I have been a social worker for forty-two years. In this profession, we often work with clients who are living on the margins, who face adversity every day. But I believe most of us face adversities in life and we have someone, or something, that helps us overcome. In 2011, the Family Service of Support presented me with the Ambassador Award. Through the award, I was recognized as a community leader who had overcome adversity and challenges and had then given back by helping others. For this special edition of Understorey Magazine, I wanted to write a story that would inspire, one that would be helpful to someone facing adversity. I decided to share the journey of completing my doctorate degree, a journey that covered very rocky terrain indeed.

In January 1990, I became the first African Nova Scotian hired at Dalhousie University in a tenure track position. I recall someone saying to me at the time, “Wow, they must have lowered the standards to let you teach there.” Such negative comments only served to make me work harder, more diligently and more effectively. However, my contract at Dalhousie stipulated I had to complete course work towards a PhD by year six of the job. The director of my department said, “If you don’t get a PhD, you will be marginalized in the university, so it is not an option.” This meant that I had to apply to a different university to complete a PhD. I was rejected by several institutions, but opportunity knocked unexpectedly in 1993 when I was accepted into the PhD program in sociological studies at the University of Sheffield in England. My research was a participatory study of the factors that helped Black men survive in societies where they were expected to fail. My PhD years (1992-1996) became the best of times and the worst of times, all in one package.

It was the best of times because, first, I had incredible family and community support (also known as pressure to perform). I had the most amazing PhD supervisor, Dr. Lena Dominelli, an Italian-Canadian mentor who believed in me even when I did not believe in myself. Second, my PhD research made a positive impact on the lives of Black men, both in Canada and in England, and led to many policy and institutional changes in both countries. Professionally, my studies positioned me for a stellar career, which led to my promotion to full professor in 2006.

While there were many positives, my PhD years were also the worst of times because they were bracketed by huge losses in my life and unbelievable trauma that remains difficult to talk about to this day. In year one of my program in England, my maternal grandmother died after a twenty-four-hour stay in hospital. This was a terrible loss; she was my second mother. In year two, my father-in-law died after two weeks in a coma, following a massive stroke. One month later, my eldest brother (who was like a father to us after Dad died) was diagnosed with cancer and nearly died after his first round of chemotherapy. The worry of this devastating family issue was almost immobilizing. It was difficult to be in England when I wanted to be back in Halifax helping my family cope.

If all of this was not enough, when my spouse, George Bernard, and I finally returned home after I had completed my doctoral program, we became victims of a fraud scheme. The fraud was a complex set of lies and impersonations that were used to commit a number of crimes, including identity theft, embezzlement, emotional abuse, threats, extortion and theft. After some extraordinary police work, including a sting operation, the police arrested the perpetrator, who confessed immediately and also requested to see me. It turned out she was a relative, a young woman whom I had mentored and who was a member of our church family. She requested to see me because I was a social worker and she thought I might drop the charges. Her mother also invited me to her house in the hopes that I might drop the charges. The story from both the perpetrator of the crime and her mother was the same: we should not let our Black youth go through the criminal justice system because the system does not, in fact, do them justice. As a social worker, I was expected to understand this and show compassion. The church family did not quite know how to deal with the situation and most people did not feel comfortable talking to me about it. As a victim of the fraud scheme who just happened to be a social worker, I was expected to understand, to forgive, to be lenient, to be more tolerant and more patient. As a leader in the Black community and an advocate for social justice, I was expected by others in the Black community to be compassionate and understanding.

We did not drop the charges. Although the perpetrator had originally confessed, she retained a lawyer and entered a plea of not guilty on her first appearance. The case dragged through the criminal justice system for eighteen months, with many court appearances and delays, all meant to wear us down. Finally, we went to trial by judge only. On the first day of the trial, the perpetrator changed her plea once more, this time to guilty, and her lawyer asked for a non-custodial sentence because she expressed remorse. We spoke to the judge through our victim impact statements and told of the emotional and psychological trauma we experienced both during the crime and during the frequent trips to court. In the end, the perpetrator was given six months in the Halifax Correctional Centre. Our family was vindicated by the outcome of the criminal case. However, we were not vindicated by the community, those who thought: “She is a social worker, a Black woman, an advocate; she should not lay charges.”

That was one of the most difficult situations I have ever had to deal with in my life. At the time, I questioned my ability to continue in social work. I questioned my ability to judge character and to assess an unsafe situation. I became a social work educator because I wanted to influence how social work was practised from a critical perspective. When I became a victim of crime, and people expected me to drop the charges, I questioned my ability to teach and inspire others. In fact, I questioned my entire belief system.

