A Black Man's Toronto*
*Part of this article is from "A Black Man's Toronto 1914-1980. The Reminicences of Harry Gairey" (Multicultural History Society,1981), pp.26-27.
I left Jamaica at the age of five and my family moved to Cuba.
Cuba had a lot of immigrants from the West Indies at that time. I spent my sixteenth birthday here in Canada, and when I came in I had $362. We didn't need any passport at that time. We didn't take a medical or anything. We crossed at Niagara Falls. You had to go through the States then. We came up on the Ward Line, a ship, and landed in New York. I stayed in the station all that day and then crossed over at Niagara Falls into Canada. Immigration checked us in; you showed them how much money you had, and that was it. This was 1917, March or April. To be frank, I didn't really know the difference between Canada and the States. I just wanted to travel. Three of us came up from Cuba. All three were Jamaicans, Henry Griffiths from Manchester, Nehemiah Clark and I were from Runaway Bay. Griffiths and I used to work in the same sugar mill in Cuba. I think he was in the machine shop, and I was working with the chemists in the laboratory. Nehemiah Clark was a carpenter working in the carpenter shed. We all had some money....
We came straight to Toronto. There weren't enough rooms for all three of us on Adelaide Street with the Smiths, so they recommended us to Mr. and Mrs. Renrick. These were not boardinghouses, but they were West Indian families wanting someone to help them with the rent. The Renricks were also from Jamaica. Nehemiah Clark and Griffiths moved shortly after, but I stayed with the Renricks. They were so kind to me and generous. They were very gracious people to be with; she was like a mother and he was like a father to me. He was working for some book company, and later he went on the railroad, the Grand Trunk Line, and he worked for the superintendent, Mr. Lynch, in his private car and stayed there until the Grand Trunk amalgamated into the Canadian National Railroad, and later on they moved to Buffalo. I stayed with the Renricks and didn't leave until I got married in 1926....
I went to night school here, Central Tech, and I worked on the railroad in the day. There weren't many Blacks here at the time. Not more than 5,000, if that many, I doubt it. At one point I knew most every Black family in Toronto. You would give a party at your house and next time I would, and it went around in circles. The Hubbards-Mr. Hubbard had been an alderman for Ward 4 and a controller and acting mayor at one time. I think it was during the time of McKendley. His picture was in the old City Hall, but it was taken down from the gallery. Dr. Hill was endeavouring to have it rehung because people should know that the Black people, however simple, have contributed something to Toronto as it is today. I think the Hubbards were bakers. Fred Hubbard, the son of the first Hubbard was the assistant manager of the Mackenzie and Mann Company [later known as the Toronto Transit Commission]. This may have been under Mayor Fleming.
In the 1920s there wasn't any West Indian settlement, as such, in Toronto. A few coloured people would live on Adelaide Street, a few on Queen Street, some in Cabbagetown and on University Avenue. The Simpsons had a large house on University Avenue between Dundas and Queen Streets. One coloured church was on Edward Street and one on Elm Street, where the Sick Children's Hospital is now. These were sold, and the African Methodist bought on Soho Street, and the BME -British Methodist Episcopal-was on Chestnut Street and then moved to Shaw Street. The Baptist church moved to Huron Street. I think the Baptist church was the first Black church in Toronto. They never seemed to keep preachers there very long ....
You did find the coloured people living with the Jews because at that time the Jews were treated like the Black. On a percentage basis, I think the Jewish people outsell the gentiles in education and in the professions. You'd see a Jewish man driving a little cart with a horse and picking up old clothes, garbage, newspapers and that sort of thing. So they weren't very well thought of....
In the 1920s West Indians were working on the railroad for the most part. At that time the CPR (Canadian Pacific Railroad), mainly, used to go down to the West Indies and recruit porters. I know of four or five from Trinidad: Cyril Davis, Hazel, Cyril Ardella, George Ardella, Mike Farlan and Percy Weber-they came up somewhere between 1915 and 1920....
I met my wife here; she was a Jamaican. She came up in 1922, I think. I was playing music, saxophone at the time. We had a mixed band: West Indian, Canadian and American. We used to have dances at Bathurst and Queen in the old Occidental Hall, now a tavern, on the south side of Queen Street. At Spadina and Queen there was a smaller hall for smaller dances. They were just Black people. There was no mixing with the Whites at these dances. The Alhambra Hall-Spadina and College-we'd also give a big dance there and in a hall on the south side of College Street, east of Spadina, and we'd give them in the Odd Fellows Temple across from the Central Library. From then on we started to spread out....
When I first came here, the only job you could get that was set aside primarily for Blacks was porter on the railroad. At one time the Grand Trunk Railroad had Black cooks and Black waiters, but they had to recruit most of those people from across the border. The Grand Trunk Pacific, running from Winnipeg to Vancouver, also did the same. They didn't have a regular reserve to draw from here, so they had to go to the States. I have gone down myself to recruit people to fill these positions. Here you might find the odd Black in Massey-Harris, or on the Grand Trunk Railroad as machinists or carpenters, but those were very few. A lot of shoeshine men were Black in the established barber shops, but then the Italians started coming in and would take those jobs away....
