The Congress of Black Women of Canada (CBWC) is a social movement organization that has represented the interests of Black women in this country for more than four decades at the national and local levels. While Black Canadian feminist scholars have started to explore women’s organizations, the CBWC’s organizing efforts is missing from the feminist record. This article seeks to redress this gap by using a Black feminist synthetic perspective to document the CBWC’s conference themes and issues between 1973 and 1983. Focusing on the organization’s conferences, this article uses organizational documents to analyze their workshop topics concerning youth and education, triple oppression, women’s movement, pay equity, immigration, racial profiling, institutionalized racism, health, multiculturalism, and sexuality. Given the CBWC’s focus on Black women and their families, understanding how members used their identities, ideologies, and institutions as critical categories to interpret their experiences is a particular concern. This article argues that these conferences were more than an empirical space for Black women’s gatherings. The conferences served as a time for the recovery, affirmation, and mobilization of Black feminist identities, that is, a time for connecting consciousness.
AgnewV. (1993). Canadian feminism and women of color. Women’s Studies International Forum, 16, 217-227.
2.
BannerjiH. (2000). Charles Taylor’s politics of recognition: A critique. In BannerjiH. (Ed.), The dark side of the nation: Essays on multiculturalism, nationalism and gender (pp. 125-150). Toronto, Ontario: Canadian Scholars Press.
3.
BrandD. (1994). We weren’t allowed to go into factory work until Hitler started the war: The 1920s to the 1940s. In BristowP. (Ed.), We’re rooted here and they can’t pull us up: Essays in African-Canadian women’s history (pp. 171-191). Toronto, Ontario, Canada: University of Toronto Press.
4.
BrandD. (1999). At the full and change of the Moon. Toronto, Ontario: Knopf Canada.
5.
BristowP.BrandD.CartyL.CooperA. P.HamiltonS.ShaddA. (1994). We’re rooted here and they can’t pull us up: Essays in African Canadian women’s history. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: University of Toronto Press.
6.
Brochure. (1979). Congress of Black Women of Canada [Brochure].
7.
BrooksM. (1976, May21-23). Resolutions Final Congress Session: Sunday Morning Paper presented at the Third National Congress of Black Women. Halifax, Nova Scotia.
8.
BrownR. (1973, April). Keynote address, Transcript of speech by Rosemary Brown, member of legislative assembly (mla), vancouver-burrard on the occasion of the national Congress of Black Women of Canada, convened by the Canadian negro Women’s Association Incorporated. Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
9.
CallisteA. (1989). Canada’s immigration policy and domestics from the Caribbean: The second domestic scheme. In VorstJ. (Eds.), Race, class and gender: Bonds and barriers (pp. 133-165). Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Between the Lines.
10.
CartyL. (1991). Women’s studies in Canada: A discourse and praxis of exclusion. Resources for Feminist Research, 20(3/4), 12-18.
11.
CartyL. (1993). And still we rise: Feminist political mobilizing in contemporary Canada. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Women’s Press.
12.
ClairmontD.MagillD. (1974). Africville: The life and death of a Canadian Black community. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: McClellan & Steward.
13.
CollinsP. (1990). The politics of Black feminist thought. In CollinsP. (Ed.), Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness and the politics of empowerment (pp. 3-18). New York, NY: Routledge.
14.
Congress of Black Women of Canada. (1983). Focus on Black Women. A submission to the Commission of Inquiry on equality in employment. Ottawa, Ontario. October.
15.
CooperA. (2002). Black women and work in nineteenth-century Canada West: Black woman teacher Mary Bibb. In WaneN.DeliovskyK.LawsonE. (Eds.), Back to the drawing board: African Canadian feminism (pp. 117-129). Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Sumach Press.
16.
CressD. M.MyersD. J. (2004). Authority in contention. In CoyP. (Ed.), Research in social movements, conflicts and change (Vol., 25, pp. 279-293). Elsevier.
17.
CrichlowH. (1988). Minutes of the national executive meeting. Congress of Black Women of Canada. Ottawa. February 27, 28, and 29.
18.
CromwellE. (1976, May21-23). Resolutions Final Congress Session Sunday Morning Paper presented at the Third National Congress of Black Women. Halifax, Nova Scotia.
19.
DeiG.CallisteA. (2000). Antiracist feminism: Critical race and gender studies. Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada: Fernwood Publishing.
20.
DuaEna. 1999. Scratching the surface: Canadian anti-racist feminist thought. Edited by DuaE.RobertsonA.Toronto: Women’s Press.
21.
