Ontario Town Is Focus Of Some Racial Feeling

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30836, 23 August 1965, Page 19

Ontario Town Is Focus Of Some Racial Feeling

(Special Crspdt. N.Z.P.Aj TORONTO, Aug. 17. A little Ontario town that was once the terminus of an escape route for American Negro slaves has become the focus of what little racial tension exists in Canada. A burlap-covered cross soaked in kerosene was set afire a few days ago in the heart of Amherstburg, a community on the Detroit river which numbers 300 Negroes among its 4400 people. At the same time the words “The Klan is Coming” and “Niggers Beware” were scrawed on the walls of the First Baptist Church, a 116-year-old builidng that figures in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Speculation that the Negrohating Ku Klux Klan is moving into Canada from the Southern United States was further stirred when it was found the words “Home of K.K.K.” had been painted on road signs announcing the town’s name. Negroes Uneasy Investigation by police led to a statement that it was all the work of teen-age pranksters. But Amherstburg Negroes remain uneasy, feeling that any manifesttaions of racial prejudice, whatever the source, are reason for them to be disturbed. That the slogans should have been written on the walls of the First Baptist is ironic because the church was opened on Christmas Day, 1849, for a service of thanksgiving for Negroes who had found freedom in the town. It was there, too, that Eliza was reunited with her husband in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,”’ hearing him singing in the church.

The area has been a haven for slaves since the war of 1812 when it was occupied by Americans whose officers brought retinues of slaves with them. When the war ended, some found freedom in Amherstburg and sent word back to the South.

What began as a minor exodus turned into a flood when Washington passed the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 permitting masters to go anywhere in the United States to bring back escaped slaves. The Quakers established stations to hide fleeing Negroes during the day on their northward trek and about 30,000 slaves reached Amherstburg on the underground railway, as it was called. Many returned to the United States after emancipation but a large number of the Negroes living in Amherstburg today are descendants of slaves. And they are worried.

A Negro girl ran off in panic when a white man in a car pulled up beside her on a downtown street and growled: “The Klan is going to get you." And six other Negroes reported receiving telephone threats from persons claiming to be Klansmen. Robert Shelton, the Klan’s Imperial Wizard, seized on the incidents to announce from his home in Alabama that many Canadians have recently become K.K.K. members, especially in the area around.. Amherstburg and Windsor on the Canadian side of the river near Detroit, Michigan. “All Christian people of necessity must bind together to fight communism and the invasion of the black plague,” Shelton said. Skepticism Expressed But Dr. Daniel Hill, director of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, a Government organisation set up to

deal with discrimination in public places, was skeptical. He thought Shelton was “climbing on the recruiting bandwaggon” by saying he had members in Canada. The Klan has, in fact, been in Canada, but that was in the 1920 s when it gained a foothold in Saskatchewan. Finding practically no Negroes in the grain-growing province, it focused its attention on immigrant Roman Catholics and Jews and at one time claimed membership of 47,000. But after an unsuccessful fling at politics in 1929 it quickly died out. The occasional group was started in other parts of the country but the Klan has been unknown in Canada since before World War 11. Few Negroes One reason why this is not particularly fertile territory is that Canada has so few Negroes. They number about 37,000, less than 1 per cent of the population. There have been incidents of discrimination against them from time to time, notably at summer resorts and other places providing public accommodation. And while there are Negro doctors and professors, it is still difficult for a coloured person to attain a high position in business. Unlike many cities in the northern United States, the arrival of a Negro family in a neighbourhood does not prompt a rush by white residents to sell. And in one predominantly white Toronto neighbourhood a Negro has been elected to the Ontario Legislature. But there is prejudice, and it is safe to say that if there were a significantly large proportion of Negroes among Canada’s 20,000,000 people there would be considerably more discrimination. For, however authorities

care to interpret the events of recent days in Amherstburg, they do mean that at least some residents harbour ill-feeling toward their darkskinned neighbours.