The Fire That Time
Transnational Black Radicalism and the Sir George Williams Occupation
Description
In 1969, in one of the most significant Black student protests in North American history, Caribbean students called out discriminatory pedagogical practices at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia University), before occupying the computer centre for two weeks. Upon the breakdown of negotiations, the police launched a violent crackdown as a fire mysteriously broke out and racist chants were hurled by spectators on the street. It was a flashpoint in the Canadian civil rights movement and the international Black Power struggle that would send shockwaves as far as the Carribean.