Categories: Articles

Derailed Lee Williams

Winnipeg-based Lee Williams, a Canadian National Railway porter, led a two-front fight for change — challenging his own union’s discriminatory agreement that restricted Black men to porter roles and working alongside allies in the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters at Canadian Pacific Railway to push for broader equality.

Harry Gairey

Here’s Pepperpot Trinidad-style, Toronto, Ontario. Multicultural History Society of Ontario,

Stanley Grizzle

This dramatic monologue portrays Stanley Grizzle, a Porter, activist, politician, and citizenship judge who reflects on his accomplishments and looks to the future.
Performed by Daniel Jelani Ellis.

Indigenous Resources For Allies

Compiled by Museum of Toronto – July 1, 2021
Updated September 9, 2021

Additional Resources and Further Reading

Derailed Digital Exhibit, a collaboration between Museum of Toronto and Cecil Foster.

The History of Toronto’s Kit Coleman

At the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, Kit Coleman talked her way onto a freighter bound for Cuba and scooped every male war correspondent with exclusive info about the combat.

Richard Fung and the History of the Gay Asians of Toronto

Disclaimer: “both GAT and Orientations use a lesbian and gay framework. Since then, sexual and gender identities and the politics around them have shifted and continue to morph as new possibilities become available. Today’s non-heterosexuals are as likely to refer to themselves as queer, non-binary, trans, bisexual and two-spirit”. Richard Fung, 2018