Heritage Day
Rocky Jones, Sir Adams George Archibald the focus of presentations
Their stories
The lives of Rocky Jones and Sir Adams George Archibald will be the focus of presentations next week at the Colchester Historeum.
The Colchester Historeum is holding an open house, with free admission, on Monday from 10 a. m. to 4 p. m. and two special guests will provide presentations during the day.
Lynn Jones, Rocky Jones and growing up in Truro’s black community – 11 a. m.
Lynn Jones will be sharing stories about her own youth and putting a personal twist on some of the stories in her brother Rocky’s book ‘ Burnley “Rocky” Jones: Revolutionary’ when she visits the historeum on Monday.
The siblings grew up in Truro and both went on to become social activists. Rocky worked as a lawyer in Halifax, often taking on cases for clients affected by societal injustice. He died in 2013.
“I will be touching on little anecdotes about my late brother and share some of my journey,” said Lynn. “I’ll talk about growing
up black in Truro.
“It’s interesting how people have different perspectives on things. I went to Willow Street School and I remember some people talking about how much they hated it and saying there was a lot of racism. I loved my experience of going to that school. Does it mean I wasn’t affected by racist attitudes? Of course I was, but I enjoyed a lot about my time there.”
She grew up in “the marsh” and didn’t question the way things were at the time. She’s seen many changes in the area and is now concerned about preserving the black culture in Truro.
Lynn has collected newspaper articles about black life for more than 50 years and worked to establish ‘ The Lynn Jones African- Canadian & Diaspora Heritage Collection” in Saint Mary’s University archives. She currently lives in Halifax. Sir Adams George Archibald: The Man and his Legacy – 2 p. m.
While other politicians were concentrating on making members of opposing parties look bad, Sir Adams George Archibald was focused on what was best for people.
Allan Marble, who wrote a book about the Archibald family, will share a presentation on Archibald.
“When you think about the politicians in Nova Scotia and Canada at the time you think about Howe and Tupper and John A Macdonald,” said Marble. “All three were very argumentative. Howe and Tupper were constantly criticizing, and saying nasty things about, one another. Archibald was different. He was a conciliator and if another party brought up a plan he thought was good he would agree with it. He would vote against his party if he thought something was good for Nova Scotia.”
Archibald was such a strong supporter of Confederation that Sir Charles Tupper, a Conservative, invited him, a Liberal, to attend the 1864 Charlottetown conference with him to represent Nova Scotia.
Before 1864 many children didn’t attend school because their parents couldn’t afford it, so Archibald also supported Tupper’s free school act.
Tupper, who was born in Truro, began studying medicine but then went into law and worked as a lawyer until he went into politics.
Marble began working on ‘ The Archibald Family of Nova Scotia: No Reward Without Effort’ after his 100- year- old grandmother asked him to write a book about her family. It took eight years of research and resulted in a 1,050- page book that includes 22,000 people.
Marble will be speaking at 2 p. m. on Heritage Day, when the exhibit ‘ Colchester at Confederation: Sir Adams G Archibald and His World’ also opens.