Thread by @globeandmail

The creative team behind The Porter have each had risen, separately, to the top of Canada’s entertainment business.

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Now the team – actor/producers Arnold Pinnock and Bruce Ramsay; the writer/showrunners, Marsha Greene and Annmarie Morais; the directors, Charles Officer and R.T. Thorne – are working together for the first time, on the biggest Black-led television production in Canadian history.

The show – a joint @CBC/@BET production – is about Canadian history: the true story of Black railway porters in North America.

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Hired by white bosses to serve rich travelers, they came together in 1925 to form the first Black union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.

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The porters sowed the seeds of the Civil Rights movement and helped create a Black middle class. They changed Canadian law, and, as actor/producers Arnold Pinnock puts it, “wove themselves into the fibres of our flag.”

Yet, with a few exceptions, their names were never recorded.

But now, their accomplishments are finally being honoured.

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The creative team pulled off the ambitious project because the entire crew shared actor/producers Arnold Pinnock's sense of mission – that this was a once-in-a-lifetime, game-changing project.

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“We all dreamt it,” director, Charles Officer says. “It took the power of all of us dreaming it together to make it happen. It was like a secret handshake without needing the handshake.”

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