EdithCromwellBrooksMaxine (1976, May21-23). Report of the Third National Congress of Black Women of Canada. Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
22.
FrideresJ. S. (1973). Discrimination in Western Canada. Race, 15, 213-223.
23.
FrideresJ. S. (1976). Racism in Canada: Alive and well. The Western Canadian Journal of Anthropology, 6, 124-146.
24.
GoodenA. (2008). Community organizing by African Caribbean people in Toronto. Journal of Black Studies, 38, 413-426.
25.
Guest Collective. (1986). Organizing exclusion: Race, class, community and the White women’s movement. In SilveraM. (Ed.), Fireworks: The best of fireweed (pp. 176-185). Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Women’s Press.
26.
HamiltonR. (2004). Gendering the vertical mosaic feminist perspectives on Canadian society (2nd ed.). Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Prentice Hall.
27.
JamesJ.HowardD.1982. Manitoba Human Rights Commission. Re: Possible amendments to the Human Rights Act. Congress of Black Women of Canada, Manitoba Chapter.
28.
JonesB.1983. Annual General Meeting. President’s Report. Congress of Black Women of Canada. Manitoba. April 10.
LiP. (2003). Destination Canada immigration debates and issues. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
31.
McAdamD. (2012). Putting social movements in their place: Explaining opposition to energy projects in the United States, 2000-2005. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
32.
MensahJ. (2002). Black Canadians history experiences and social conditions. Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada: Fernwood.
33.
Minutes, Meeting of the Executive Council. 1981. Congress of Black Women of Canada/Le Congress des Femmes Noires du Canada. Held in Winnipeg, Manitoba. January23-24, p. 2.
34.
National Secretariat of the National Congress of Black Women. (1980, April). [Newsletter]. 1(2).
35.
RamcharanS. (1982). Nonwhites in Canada. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Butterworth.
36.
Resources for Feminist Research. (1987). 16(1).
37.
RobnettB.MeyerD.WhittierN. (2002). Social movements: Identity, culture and the state. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
38.
SatzewichV.LiodakisN.2010. ‘Race’ and ethnicity in Canada. A critical introduction. Second edition. New York: Oxford University Press.
39.
ShaddA. (1994). The lord seemed to say “go”: Women and the underground railroad movement. In BristowP.BrandD.CartyL.CooperA.HamiltonS.ShaddA (Ed.), We’re rooted here and they can’t pull us up: Essays in African Canadian women’s history. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: University of Toronto Press, pp. 41-68.
SmallS.ThornhillE. M. A. (2008). HARAMBEC! Quebec Black women pulling together. Journal of Black Studies, 38, 427-442.
42.
SpringerK. (2001). The Interstitial politics of black feminist organizations. Meridians. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 155-191.
43.
SpringerK. (2005). Living for the revolution: Black feminist organizations, 1968-1980. United States: Duke University Press.
44.
The Canadian Negro Women’s Association (1973, April6-8). Report of the First National Congress of Black Women of Canada. The Canadian Negro Women’s Association, Toronto, Ontario.
45.
The Coloured Women’s Club (1974, November8-10). Report of the Second National Congress of Black Women of Canada. Coloured Women’s Club, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
46.
The Hour-A-Day Study Club (1977, August19-21). Report of the Fourth National Congress of Black Women of Canada. The Hour-A-Day Study Club, Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
47.
ThornhillE. (1980, November26). Congress of Black women of Canada launched letter [Letter].
48.
VorstJ. (1989). Race, class and gender: Bonds and barriers. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Between the Lines.
49.
WalkerJ. W.St.G. (1985). Racial discrimination in Canada: The Black experience. Ottawa, Ontario: Canadian Historical Association.
50.
WaneN.LawsonE.DeliovskyK. (2002). In WaneN.DeliovskyK.LawsonE. (Eds.), Back to the drawing board: African Canadian feminisms. Sumach Press.
51.
WaneN. (2013). Uncovering the well: Black feminism in Canada. In WaneN.JagireJ.MuradZ. (Eds.), Ruptures: Anti-colonial and anti-racist feminist theorizing (pp. 3-22). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
52.
Wharton-ZaretskyM. (2000). Foremothers of Black women’s community organizing in Toronto. Atlantis, 24(2), 61-71.
53.
WillsD. (1980, November). The challenge for black women in the eighties. Keynote address, Fifth Congress of Black Women of Canada Conference, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
54.
ZaldM.McCarthyJ. D. (1977). Resource mobilization and social movements a partial theory. American Journal of Sociology, 82, 1212-1241.