In the late teens and the early 1920s, Arthur King came up from Trinidad and started an association-West Indian Trading Company-to import West Indian produce. They also had a grocery store at one time near the Cameron Hotel (Spadina and Queen area). I joined his association. McKue, Arthur King, the two Ardella boys, Percy Weber, Bill Maze and Bishop from Barbados, John D. Miles and Watkins from Jamaica-we all joined it, something of an investment company. There was never a profit in it though. Miles had the most money at that time, wheeling and dealing, he was a big time bootlegger then, running it out to Vancouver. He had more capital. King eventually left for New York, and it started to disintegrate. About forty people were in the association altogether.
There were no other West Indian associations at that time and no clubs outside of the lodges. A lot of West Indians belonged to the lodges-the Masonic, the Odd Fellows and the Mechanics -then there were the churches also. In those days once a week or once a month, people went to the churches for a concert or something. It was a place to socialize when there wasn't a dance. The boys would go because the girls were there; they wouldn't go from any spiritual standpoint. We'd also have these house parties I mentioned. We used to have a good time. Sometimes we'd even go to Hamilton to a dance. There were a lot of West Indians there. They had the big steel mill where they would probably work....
I stopped sending money back home because they'd never get it. There was no point to it. There was a lot of thievery in the Cuban post office I suppose. Where we lived there was no bank; it was way off in the woods, so it would cost just as much to send the money out as what I actually sent....
I had to be at the station at 6:00 a.m. while working on the railroad, and we'd leave at 9:00, serve a breakfast and get to Montreal around 5:30, stay overnight and come back the next day and go right through to London. At that time, we worked every day for thirty dollars a month and were glad to get it....
The depression was hard on everyone; the Blacks were as unemployed as the Whites. The poor were always affected the most. There was an organisation formed in 1919, or 1920, Marcus Garvey's United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). That has always had its ups and downs, but I think it' s getting into its own now. It was very active in the 1920s and 1930s, helping Blacks deal with their problems. Dudley Laws, a very fine fellow, is now the head of it. The Home Service Association existed too. They run a nursery school too now. In the First World War they would knit socks and sweaters and send them overseas for the soldiers and send boxes of foodstuffs, milk and cake and such. . .
There was one racial incident at that time-around 1945 and the end of the war when I was running to Ottawa on the railroad in the parlour car. This was on a Saturday. Harry [my son] went to school with two Jewish boys, Danny and Sonny Jubas. Their father was a barber and the mother was a hairdresser. They came to my house, and Harry went to their house. One day I was ready to go out on a run to Ottawa. ''Daddy," Harry said, "have you got any money?" "Yes sir, I have. How much you want?" And he says, "Just a dollar. Danny and I, we're going to the Icelandia to skate.'' That was a private skating rink. But I had read in the paper that they discriminated against Jews and Blacks at the Icelandia, and I says, "If they discriminate against Jews, you haven't got a chance, my boy.'' He says, "Daddy, Danny and I, we goes every place and we know how to behave ourselves.'' I said, "Be careful."
Now I didn't get back until Sunday night, and the wife had a nice supper for me. After she figured that my supper was digested, she sprung this on me: that Harry was refused admission to the Icelandia. He had paid his money, but when he entered the arena proper, the fellow stopped him at the door and said, "You can't go in." Harry said, "Why?" He says, "You're coloured.'' Well, Danny was already in, so Danny came back out and got his money refunded, which was very fine of Danny, and the boys came home.
Now when Elma told me that I was upset, I was crazy for a moment. So I says, "I know what to do." Joe Salsberg was then alderman for Ward 5, and his office was just across College. You know where the Bank of Commerce is on College and Spadina? He was on the second floor. That was on a Monday morning; I went up and told him the whole story-knowing that the Jews will fight-because I needed help to get this thing straightened out .
So he says, "Okay, Mr. Gairey, meet me at the City Hall on Tuesday morning at the Council Chambers on the second floor." Mayor Saunders was mayor then. He introduced me and said, ''Mr. Gairey, you tell your story.''
I said, "Now it would be all right if the powers that be refused my son admission to the Icelandia, I would accept it, if when the next war comes, you're going to say, 'Harry Gairey, you're Black, you stay here, don't go to war.' But, your Worship and gentlemen of the council, it's not going to be that way, you're going to say he's a Canadian and you'll conscript him. And if so, I would like my son to have everything that a Canadian citizen is entitled to, providing he's worthy of it. Thank you, gentlemen of the council."
I think it was in the paper the following day; students from the University of Toronto picketed the place. And it was the first time that the City Council made an ordinance that they must not discriminate because of race, creed, colour or religion. I was the man that caused that ordinance to be passed, with the help of the good White people of Toronto. That was one of the first incidents that happened in the City of Toronto. The rink had to go out of business. It was in all the papers, in France and the United States also....
