BLACK LIVES MATTER
How a Facebook call sparked a movement that made Toronto sit up and listen,
As Black Lives Matter co-founder Sandy Hudson put it, it was a “bad week to be black in Toronto.”
During that seven-day period near the middle of March, news broke that the city was downsizing Afrofest in Woodbine Park. Alex Wettlaufer was shot by police after they responded to a report of an armed man. And the Special Investigations Unit said there were no grounds to charge the officer who fatally shot Andrew Loku last July.
Organizers of Black Lives Matter (BLM) Toronto — largely young, black, queer and trans folk — held an urgent meeting and decided to protest by holding a mini-Afrofest at Nathan Phillips Square on March 20 and stay the night.
When police arrived at city hall to kick them out, the group packed up and moved camp to police headquarters, kicking off a 15-day occupation.
Hudson says it was brazen but also the right thing to do.
“So sure, bring all your people here. We’re going to go to your house,” she says.
The next night, police seized their tents and doused a fire they’d set in a drum. Protesters were even more determined to stay.
They ended the occupation on April 4, because members felt they’d hit a milestone — by proving the community could create something powerful and “show the wider community we’re not going to take this,” says Hudson.
On April 13 came a major victory: the coroner announced an inquest into Loku’s death after intense pressure from the group.
Organizers have also demanded Mayor John Tory hold a public meeting on antiblack racism in policing, but Hudson says they were told the mayor feels large meetings are unproductive. They’ve refused to meet him privately, as he has suggested. The mayor said this week he would meet other black leaders to discuss trust in policing.
Former police board chair Alok Mukherjee says the group’s emphasis on community meetings is important to enhance “public accountability.” Mukherjee has participated in public discussions with BLM Toronto members about carding and racial profiling.
“I’ve been very impressed by their total commitment to the issues they’re fighting for,” says Mukherjee, who believes the group has the energy of the influential Black Action Defence Committee before the death of longtime leader Dudley Laws. “BLM is filling that big hole, with the difference that it is led by young people. And it doesn’t have the same kind of conventional structure.”
BLM Toronto was formed in 2014 after Hudson put out a call on Facebook to gauge interest in a public vigil for Michael Brown, shot dead by police in Ferguson, Mo. Reaction to the shooting of the unarmed teenager that August reverberated beyond U.S. borders.
More than 30 friends and community organizers responded to Hudson’s post and helped co-ordinate the vigil, which Hudson didn’t expect to garner much attention on a cold November day.
But interest grew after a Missouri grand jury decided the officer who shot Brown would not be charged.
In all, 3,000 people attended the vigil outside the U.S. Consulate.
Meanwhile, local tragedies were also influencing the activists. Jermaine Carby, 33, had died in September 2014 in Brampton — he was shot after being pulled over by Peel regional police — with little media response. Police said he was armed with a knife, but SIU investigators didn’t find one at the scene. Instead, the weapon was handed over to a senior officer several hours after the shooting. No charges were laid.
“I thought, ‘this is how people ignore racism in Canada,’ ” says Hudson. “They don’t think that it’s something that’s in their own backyard.”
After the vigil, organizers met to debrief and decided to form Black Lives Matter Toronto. Hudson says it was Alexandria Williams, a York University theatre major, who urged everyone to keep the momentum going.
Her group contacted the U.S. organization, founded by Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tometi and Alicia Garza in 2012 after George Zimmerman was acquitted in the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida.
The two groups met over Skype and the Torontonians got permission to use the BLM name.
And yet, the vigil at the consulate was supposed to be a “one-off event,” says Hudson. “It was not about starting an organization.”