“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

I have links with Canada on both sides of my family tree.  Many years ago, my great-grandparents (on my father’s side) decided to emigrate to Canada.  This was their second migration.  Earlier, shortly after they got married, they sailed for South America, for Patagonia in Argentina, supposedly a lush land which was welcoming immigrants (preferably of the White persuasion) to settle there.  My great-grandparents were Welsh, and to this day there are descendants of those settlers who still speak Welsh (or possibly Spangwelsh?) and carry on the traditions from Wales.  Unfortunately, the land was less than lush, and several of my grandmother’s siblings died as children or infants, and lay buried in a cemetery there.  The family’s second attempt at migration took them back to the UK, and then off to Canada.  After one winter there, my great-grandmother declared that she had no intention of freezing to death, and they sailed back to Liverpool.

My mother had a cousin who more recently (last century) migrated to Canada and was a Montessori teacher there for most of her working life (at this moment I don’t recall what part of Canada), but she fared better, and did not freeze to death! I thought of these connections recently as we took a road trip out of Florida, through Georgia, up through Tennessee and Ohio and finally through Michigan, across the Detroit River to Windsor, for the funeral of a (Jamaican) matriarch.  We didn’t know it at the time, but we were leaving Florida at a very opportune time, right as baby Milton was dreaming of huge and rapid growth, and setting his sights on Central Florida.

Our stay in Windsor began in a house which was over 120 years old (which is old when you are in the ‘New world’.  In Europe such houses are considered modern!) But it was nicely maintained with all the old millwork, creaky stairs, and faded wallpaper of a Victorian home.  This was an old-fashioned ‘Bed and Breakfast’, a far cry from the 21^st century version of the ‘Air’ variety.  As originally devised, this small, boutique hotel offered and served a communal breakfast, so you were seated around a large dining table with the other guests, and we got to meet and talk with a diverse group of visitors from Ohio, Canada and Sweden.  The cooked portion of the breakfast was designed around our dietary restrictions, far different from the ‘all you can eat’ buffets, or ‘continental’ choices of bagels and muffins.

The day continued to delight as we headed out for a Sculpture park that overlooks the Detroit River and the high rises of Detroit a stone’s throw away.  The sculptures were varied, with some being very impressionistic (a dancing bear), and others more realistic (a family of life-sized elephants that local schoolboys just had to climb onto and ride).  Fall was in the air, and in a few trees hints of the beautiful range of autumnal colors were beginning to emerge.  Canadian (are we sure they are not American?) geese sailed gracefully along, or honked noisily above, the grey waters.

Seeing a sign which said ‘African Heritage Trail’ we decided to use the Google to choose our next destination and found the Amherstburg Freedom Museum thirty minutes away.  I swear the locals pronounce the town Amstburg, but I could be wrong.  After driving along a narrow road, past grain fields, and along a river, we arrived in a quaint town, and along a residential street we found the Museum.  It is housed in two buildings, one of which is the Nazrey African Methodist Episcopal church, a fieldstone chapel hand built in 1848 by those of African descent who came across the Detroit river in search of freedom.  As we listened to one of the curators of the museum narrate the history of the building, part of the Underground Railroad, we realized that she was very deliberately using the term ‘Freedom seekers’ rather than escaped slaves.  This language was carefully chosen to give more humanity to those who had been denied such in their lifetime, and it struck a chord. The language we choose to describe our fellow man is powerful, and can either humanize or dehumanize, much as the term ‘illegals’ is used today to suggest that people who arrive in a country without having the correct paperwork have no value, no worth.

From the simply constructed church (which may have had a hiding place for those underground travelers, though construction changes over the years made that hard to know for sure) we went into another building which was an extension of an old log cabin.  Here, although there were some artifacts showing the inhuman and cruel aspects of enslavement, for the most part the history was told of the progress made by those Freedom Seekers once they got settled in Canada.  There was a woman’s organization which focused on education; the men of color who fought in the ‘Upper Canada Revolutionary war’ (my historical knowledge of Canada is very lacking!), and other symbols of pride on display.  There were annual Emancipation Day marches.  Like Jamaica, August 1^st 1834 is celebrated as that was the date that Slavery was abolished in the British Empire.  On a side note, both of the curators were White, which at first bothered me, since this museum was dedicated to Canadians of African descent, but then I thought that it showed a level of caring, that those who told the story, although descended from the oppressors, were daily paying homage to the ones oppressed.  Our narrator also took pains to point out that not all of those who made it across the river (apparently the river is at its narrowest at Amherstburg) were escaping slavery, some were already free, but since even those declared ‘free’ could be recaptured and resold into slavery, they chose to take their chances north of the border.

By evening we were gathered with the family of a 94-year-old Jamaican matriarch who had lived the last four decades of her life in Canada.  Five of her surviving children, and most of her seventy grand- and great-grandchildren converged in Windsor to celebrate her life and legacy.  Some came from Jamaica, some from far-flung Saskatchewan and Alberta, others from less distant Toronto.  I have to confess my geography is almost as bad as my Canadian history – when I picture places like Saskatchewan I see stark beauty, and no people, much less Jamaicans, although if it’s one thing we know about Jamaicans, they are everywhere! And when they start to talk about temperatures like 40 below, my mind glazes over.  I cannot comprehend!

So while Milton was plotting and building and spinning like a gig in the Gulf of Mexico, we were communing with our friends in Canada.  I have to confess that it seems to be true, people (of every hue) are nicer in Canada, spontaneous conversations with total strangers, offers of advice and assistance abounded.  And the Jamaican posse, well they fed us and housed us and made sure that we were well taken care of.

On this Friday morning, as Florida wakes up to the Demolition monster that was Milton (hard on the heels of his horrible sister Helene) I am grateful to know that there are people who are taking care of our history, ensuring that evidence is preserved for future generations.  I am thankful for families who, regardless of their origin story, proudly carry on the legacy of hardworking, immigrant mothers and fathers whose only goal was that their children have a better life than they did.  I worry for the future of a planet which is so clearly going in the wrong direction, and hope that these back-to-back ‘once in a thousand year’ events will cause us to wake up and demand changes that will provide a future for our own grand- and great-grandchildren.  And for those still struggling without the basics of power, water and easy access to food, may your lives soon return to some sort of normal.

Have a wonderful weekend, Family!

One Love!

Namaste.