Black History Month: Saskatchewan African Heritage Museum, Carol LaFayette-Boyd, Executive Director

We had the honour of speaking to Carol LaFayette-Boyd, the executive director of SACHM. She is an amazing source of knowledge through her storytelling and experiences as a black women having living decades in Saskatchewan. The following is our interview with her about her personal story, Regina’s culture and of course the amazing work that the Saskatchewan African Heritage Museum is doing.

What’s your story?

My Story: I grew up right on a farm, no running water or electricity. We lived there until I was ten. We had moved into this small town called Anglia for one winter around 1949. In 1950 we moved into Rosetown but still had the farm, so we would go back and forth between the farm, and spent most of the summer at the farm. My mum passed away in 1955 then we moved to Regina in 1956. I had been there most of my life except for my first marriage, where we lived in the states for a while. First we lived in Virginia, it was so far away from home and it was so hot, but I didn’t know that was where my ancestors came from and didn’t find that out for many years later. I lived in North Dakota and Illinois. I took my psych nursing in Weyburn and then I lived in the states. When I returned to Canada in 1972, I applied at social services and I worked there, and I was going to work there for two years until I returned to the states but I never returned there. I ended up staying at social services, and ended my career with corrections and public safety after 33 years. My psych nursing experience was a wonderful experience, I never wanted to go back and work there, but it was the most wonderful learning experience possible I think. It definitely made me a better social worker, I ended up getting my degree being at social services for a while. Social services was a learning experience, then I retired in 2005. My intent was to find my genealogy. Our first road trip my sister and I took was to Virginia, because that’s when we knew that’s where our ancestors had been. In 1992 I got involved in track and field, and I’ve been with that ever since. Once I retired I was able to concentrate on doing better at track and then I started winning gold medals.

You’ve lived in Regina off and on since the 1950’s, what was it like growing up here, and how do you think the culture has changed?

Yes, when we moved here in 1956 from Rosetown, I had spent two months of high school in Rosetown and we moved here, actually lived on a farm just west of the city on the outskirts of the city. I would have normally gone to Scott Collegiate, but there had been a new school built in the south, Sheldon Williams, so everyone west of Pasqua Street had to bus it to Sheldon Williams. I bused it there for three years. The interesting thing is that we arrived in November. Many years later I found out that when I arrived at the school my homeroom teacher, Wilma Downing, had told the kids that I was coming, but she never told them that I was black, but she told them to be nice to me. In fact, when we moved to the city in 1956, I believe we were the only Black family in the city - there was another black woman that lived here and I was on the bus with her. What I found in Saskatchewan is that if you saw another black person you would go and talk to them because they could be related to you or know who they were, because there was a black settlement up north of North Battleford. My mother grew up in North Battleford with her grandmother, and everyone knew everyone. I was the only black kid in the six high schools then, and I never saw another one until I was in grade 12, a person that I think went to Campion College. My brother and sister were younger, and they were in public school. When my sister registered, apparently they asked for the race and they put down french. When I went through the census, I found that we were listed as French in the 1916 census, my great aunt was a teacher in Maystone, and she was listed as Scot.

Are you french?

No, not at all. We got our name from General LaFayette, a French General. That’s a whole other story. My dad told me when I was younger that we got our name from General LaFayette, and I thought because the general was a slave owner that’s how we got our name. I wasn’t interested in how that happened. Later on, a neighbour had asked me where we came from, and I said that they were slaves, and my dad overheard it and said “No Carol, they were free,” and I thought he was embarrassed to say that we were slaves. It turns out that this slave, James Armistead, worked during the American revolution for General LaFayette, and he was a double spy going into the British camp and the American camp, and he found out from General Cornwallis that the ships were coming and he told it to General LaFayette. The general was able to work with the Americans to stop them from getting in, and that helped the Americans win the war. James went back to his slave owner, and general LaFayette wrote a letter to the Virginia Legislator saying that they should free him because he helped them win the war. The Virginia Legislator paid his master $300 to free him, and James took the name LaFayette. There was a painting made of him back then because of who he was and someone gave me this magazine with his picture in it and I knew right off the bat that's how we got our name, and that's my ancestor, and the reason why I know this is because my dad and uncle look like him. Another interesting thing is the Virginia museum did a new painting of him and invited us down. They recognize that we are related, but we haven’t got the DNA to prove it but we are working on that.

I got off topic, but you were asking about what it was like growing up then. At Sheldon, it was just good. I still have friends from there and we still communicate. I did well in track and basketball there, and when I turned 50 and found out that there was a masters group I contacted Wilma Downing because she kept in contact with me and had me coming back for alumni basketball games, and asked her what I should do to get ready for this track and field. She hooked me up with some coaches that were still part of the club.

Artist John Martin painted James Armistead LaFayette around 1824.

Do you think the culture has changed and evolved since then?

