One problem is that those engaging in Indian Residential School denialism understand the important role that truth-telling about the past has on social change. If establishing the truth is, as the TRC contended, the precondition for healing, justice, and reconciliation, then denialists seek to deliberately divert attention away from the truths about the horrors of Indian Residential Schools.
Kathleen McKenzie and Sean Carleton As the result of the news of unmarked graves being located at former residential schools across Canada, many people are finally reckoning with the history of the Indian Residential School (IRS) system. While school survivors and Indigenous communities are not surprised by the recent revelations, some Canadians have been shocked to learn of the high… Read more »
By Thomas Peace In 1842, at the Dawn settlement near Dresden, Ontario, Josiah Henson built the British American Institute (BAI), a school for peoples who had escaped their enslavement. Five years later, about 75 kilometers from the BAI, on the banks of the Deshkan Ziibiing near London, Methodist missionary Kahkewaquonaby (Peter Jones) – a Mississauga leader from Credit River (western… Read more »
Today, the editors of Active History have decided to paint the site orange to honour the thousands upon thousands of Indigenous children brutalized and killed in the Indian Residential School system—including those whose small bodies were recently located in unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, the former Marieval Indian Residential School, the former St. Eugene’s Mission School,… Read more »
By James Cullingham In 1964 Bob Dylan released The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carrol, one of his masterworks. The song chronicles the circumstances of the atrocious murder of an African American woman and the hypocrisy of the society that produced her killer. As the horrifying revelations from Kamloops and Cowessess of graves at the sites of former residential schools have… Read more »
John Rose My dad is a great storyteller. Exaggerating at the right moments and building an exciting narrative, he shares anecdotes of incarceration and survival that reflect a man who grew up in a post-World War II (WWII) working-class family in the rust belt of Ontario. When I was growing up, he would tell his stories to me and my… Read more »
We like to think that the abuses of the past might have been avoided if only decision makers and the public had known about them. In these cases, the information was available, and change did not come.
By Carling Beninger Given the recent debate in Canada about the commemoration of historical figures involved in the Indian residential school (IRS) system, including calls to remove names of historical figures from schools or buildings, it is important also to recognize the necessity of commemorating IRS sites. Acknowledging the legacy of the IRS system at school sites will not only… Read more »
In January, the Graphic History Collective (GHC) launched Remember | Resist | Redraw: A Radical History Poster Project to intervene in the Canada 150 conversation. Earlier this month we released Poster #07 by Sean Carleton and Crystal Gail Fraser, which was published on Canada Day in conjunction with Idle No More’s Unsettling Canada: a Call to Action. The poster examines… Read more »
By Krista McCracken Historical photographs can be used to serve a variety of research, personal, and community interests. Images can be used for genealogy, legal testimony, supplementing written historical accounts, and providing windows into the past. Photographs can also be used as important tools in healing, reconciliation, and in the reclamation of lost history.The use of photographs in the reclamation… Read more »
