Ideas from the CBC: From Grit to Glory

Mary Ann Shadd Cary was born in 1823 in Delaware to parents who were free African Americans. She moved to Canada in 1850 after America's passing of the Fugitive Slave Law. She founded a racially integrated school in Windsor, Ontario. Three years later she became the first Black woman publisher in Canada with her newspaper, The Provincial Freeman. The story of this Black woman who was a lawyer, publisher, and educator and whose work and legacy laid the groundwork for Black liberation in Canada has long been hidden from most Canadians. But a growing body of scholarship along with greater cultural attention is bringing Mary Ann Shadd Cary and her remarkable story to the masses.