However, this was also a time when my family became stronger and even more united. We depended on each other, believed in each other and supported each other. I knew if I gave in to my depression, fears and anxiety, it would be impossible to go on. I did not want to become that angry, bitter person who lived life without hope. In addition, my eldest brother who faced his own challenge with such amazing grace lost his battle and died in the midst of this journey, two months before my graduation. I needed to be a role model for my daughter who was also victimized by the fraud scheme. If I faltered, she might become re-victimized.

Most significant for me was that I found strength in my spirituality and, as I grieved the multiple losses, I found the courage to go on. I completed my PhD and attended graduation in England, surrounded by family and friends. I had some very supportive social work colleagues who helped me through. Today, I thank them for helping me find my passion for social work and social change. I thank them for helping me overcome this adversity with dignity, respect, integrity and tenacity. I now realize that, although I experienced trauma, I also experienced post-traumatic growth.

After over four decades as a social worker, twenty-seven years as an educator, ten years as director of the Dalhousie School of Social Work and now as a Senator, I still have a passion for social work and social change. I have had many mentors and role models who have helped me along the way. I stand on their shoulders and I am guided by a sense of “critical hope.” As a result, I continue to give back, to lift as I climb, as the writer bell hooks says. We were targets of a vicious crime, but we did not become bitter; we became stronger. And as a result, we have received so many more blessings, including the ability to pay it forward. It is my sincere critical hope that wherever I speak, someone will remember something I say and because of it their life, and the lives of those they touch, will be changed a little. My hope is that we all build more capacity to find the courage to give back, despite the adversities we face.

Since grade school, I have had a passion for books and reading. This must have been evident to my teacher during elementary school because, on the last day before summer break, she gave me a gift. It was a collection of hardcover Dr. Seuss books. It came with its own bright blue, hard plastic book rack in the shape of the hat-wearing feline. While other kids on my street ran through the fields, climbed trees and collected bugs, I spent most of that summer inside, sucking my thumb and reading the shiny new books from cover to cover, over and over again.

But as my interest in reading grew, so did my awareness of what was missing in the books I read: Me. None of the characters looked like me, acted like me or spoke to my experience. So, when a book came along that did, I clung to it. I somehow stumbled onto a book called Harriet’s Daughter by M. NourbeSe Philip, and it was probably one of the first times I’d seen Black people in books outside of the bit of history we learned in school. I immediately wanted more. As a teen, I took an interest in novels like Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor and The Color Purple by Alice Walker. Those stories reassured me that my experiences were just as valid, important and worth reading about as all the others. But the shelves in which those books lived always seemed to be the slimmest section of the entire library.

This is the cry of many educators, youth and other readers: Where are the diverse stories? My recent entry into the publishing business as an Acquisitions Editor puts me in a unique position to contribute to positive change. I enjoy sitting around the boardroom table and engaging in those deep and meaningful conversations about culture, race, identity and the ways in which we can expand how we share our perspectives with the world. It’s vital to have diverse viewpoints and experiences included in conversations about the types of stories we should be publishing.

In a recent media interview about my latest book, Ride or Die (Lorimer, 2017), I was asked whether I was the first Black acquisitions editor at a Nova Scotia book publishing company. It was a good question, but one that I couldn’t answer. I did some digging afterwards but came up empty. I’m curious to know which others walked this path. First Nations people? African Nova Scotians? Muslims? And if I am the first, now is the perfect time, as diversity in the stories we read and in those who tell them is slowly and steadily becoming a permanent fixture on the literary landscape.

As an African Canadian female writer, I am also exceptionally positioned to create those stories with diverse characters and inclusive themes. I have several manuscripts still yet to be published that focus on everything from a Muslim teen as main character to the mobilization of a stigmatized group of friends. However, as minority authors, we often face the threat of being pigeonholed. There is a belief that we are only good at writing about diversity and minority issues, or that our characters are not mainstream folks with everyday challenges but instead must be defined by their “diverseness.” Yet our race, class, gender or ethnicity are not the only stories we can tell. As humans and as individuals, we are not one single story and minority writers continue to demonstrate that they are not only equipped to write minority stories but are just as skilled in writing mainstream ones as well. I feel that an incredible storyteller is a gift to the world. She has the ability to make us see things in ways we might never have seen, were it not for her artistic gifts leaping back from the page.

