Black women activists in Toronto from 1950 to 1990

grantor: University of TorontoThis thesis explores the work and life of black women activists in Toronto from 1950-1989. In this thesis, I examine how black women are able to move from subject to radical subject. Further, I interrogate the nature of activism as defined by black women who are engaged in social change work. This study combines multiple theoretical approaches to understand the workings of power, discourse and race on black women activists. The research also is embedded within an Afrocentric feminist framework to explore notions of resistance and experience. I have found that within the American historiography on black women activists a connection is made between black women's activism and the social and educational advancement of black communities. The history of black women activists' work and their impact on black communities in Canada has not been adequately recorded. My study reveals through the oral testimony of black women activists that their social change work has improved social and political opportunities for black people In Toronto. Activism for black women is a process that emerges out of their everyday resistance to oppression. The findings of the study highlight the strategies that black women use in their communities to address social Inequities. Ideas of community and family were used by black women activists, in this study, as a site from which to challenge systems of oppression.Ph.D