 60s Canada | Video

MeIf someone mentions racial riots and student protests in the 1960s and 70s, chances are that, for many people, civil rights protests in the American south, being in California or the National Guard opening fire on students at Kent State University in Ohio. But revolutions and resistance were ideas that crossed borders and spread all over the world, and countries that are said to be friendly, respectful like. Canada they had no special protection. The beautifully illustrated documentary, directed by Michèle Stephenson, describes the charged moment in Quebec history in 1969 when black students at Sir George Williams University, now called Concordia University, staged what would become the largest campus protest in Canadian history; resulted in several arrests and nearly C$2m in property damage from a fire that destroyed a computer lab.

Interviews with several leaders of the protest – including Norman Cook, Brenda Dash and Rosie Douglas – are interspersed with archives, all of which, including interviews, were shot in black and white. The artifacts have the fine grain and silvery reflections of the high-quality 16mm film at the time; it goes so well with the deliberately disjointed jazz music and historical classics that a shout-out is due to singer Andy Milne and music directors Sarah Maniquis-Garrisi and Michael Perlmutter, who between them create a soundscape that’s as sweet as it is visual.

True North tells a story that not only begins with the protest of West Indian students against a racist professor named Perry Anderson, but goes back, as it should, to colonialism and slavery. Recently, there was the terrible destruction of Africville in Halifax, Nova Scotiaa black community near the city’s wetlands with an interesting history that was destroyed in the name of “urban renewal”. What was added was the inspiration of protests by black Americans across the US border, as well as millions of locals taunting and cursing, all of which took a toll on the school.

At the very least, there is justice in recognizing that several of the protestors took the risk, learning the political realities to continue, despite being exiled and imprisoned, becoming politicians and community leaders later.