True North: Canadian Myths and Black Power

In 1968, the war in Vietnam was escalating, African nation-states were decolonizing, and revolutionary activity was increasing in the Caribbean. Civil unrest reverberated throughout the Western Hemisphere. In Montreal, protests were led by taxi drivers, teachers, and police officers. During this politically charged climate, a group of students converged, hailing from Jamaica, Haiti, Trinidad, and elsewhere in Canada. Their anti-colonial ideas merged with Montreal's Black communities’ long-standing spirit of social change.

This is the setting for the Congress of Black Writers. Held at McGill University in October 1968, it is reported to be the largest Black Power conference held outside of the U.S. The speakers included Stokely Carmichael (a.k.a. Kwame Ture), Alvin Poussaint, James Forman, and C.L.R. James. These titans of thought and politics discussed the meaning of Black power and the challenges faced by communities across the Black diaspora.

Montreal’s Congress of Black Writers later fed into and influenced the Black leaders of the historical student protest known as the Sir George Williams Affair at one of the city’s anglophone universities. In 1969, incensed by a racial incident involving a white faculty member, over 400 students and activists occupied the school’s computer labs in protest. What ensued was a violent reaction by the Canadian government and Montreal's police against Black youth seeking justice. Using never-before-seen historical archival footage and centering for the first time the stories of the Black students and activists who lived through these events, True North interweaves intimate accounts of what happened to tell a story of a historical chapter in the Black Power movement that impacted the struggle for Black liberation across the globe.