Thread by @NHenryFundi

Today was a great start to my week! I enjoyed leading this engaging session about Josiah Henson & the Dawn settlement w/ these insightful young men in advance of their trip to Uncle Tom’s Cabin. A fresh reminder of the imp of Black Ss learning about Black history @WRT_PDSB

https://twitter.com/Stephen4Equity/status/1120735007872569345

What did we do? The focus was to examine Josiah Henson, the real man, outside of the literary text that he inspired. In centering him, we can gain an appreciation of his humanity and agency, gain insight into his perspective and that of other freedom seekers who came to Cda.

Began by starting a K-W-L chart. I showed the last 15mins of a new docu, Josiah, to show when Josiah and his wife Charlotte decided to flee w 4 children to Cda, then a few yrs later helped to establish the Dawn settlement tvo.org/video/document…

Read and discussed an excerpt on the British American Institute, the school of the Dawn Settlement from A North-Side View of Slavery (p.309 – 312) docsouth.unc.edu/neh/drew/drew.…

Discussed excerpt from his autobiography, The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself (p. 72 – 76) on the Dawn Settlement, that had a popn of appx 500 Black people
docsouth.unc.edu/neh/henson49/h…

Then explored the 1871 census online to learn more about Henson & the Black community in Dawn. Searched for Henson
District Name: Bothwell
Sub-District Name: Camden
bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census/187…
His family is on p.77. Pgs 60 – 92 covered the Dawn community. Research trick I learned

the pg# is the last 2 #s before ".jpg". You can change these last 2 #s to get to the pgs 60-92. I shared that explorer Matthew Henson was Josiah's great grand nephew. Shared about Hugh Burnett & the National Unity Assoc.
ontarioplaques.com/Plaques/Plaque…
re: racism faced by descendants of

early Black settlers in the area and how people came together to demand legislation to adress racial discrimination, achieved in the 1950s, which folded into ON Human Rights Code in 1962. Shared that the school became the Black separate school in the region that all Blk children

had to attend when trustees imposed racially segregated schooling. Black parent Dennis Hill wrote a letter about it to Ryeson after he was denied enrolling his son in a nearby school in Nov. 1852. He filed a court case. His letter: archives.gov.on.ca/en/explore/onl…
Discussed that Black ppl

have a long history of advocating for their children's education in ON.

Resources on the fight for racial equality in Dresden:
Dresden Story, NFB, 1954
nfb.ca/film/dresden_s…

How a group stood up for civil rights in an ON town: Bromley Armstrong & Ruth Lor 60 Years Later


Welcome to Dresden

Closed by revisiting Henson's powerful words "I will use my freedom well".