Our Lives: Canada's First Black Women's Newspaper
{{Short description|Canadian newspaper}}
{{redirect|Our Lives|the song by The Calling|Our Lives (song)}}
{{Infobox newspaper
| name = Our Lives: Canada's First Black Women's Newspaper
| founder = {{plainlist|
- Carol Allain
- Dionne Brand
- Linda Carty
- Afua Cooper
- Faith Nolan
}}
| publisher = Black Women's Collective
| foundation = 1986
| political = Black feminist, left
| language = English
| ceased publication = 1989
| headquarters = Toronto, Canada
| free = [https://riseupfeministarchive.ca/publications/our-lives-canadas-first-black-womens-newspaper/ Rise Up! Feminist Archive]
}}
Our Lives: Canada's First Black Women's Newspaper was the first newspaper in Canada written by and about Black women.{{Cite web |title=Our Lives: Canada's First Black Women's Newspaper – Rise Up! Feminist Digital Archive |url=https://riseupfeministarchive.ca/publications/our-lives-canadas-first-black-womens-newspaper/ |access-date=2023-03-28 |website=riseupfeministarchive.ca}} Founded in 1986 by the Black Women's Collective, Our Lives sought to represent the lives, achievements, and struggles of Black women in Canada.{{Cite journal |last=Lobo |first=Rachel |date=2019 |title=Archive as Prefigurative Space: Our Lives and Black Feminism in Canada. |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/2518871875 |journal=Archivaria |volume=87 |pages=68–86 |id={{ProQuest|2518871875}} }}
Background
= The Black press and anti-Black racism in print =
Black activism in print in Canada began with anti-enslavement publications such as The Provincial Freeman that sought to counter the anti-Black racism prevalent in the Canadian press.{{Cite journal |last1=Silverman |first1=Jason |last2=Bellavance |first2=Marcel |last3=Rudin |first3=Ronald |date=1984-12-01 |title="'We Shall Be Heard!"; The Development of the Fugitive Slave Press in Canada |url=https://dx.doi.org/10.3138/chr-065-notes |journal=Canadian Historical Review |volume=65 |issue=4 |pages=54–63 |doi=10.3138/chr-065-notes |via=Project Muse|url-access=subscription }} Our Lives cultivated this history by “create[ing] a free space, a place where [they] can talk as sisters”, and analyze their experiences with institutional racism, gendered racism, and anti-Black violence.{{Cite web |title=Our Lives – Vol. 2, Issue 1 – March/April 1987 – Rise Up! Feminist Digital Archive |url=https://riseupfeministarchive.ca/publications/our-lives-canadas-first-black-womens-newspaper/ourlives-02-01-mar-apr-1987/ |access-date=2023-03-28 |website=riseupfeministarchive.ca}} This dedication to Black women representation was part of a broader movement in the 1980s that centered "Black women's experiences, writings, and cultural production...to validate the lives of these women...and ...make them visible to the wider public".{{cite journal |last1=Wallace |first1=Belinda Deneen |title=Our Lives: Scribal Activism, Intimacy, and Black Lesbian Visibility in 1980s Canada |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/780610 |journal=Journal of Canadian Studies |date=December 2020 |volume=54 |issue=2–3 |pages=334–359 |doi=10.3138/jcs-2019-0035|s2cid=234545699 |url-access=subscription }}
= Racial uplift and Black consciousness =
Our Lives was situated in a period of heightened racial unrest that produced actions like the Sir George Williams and Yonge Street uprisings.{{Cite book |last=Brand |first=Dionne |title=Bread out of Stone |publisher=Vintage Canada |year=1998 |location=Toronto |language=English |chapter=Notes for Looking Thru Race}}{{page needed|date=March 2023}} They spoke, and contributed, to this moment by celebrating Black womanhood and by honouring Black women revolutionaries such as Marie Joseph Angelique, Harriet Tubman, and Anne Cools.
See also
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- [https://riseupfeministarchive.ca/publications/our-lives-canadas-first-black-womens-newspaper/ Our Lives archives], Rise Up! Feminist Archive
Category:African-Canadian feminism
Category:Newspapers published in Toronto
Category:Black Canadian newspapers
Category:Newspapers established in 1986