Toronto marks Black History Month with unique vision

The annual Black History Month in February was observed in Ontario, Canada's most populous province, with events celebrating distinguished Africans who adopted Canada as their homeland.

Toronto's black community was recently pegged at 900,000 strong, the largest across Canada. 1979 marked the year that Toronto became the first municipality in Canada to proclaim Black History Month. This formalized the celebration of the experiences and achievements of African Canadians.

Much of the black cultural influences in Canada came from the United States, the Caribbean and Africa.

February only sparked the flame of black history in Canada. The unique vision in 2015 is that black Canadians can celebrate Canada as their homeland. Toronto Mayor John Tory's focus will be on bringing the city together as "One Toronto."

In a statement, Tory discussed the struggles for equal opportunity and freedom from discrimination that the black community faces. A struggle that the Environics Institute, an NGO that conducts public opinion and social research in Canada, is taking the time to document the exceptional challenges that the black community still experiences living in Toronto. In the past, African Canadians have made significant contributions to Canadian identity, culture, economy, literature, sports and politics.

But black life has changed. Suelyn Knight, Environics project coordinator, emphasized that "the results are expected to provide a focal point for the black community circa 2015 to better harness its assets and expand its successes broadly throughout the entire community." The narrative created will further expand the vibrancy of the black community, she added.

Philip Vassel from Word Magazine believed that Canada's unique take on black history is that "it's like Motown, where music is made by blacks but found a universal audience in the process." Blacks in Canada have found a universal audience to become one in Canada.

In downtown Toronto, the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) is featuring Jean Michel Basquiat in an exhibition where timing was a pleasant coincidence. "We've been hoping to arrange an exhibition of Basquiat's work for years," said Andrea-Jo Wilson of the AGO.

Basquiat took the New York City art world by storm in the early 1980s and gained international recognition by creating powerful and expressive works that confronted issues of racism, identity and social tension. Although his career was cut short by his untimely death at age 27, his groundbreaking drawings and paintings continue to challenge perceptions, provoke vital dialogues and empower us to think critically about the world around us, said the AGO.

The exhibition titled "Jean-Michel Basquiat: Now's the Time" marks the first major retrospective of the artist's work in Canada and will feature close to 85 large-scale paintings and drawings from private collections and public museums across Europe and North America.

Ian Robertson, a visitor to the AGO exhibition, told Xinhua, " Basquiat embodies the renaissance and range of African Canadians by unifying our collective pride as an expression of artistic culture." Basquiat once said he painted black protagonists because he didn't see them in paintings. Endite