Has it ever. Being the only black family, for people who might have tendencies to look down on people of colour, I didn’t really see any of that. I was blessed that my parents told me when I was very young that if anyone called you a name it was because they feel bad about themselves. I recognized that right off the bat, for me, if you have to call me a name, it's because you feel bad about yourself and if you're an older person it's just because you're ignorant. Working at the hospital, I learned to never take anything personal and that was really reinforced when I worked at the hospital, I never took anything personal. I felt sorry for them if they had a problem or issue, it's their problem. Coming to Regina I didn’t know that there were people that celebrated different things. At Sheldon, there were Jewish kids that were off in September and I realized that these people do something different. I started learning things about society and culture that I never experienced before. I didn’t know about the reserves, all I knew was when we lived on the farm that there were some First Nations from up North who would come to pick rock. I never thought anything of it, they were just people that lived there and those were the only people that I knew that were different, and they kept to themselves. I started finding out about different cultures and social groups, and that was a surprise from me. I never thought about where they came from because I didn’t know the history of the reserves. After I lived in the States, and came home I saw the prejudice against First Nations people and it breaks your heart. I couldn’t believe it, I had never seen anything like that. It was like what the people of African descent in the United States were experiencing, that’s what [the indigenous] people were facing here. To me, it’s worse for First Nations than that of people of African descent, although things that have happened with people of African descent that should not be happening. What's been happening in the states is heartbreaking. When I’m in Canada I have always thought of myself as a human being, but when I lived in the states I would always know that I’m black. I would be on the lookout for where I should be and where I shouldn't be, even though when I lived in North Dakota I never experienced anything, there was just something there where you knew that you were considered different.

What is your opinion of Saskatchewan’s cultural diversity?

It’s really changed, there's people from all different countries and people that speak all different languages. It's really good, it seems that our colours are really growing together.

Carol LaFayette-Boyd, Executive Director of SACHM.

What led you to being involved in SACHM?

In 2004, when they were starting the museum they contacted my sister. They started the museum because in February some groups of different African descent like the Uganda Organization, the Daughters of Africa, the Caribbean, and the Jamaican, were asked to do Black History events and they found that they didn't have all the information. They had found out about Doctor Shadd, but didn’t know about the families from Maystone. They thought that we better get someone on this committee whose family was born here. They called my sister because she is quite well known in the community, but of course my sister said that you have to call Carol because she does the genealogy. I told them that I would come and help out but I was getting ready for a big [track] meet in 2005 but I would help them with the event they were planning. Then I ended up being on the board and I got to work with a lot of people. I was the treasurer and the secretary, and there were a lot of good people that helped build the organization. I ended up staying because I’m not a quitter. I was on the board too long, so the constitution says that you can only stay a couple of terms and I had been there 14 years. I organized so many things so call me the executive director. What I’m doing is trying to find a real paid Executive Director. Once we find the funding for that I can write my book and do my track.

What’s your book about?

I just want to write about my experiences growing up on the farm, working in Weyburn-I’m going to call that chapter “one flew over the cuckoo's nest”, living in the United States, my experience as a black female and my track. I’ve had some wonderful experiences, some are not nice and I’d like to show that. I feel that I am resilient and if all of the negative things that happened to me, I feel that I am a believer and that God has turned them all around for good because if I hadn't gone through those things then I wouldn't be the person that I am.

What part of the impact SACHM is making makes you most proud?

I think the partnerships that we have established. We’ve been involved with so many groups, and what's important about that is most of these groups have been established for a long time and they spread our story and that's really wonderful.

What do you find most important that SACHM is doing for the community?

I think we are sharing and educating people about people of African descent and their heritage, history and accomplishments that have happened. It’s good for the young people, especially the people that have come from different countries in Africa that come here and their kids are born here, and for them to look and say “people have been here before and they’ve managed and it's going to be okay”.

What do you want Regina to know about your organization?

It’s open to the public, even though we are a virtual museum. There are four things we do outside of our main goal of educating the community about people of African descent and their contribution to Saskatchewan. We have Black History month in February, which we are busy the whole month sharing with whoever wants to hear and we partner with so many different groups. We still have yet to get our newcomers picnic going on June 30th, [it] is meant to welcome people to Saskatchewan and we do that from our honouring tree. The honouring tree was put up in 2011 as an art piece that recognizes the large group of people that came in 1910. We see it as a beacon of welcome, like the statue of liberty. It’s for all newcomers, not just people of African descent. On July 1st we have our cultural village. On December 26th we celebrate Kwanzaa which is an African American event that is seven days long. We're still learning about it and its principles like unity and brothers keeper. In the meantime, we also partner with other groups like the Regina Symphony Orchestra, MacKenzie Art Gallery, the Regina Public Library, Theatre Saskatchewan, New Dance Horizon, Saskatchewan Heritage, Western Development Museum, Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame, Indian Head Museum, and Melfort Museum. The Melfort museum is of course where we got all of our information about Doctor Shadd, the first person of African descent that we’ve documented on our website. There are so many out there that we’ve partnered with.

Can you discuss the mission of SACHM’s book: Li’l Shadd, A Story of Ujima?

