Season of Rage by John Cooper

Author:John Cooper [COOPER, JOHN]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-77049-020-8
Publisher: Tundra
Published: 2005-04-22T04:00:00+00:00

Daniel and Donna Hill in 1954, not long after they moved to Canada. Donna was instrumental in helping the National Unity Association begin its challenge of racist attitudes in Dresden. Daniel Hill would go on to lead Ontario's first Human Rights Commission. Courtesy of Donna Hill

Donna Hill knew the issues of racism well; she had attended an integrated college (one that accepted both white and black students) in the U.S., and at one time had worked with a civil-rights organization in Ohio. She also volunteered for the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE), where her work included civil-rights sit-in demonstrations at segregated drugstores that refused to serve black customers.

While its offices were small, the Joint Labour Committee was supported by large and important labor organizations. Its board members were some of the most respected civil-rights activists in the country. Bromley Armstrong and Dennis McDermott were active in the labor movement, and Stanley Grizzle, working as a union representative with the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, had helped bring a union to Canada to ensure that black railroad porters were given fair treatment in the workplace. The Joint Labour Committee had been active in challenging attitudes in the workplace and in rental accommodations for several years. Earlier, the committee had challenged the practice of discrimination at the William Pitt Hotel in Chatham, where blacks were being refused service.

One day in late 1953, Donna Hill met with Hugh Burnett, Philip Shadd, and Bernie Carter in her office in Toronto. The three men sat down and poured out to her the saga of their struggle to end racial discrimination in Dresden. Hill was shocked, but not surprised. It confirmed what she and the committee had already seen: Canadians were not only refusing to do anything about discrimination, they were refusing to acknowledge that it existed. She began setting a course of action for the Joint Labour Committee to work with the NUA.

Through the early months of 1954, Hugh Burnett and the National Unity Association, along with Donna Hill and Sid Blum (who would take over from Hill in June 1954, when she left to have a baby), gathered information about the conditions of life in Dresden. Like Donna Hill, Sid Blum was especially well-suited for his duties with the group. He was born in the U.S. and, as a Jew, had experienced anti-Semitism. Active in the civil-rights movement, he was unafraid to take on the challenges of reporting what he heard from residents in the town of Dresden. He traveled to the town and duly reported everything he saw and heard in carefully written letters and reports.

Two other individuals who played a significant role in Canadian human rights were vital to Hugh's cause. Ben Kayfetz, executive secretary of the Canadian Jewish Congress, provided input on the issues reported in the town. Rabbi Abraham Feinberg of Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto, the spiritual leader of the largest Jewish congregation in Canada, dedicated his life to fighting against racism and for the cause of social justice. He helped the NUA find legal help in its fight.

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