The Black girls could only get domestic jobs for the most part. I'm speaking now of the girls who couldn't change their colour, cannot change their identity, not of those who intermingle and try to be White. We have a lot of those. It was very difficult for a Black girl to get a job in stores. The girl had to come from the West Indies as a domestic, only a few can come on their own steam, or have family to help get them up. Immigration was tight. The first man I saw after the Second World War was in Eaton's, he was a Black shoe salesman. Then the Bell started to take them, and you see them in banks and in offices. Now the place is loaded with them for which I am extremely glad.... They have everything you could desire in a worker, and I love to see that. There are so many of them around. In the hospital you see so many as nurses . Dr. Morrison was the first Black doctor that I know of from Barbados. He left and went to Michigan. Then came lawyer Cross, but he went back to Trinidad. Then came Pitt, a barrister and very successful.
One of the main problems that the domestic girls had at first was loneliness, they didn't know anyone. That is one major role that I am extremely gratified and satisfied that the WIF (West Indian Federation) Club plays. They could meet other people through it. The club was on Brunswick Avenue and started in 1962. We felt it would be some place for West Indian girls to go on their day off. We didn't get any aid from anyone-no grant -a non-profit organisation....
The girls would come around usually on Thursday and the men around would come and meet them. Some of them would take advantage of the situation, but others wouldn't. The girls would show me a lot about West Indian cooking. They come in on Thursday and take over the kitchen. They showed me how to prepare all kinds of dishes-real curried goat and curried chicken West Indian style. These girls must stay at least one year with their employer. Some went to school and did very well....
In the early 1950s when immigration increased, the Immigration Department would phone us, or we'd find out that some people had difficulty coming through and try to help. By this time we had organised the United Negroes Association, whose primary purpose was to alleviate the immigration barrier. About thirteen people were involved in it. Don, Bromley Armstrong, George King, Mistress Hewitt, Mistress King, Rachel Mills, Charlie Mills, Mistress King's son, George, Emil Robinson was there, Bob Davies, my wife, myself and a lawyer. Don Moore was elected president, George King- Mistress King' s son-was secretary and I was treasurer. We didn't really know how to attack this thing, but we learned as we went ahead.
Then we went back to Roebuck; he said we had to call meetings, advertise what we are doing and trying to accomplish. We did that. The White church gave us their hall to hold the first meeting, and the place was packed. The church was located at Yonge and Carlton; Dr. Findley was its very liberal preacher. Walter Harris was minister of immigration at the time. We petitioned him that we' d like to have a conference with him. There were thirty-five of us in his office. He didn't complete any immigration reforms in his term of office. But shortly after that the Diefenbaker government came in, and Mrs. Ellen Fairclough was the minister of immigration. She was most liberal. I was told that she was responsible for Lincoln Alexander running for Parliament for the Conservative party in Hamilton. She gave him the incentive and told him to try....
I know of one case where a fellow from Trinidad, a carpenter, came up to see his brother who served in the Canadian army and then worked for the CPR in Montreal as a Red Cap. He was waiting for him at Dorval Airport but the brother was taken off at Malton. This was a Sunday, we had to wait till Monday to get him out from wherever they had him and send him on to Montreal to his brother....
I left the railroad in 1959, or 1960. In my last years there I was working back as a porter again. For about fourteen and a half years I was an instructor or supervisor. From the railroad I went to the WIF Club. It was mostly volunteer, hard work with the club. We had to pay the rent, and we'd get a licence on weekends to sell liquor at our dances and make some money ....
In the 1960s with the increased immigration of Blacks into Toronto, it was a tremendous change. You can go anywhere in the city and find Black people. In the early 1920s, you could walk up and down Yonge Street for days and run into only a porter, or some girls out of domestic work shopping around on Thursday, but it was a rare thing. But now if you don't see Blacks, you see Hindus, you see Brown, you see Filipinos, you see Chinese, and that makes it a cosmopolitan city. Before it was only Scottish, Irish, English, or European-it was just that way ....
There is definitely a distance between Black people who have just arrived and those who have been living here for a longer period time. The Black Canadians, those a generation here, still believe that because you are coming up here you are coming to take away their jobs. But there is an abundance of assets that the West Indians bring in here that helps the Black Canadians and vice versa. We must try not to force anything, try to cooperate and discuss things if there is a problem, which I believe there is ....
Don Moore, personally, I think I admire most. Also Dr. Daniel Hill and Rev. Stewart, a Jamaican from Halifax in the late 1940s and 1950s. He had a church on Dundas just east of Bay Street. He had got a lot of Canadian Blacks up from the Maritimes. I thought that was wonderful. This church on Shaw Street, Rev. Markham has it now, but I think Rev. Stewart was responsible for it. I feel most preachers should take a more active pan in the community. Like this fellow Blackman from Barbados, I think he's active in the UNIA. You want something like that; they are needed because 98 per cent of the people believe in Christianity....
I am interested in Black people everywhere. And I think I tried in my humble way wherever l could. I felt it was a duty because we need help. Few of the big fellows would come down and help, so the little fellow down here would have to get on the bandwagon and keep on going.
Return
to home page 
