Pearleen Oliver
{{Short description|Black Canadian Activist (1917–2008)}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Pearleen Oliver
| birth_name = Althea Pearleen Borden
| birth_date = 1917
| birth_place = Cook's Cove, Guysborough County, Nova Scotia, Canada
| death_date = 24 July 2008 (aged 91)
| death_place = Halifax, Nova Scotia
| organization = Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Colored People (co-founder)
| known_for = Black Activism, Church Leadership, Educational Activism
| spouse = William Pearly Oliver (married 1936)
| children = William P., Philip W. B., Dr. Leslie H., Jules R., and Stephen D.
}}
File:Les Oliver C079-APO Piano Gown Windows.tif
Pearleen Oliver (1917–2008), sometimes Pearleen Borden Oliver, was a Black Canadian church leader, an anti Black-racism activist, writer, historian and educator.{{Cite web |last=Oliver |first=Pearleen |date=20 April 2020 |orig-date=1992 |others=Interviewed by Marjory Whitelaw |title=Nova Scotia Women's Oral History Project Nova Scotia Archives Sound 1995-009 Transcripts MF 420-0: Tape 1, Side 2. |url=https://archives.novascotia.ca/african-heritage/archives/?ID=616 |access-date=2023-03-27 |website=Nova Scotia Archives |at=26:30 |type=Audio recording |archive-date=2023-03-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230329191548/https://archives.novascotia.ca/african-heritage/archives/?ID=616 |url-status=live }}
She founded the Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Coloured People and co-led the Cornwallis Street African Baptist Church. She advocated against the exclusion of Black students from learning nursing, and against racial segregation in education. She received an honorary doctorate degree from Saint Mary's University (Halifax) in 1990.
Early life and education
Oliver was born into a Church of England-following family as Althea "Pearleen" Borden{{Cite web |title=William Pearly Oliver |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/william-pearly-oliver |access-date=2023-04-26 |website=The Canadian Encyclopedia |language=en |archive-date=2023-02-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230209223913/https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/william-pearly-oliver |url-status=live }} at Cook's Cove near Chedabucto Bay in Guysborough County, Nova Scotia in 1917.{{cite news|url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/pearleen-oliver-civil-rights-new-book-1.5929503|title=New book brings to light legacy of civil rights crusader Pearleen Oliver|first=Emma|last=Smith|publisher=CBC|date=26 February 2021|accessdate=30 March 2023|archive-date=30 March 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230330181059/https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/pearleen-oliver-civil-rights-new-book-1.5929503|url-status=live}} Her great-grandfather was an Afro-indigenous slave, her great-grandmother was Dutch and her family was the only Black family in her community. Their daughter, Oliver's grandmother, was Catherine Jewell, who married a man from Newfoundland. Oliver lived in Cook's Cove with her nineBarrington Walker (editor)The African Canadian Legal Odyssey: Historical Essays. (2012). United Kingdom: University of Toronto Press. p113 brothers and sisters and her mother for her first two years, before moving to New Glasgow to live with her father Joseph Borden (sometimes written Bowden), who worked as a miner in Allen Mines. Her father was killed by a mining accident when she was three or four years old. her mother remarried to a potter who worked at L.E. Shaw's Clay Works in New Glasgow.[https://archives.novascotia.ca/pdf/OliverPearleen/PearleenOliver-Transcript-1.pdf PEARLENE OLIVER INTERVIEW, SUMMER 1992, TRANSCRIPT 1] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230329191551/https://archives.novascotia.ca/pdf/OliverPearleen/PearleenOliver-Transcript-1.pdf |date=2023-03-29 }} , Nova Scotia Archives, 1992
Oliver attended New Glasgow High School and was the first Black graduate in 1936. She aspired to work in nursing, but was Black students were prohibited from studying nursing in Nova Scotia at the time.
Career and activism
Oliver was a historian, writer, and an educatorGEORGE ELLIOTT CLARKE. Odysseys Home : Mapping African-Canadian Literature. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017.