The publishing industry is slowly changing to broaden the diversity of stories told and authors published. Readers are finding increased opportunities to connect with different kinds of characters, themes and stories. Bookshelves are beginning to look more representative of the world we live in. I am excited to be a very small part of that momentum.

When Black Loyalists came to settle in Birchtown, Nova Scotia, in the late 1700s, most arrived as “free blacks.” They were former slaves who fought for the British in the American Revolutionary War in exchange for land and freedom. When they arrived in Birchtown, however, they found themselves still indentured to wealthy white Loyalists in order to survive the harsh conditions. For many, promises of land, food and lodgings never materialized. Birchtown residents did the best they could to take care of each other, but many starved or died from disease. This so-called paradise was a living hell, but it was better than slavery and a master’s whip.

“Grace and Roberta” tells of two such settlers and the night of the Shelburne Riots, the first recorded race riot in Canada.

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Sisters Roberta and Grace escaped from a plantation in southeastern United States. They travelled through the Underground Railroad to New York and then by ship to Port Roseway in Nova Scotia. Slave hunters were on the lookout for two women, but Grace and Roberta were able to go undetected. You see, Roberta was no delicate flower. She dressed like a man. Everyone she met thought she was a man.

When Roberta and Grace arrived in Birchtown during the middle of the winter, nobody questioned this young couple who had come to settle like all the rest. Many of those already living there showed the sisters how to stay warm and how to protect themselves from the harsh, unknown elements.

Roberta was a terrific axe-woman. She helped split firewood and build shelters. She was also a hunter of wildlife, so she was able to feed herself and Grace with small game, rabbits and birds, and gave what she could to others. Most people didn’t worry about “Robert” and how famished he looked. They were just happy to have another pair of helping hands. Roberta found it easier to let people believe she was a man; easier than trying to explain the horror of her experiences as a woman and a slave. She did what she had to do and never complained. No one questioned her gender.

Grace, on the other hand, was so much more the lady of the two. Grace was a teacher and Birchtown needed teachers, not only for the children but also for adults who could not read or write. So Grace taught children during the day and adults in the evenings after they finished work in town.

Roberta and Grace went about their daily lives until one day in 1784 when they had to defend themselves from disbanded British soldiers. These soldiers came to Birchtown with a promise to kill every Black man there. They were unable to find work, couldn’t care for their families and thought the Blacks were taking the food off their table. Truth be told, the Blacks had very little too—but they were not about to lose it. So the fight began.

Roberta was in a bad spot because the community leaders demanded that every capable man carry a gun and use it against the soldiers. She followed this order out of fear of people finding out she was a woman. But what frightened her most was shooting at another person.

The fighting became fierce. Many on both sides were wounded. Later, they would call it a race riot, but on that night it was a war and people fought for their lives and their loved ones. Roberta joined a group called the Black Pioneers. She helped gather guns and she set up a post at the end of the road that led from their settlement. No one knew Roberta had picked that spot—the most dangerous spot of all because she would be the first to encounter the soldiers coming toward the settlement. She chose this place because she would be alone. She did not realize the fate of all of Birchtown would lay in her hands.

Roberta waited for the soldiers in the damp, dark woods. When she heard a shot, she knew she’d been hit in the arm. She fell to the ground and felt tremendous fear. But it was not the fighting that scared Roberta. She could not shake the thought that slavery was at her door again. Still, she kept fighting and eventually fought off the soldiers. She stopped them from entering the settlement and they turned away in defeat.

While Roberta fought, Grace wandered around Birchtown looking for her sister. She knew Roberta would never give herself away; that she would fight like a man (or a woman). Grace began to cry and told everyone she met about her sister, Roberta. One of the men heard Grace’s story and said this man, or woman, as Grace explained, acted in great bravery. She came forward before anyone else to defend the most dangerous position. The man explained that she was wounded, but that she was now by the fire being treated by some of the women.

Grace made her way to the huge fire that burned at the edge of the brook. There were many men wounded and in pain. Grace looked up along the brook and found Roberta sitting with her hair down, talking to the women who were caring for her.

“Here I am, Grace!” Roberta called. “We don’t have to worry. We don’t have to hide. We are truly free.” Grace put her arms around her sister and cried.

Roberta and Grace stayed in Birchtown even after many had left. Grace taught in the one-room school and Roberta helped however she could. They married brothers and had many children whose descendants still live in Birchtown today.