It’s a children's book, we have it to try to recognize Dr Shadd. He was quite the person, the things that he did. He was part of the legislature, a medical doctor, he had a pharmacy, he had a newspaper, he had race horses, he was quite an accomplished man of African descent. He’s a good person to look up to, but we wouldn’t have got all the information if it wasn’t for the Melfort Museum. The book is a fictional children's book, he had a son and daughter, so we call the son Li’l Shadd but the author was a student from the university, Alix Lwanga and co author Miriam Korner. They put that together, and we had it translated into French, Cree and sign language. The Regina Symphony Orchestra made a video of it for schools and Literacy Saskatchewan they had a reading of it in English and French. It’s a nice story to tell kids what’s really important about helping your neighbour.

Ujima is one of the seven principles of Kwanzaa, do you plan to make more books on that theme?

We have one that someone is currently working on. Our goal is to have all seven.

Are there any other projects that you want to discuss?

We’re working with RSO and archives for an event in June. Our newcomers picnic and cultural village we are looking for volunteers who are working with newcomers to make sure we get out there. We're looking for entertainers or any kind. We will get you out there at our cultural village to show your wares, whatever you perform.

African Canadians history is underrepresented in Canadian Culture, how is SACHM improving this?

We have the virtual museum on our website and we’ve documented Doctor Shadd. We have documented people who have come in 1905, my dad’s side came in 1906, my mum’s side came in 1910. We’re trying to get all that information on Shiloh Church and Maystone. We call them the Shiloh people that mainly came from Oklahoma. We're also finding that in the census there were people all over the province, and we have had some funding to do research and find these people, and get some information on the website. There was a woman down in Piapot near Maple Creek who came in 1911 and lived down there and was buried down there. I think her daughter went back to the states. It's really interesting trying to follow up on these people because there was often a single person, family or group that settled somewhere throughout Saskatchewan and they probably didn’t know about the rest of us, because I didn’t know about them. There’s a couple that settled in southern Saskatchewan somewhere that never had any children, that when they passed away they left their legacy of a scholarship for young people of african descent.

How many people do you have documented in the museum?

We probably have about 50. Never thought about counting them, but there are so many more that we want to put there. We want to put people who have excelled and been part of Saskatchewan. In the arts there are some people who have left but they grew up here, or started here, or came through here and left some kind of legacy. They are part of the contribution of Saskatchewan

What do you think Regina’s community can improve on?

I don’t personally sense prejudice but I see it out there. I suspect that I did experience it but by not taking anything personally. I look at these ignorant people that do things that they shouldn’t do. People need to look at one another as a fellow human being and treat them as such, not by the colour of their skin or where they came from.

Discussion on ignorance:

They're ignorant and you laugh it off. On two occasions when I lived in Virginia I worked in Virginia’s Finest Department Store. Because my skin was fair I got to work in the jewelry department and around Christmas time there was a young girl I was telling her I was homesick, there was no snow or mandarin oranges. I said my favourite nut was pecans and you don’t even have any of those, and she said “well yeah my favourite nut is N-word toes” and I said yeah my brother used to grab my toes. Then she said “Oh Carol I'm so sorry you're so regular I didn’t notice”. It’s kind of ignorant. The same thing happened when I was a social worker, I trained social workers and I was responsible for a training package and we had been trained by the Americans. We were training in Muenster, and at the end of it we would always have a banquet. The banquet was at this hotel and one of the trainers sat across from me and another beside me and when the trainees came in none of them would sit with us. They sat at different tables, and nobody sat beside the trainer and she said “What is it? Am I black or something?”. So I said, “Oh, I thought it was me!” and she said the same thing “I'm so sorry, you're so regular”. People just don’t know what they’re saying, they’ve taken on these words and some of them it’s just something that they learned and they never really thought about it. For me I’ve never taken offence, but for the younger people I would try to reinforce that it's not about them, the people are just ignorant. I looked up the n-word in the dictionary but in the 70’s and it said stupid person, so I’ve only been called the n-word twice in my life and both people were mentally ill, and they both called me “Stupid N-word.” and I would find it funny because they’re calling me “stupid stupid” so I would have a laugh about it. I do remember my dad taking off after someone when they said something derogatory about my brother. My brother was talking to this guy's step daughter and the step dad said “get away from her n-word” and my dad just grabbed the guy.

What do you think someone can do when they see prejudice happening?

I don’t know the answer to that. We took the anti-racism training and a person of colour was helping the training. He set up a role play that was about being the only black person with his coworkers, and they get on an elevator and this little girl and her mother are on the elevator, and the little girl says to the mother, “Oh mum, there’s a n-word”. He said when he got off the elevator not one of his coworkers said anything to him, he thought they should have said something like “I'm sorry that happened to you”. I thought I wouldn’t care, a little girl calling me a name and I want you to apologise to me for this little girl? [Referring to the roleplay:] She’s got an ignorant mum and taught her this, and then I got to thinking about it after, and there are some people that would want you to say something. It depends, if someone said something derogatory to you, I would probably say “Some people are ignorant hey?”. Acknowledge it, but not make it more. I thought “poor little girl”, but don’t feel sorry for me.