Oliver expanded the African United Baptist Association in 1953 to include a Women’s Institute for Black women to gather annually and discuss racialized socioeconomic problems and their solutions. These women-run church clubs also raised money, through social functions like bake sales, to combat localized social inequities.{{Cite web |last=Archives |first=Nova Scotia |date=20 April 2020 |orig-date=1992 |others=Interviewed by Marjory Whitelaw |title=Nova Scotia Women's Oral History Project Nova Scotia Archives Sound 1995-009 Transcripts MF 420-0: Interview PDF Transcript 1 |url=https://archives.novascotia.ca/african-heritage/archives/?ID=616 |access-date=2023-03-27 |website=Nova Scotia Archives |page=16 |type=Typed interview transcript |archive-date=2023-03-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230329191548/https://archives.novascotia.ca/african-heritage/archives/?ID=616 |url-status=live }} She campaigned to get the book Little Black Sambo replaced from the reading list at her son's school.
File:1948 Children's Hospital School of Nursing.png
After repeatedly denouncing Canada’s exclusion of Black women from nursing,Keisha JEFFERIES, et al. Black nurses in the nursing profession in Canada: a scoping review. International Journal for Equity in Health, [s. l.], v. 21, n. 1, p. 1–35, 2022. {{doi|10.1186/s12939-022-01673-w|doi-access=free}} Disponível em:
Oliver received an honorary doctorate degree in Doctor of Humane Letters from Saint Mary's University (Halifax) in 1990.{{Cite web |title=Black History {{!}} The Canadian Encyclopedia |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/timeline/black-history |access-date=2023-04-26 |website=The Canadian Encyclopedia |archive-date=2023-02-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230206170118/https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/timeline/black-history |url-status=live }}{{Cite journal |last=Saint Mary's University (Halifax |first=N. S. ) |date=1990-10-28 |title=Convocation 1990 Fall |url=http://library2.smu.ca/xmlui/handle/01/25276 |language=en |access-date=2023-03-27 |archive-date=2023-03-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230327122119/https://library2.smu.ca/xmlui/handle/01/25276 |url-status=live }}
Selected publications
- A Brief History of the Colored Baptists of Nova Scotia, 1782–1953, Published by the African United Baptist Association of Nova Scotia, in Halifax, 1953GEORGE ELLIOTT CLARKE, “What Spines to Crack, What Leaves to Thumb! On Uncovering Black History in Atlantic Canada, from Cover to Cover.” Acadiensis, vol. 50, no. 1, 2021, pp. 220–22. JSTOR, {{JSTOR|27085381}}. Accessed 26 Apr. 2023.MORTON, SUZANNE, and DONALD WRIGHT. “Black History in Atlantic Canada: A Bibliography.” Acadiensis, vol. 50, no. 1, 2021, pp. 223–75. JSTOR, {{JSTOR|27085382}}. Accessed 26 Apr. 2023.
Personal life, death and legacy
File:WilliamPearlyOliver, 1934.png
Oliver and married William Pearly Oliver just before she graduated from high school in 1936. They had five sons William Jr., Leslie, Jules, Steven and Philip.
Her brother Hector Borden was the father of the actor Walter Borden.
Oliver died in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 24 July 2008, aged 91.{{cite news|url=http://pridenews.ca/2015/03/04/ryerson-honours-strong-black-women-leaders/|title=Ryerson Honours Strong Black Women Leaders|first=Neil|last=Armstrong|work=Pride|date=4 March 2015|accessdate=30 March 2023|archive-date=30 March 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230330152745/http://pridenews.ca/2015/03/04/ryerson-honours-strong-black-women-leaders/|url-status=live}} Her life was documented in Ronald Caplan's 2020 book Pearleen Oliver: Canada's Black Crusader for Civil Rights (Cape Breton Books, ISBN 9781926908816.)
See also
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP2w8Gs3-jo "The Dinner Church": Cornwallis Street and its Social Outreach Programs post-Pearleen Oliver]
- [https://www.nfb.ca/film/black_mother_black_daughter/ Black Mother Black Daughter Film]
- [https://archives.novascotia.ca/african-heritage/archives/?ID=616 Pearleen Oliver interviews] at the Nova Scotia Archives
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Oliver, Pearleen}}
Category:Black Canadian activists
Category:Canadian anti-racism activists
Category:People from Guysborough County, Nova Scotia
Category:Activists from Nova Scotia
Category:Organization founders
Category:People from New Glasgow, Nova Scotia