Banding together
The men of Canada’s first segregated construction battalion overcame bigotry to serve their country.
When the First World War began in 1914, black Canadian men responded to the call to arms.
Despite being willing to serve overseas, and contrary to official government policy, many potential recruits were told by unit commanding officers that black men were not wanted by the Canadian military.
As a result, the vast majority of black men were turned away. Despite this rejection, about fifteen hundred black men managed to enrol in the Canadian Expeditionary Force.
But black Canadians were determined to serve in greater numbers. Community leaders wrote letters of protest and approached local and federal politicians to make their voices heard.
Finally, with the help of supportive white Canadians, in 1916 the Canadian military responded by establishing a segregated construction battalion.
The black population of Canada at the time was about twenty thousand, with the majority (seven thousand) in Nova Scotia. On July 5, 1916, more than six hundred black recruits gathered at Pictou, Nova Scotia.
The community was chosen as a base for the unit in part because it was the closest town to the residence of Lieutenant Colonel Donald Sutherland, a prominent railroad contractor who had volunteered to form the battalion — provided he could do so close to home.
The No. 2 Construction Battalion was comprised of about 300 men from Nova Scotia, 125 from New Brunswick, Ontario, and the Prairies, 163 from the United States, and approximately 30 from the British West Indies. The battalion’s mission was to support combat troops on the Western Front. It was one of three construction battalions Canada established during the war.
Although made up of black enlisted men, the unit’s officers were white, with one notable exception: The battalion chaplain, the Reverend Dr. William A. White, was given the rank of honorary captain, making him the only black officer in the Canadian military during the First World War and one of only a handful in the entire British Empire.
The Black Battalion, as the unit was usually called, sailed to England in March 1917 before moving to southeastern France in May.
There, the men assisted four companies of the Canadian Forestry Corps in logging, milling, and shipping lumber. They also dug trenches, built railroads, repaired roads, and laid barbed wire for combat operations.
After the war ended, the battalion returned to Canada in January 1919 and was disbanded in September 1920. Canadian Senator Calvin Ruck in 1983 organized the first reunion and recognition event to honour the surviving members of the unit.
This was followed in 1986 with the publication of his book, The Black Battalion 1916–1920: Canada’s Best Kept Military Secret. Since 1993 there have been annual celebrations in Pictou to honour the men of No. 2 Construction Battalion.