New exhibit explores history of St-Henri at Montreal’s Pointe-à-Callière

Montreal’s Pointe-à-Callière Museum is hosting an exhibit called “The Heart and Soul of St-Henri” until May 11.

The exhibit focuses on St-Henri’s economic development and the daily lives of its residents.

Historian and Dr. Dorothy Williams gave a lecture about the history of the Black community in St-Henri at the museum on Thursday.

“I bring the narrative up to about 1970s. So that’s pretty long. So that’s over 120 years of history I’m going to be covering,” she said. “They give us a real insight into how our society has developed and contributions that people made. And the importance of creating different role models.”

Dr. Williams, is a historian, author and professor, who received her degree from Concordia, followed by a PHD at McGill.

Her research specializes in the history of slavery, specifically about the Quebec and the Afro-descendant presence in Canada from the 17th century to the first half of the 20th century.

She said that she learned a lot from her research and gave her new insights.

“I uncovered a few things that I hadn’t seen before, and I’ve studied a lot about the black community, but particularly in one geographic area. Most of the time, Canadians in general don’t talk about slavery because they didn’t know we had slavery in this country.”

The museum hosted Dr. William’s lecture Thursday night, with almost 100 people in attendance.

She explained how there are several ways that others can learn about Black history on their own.

“We have a lot more resources now,” Williams said. “There’s Canadian Encyclopedias that have a lot of articles on Blacks in Canada in general. And different parts of the federal government websites highlight Black role models and heroes and contributors.”