Wellbeing of Africville residents following their relocation 

From the Dalhousie Institute of Public Affairs fonds UA-26 [75-14] 

Scope and Content:  

The materials in the IPA fonds relate largely to the wellbeing of the citizens of Africville following their relocation.  This is reflected by the interview dates that form most of the primary source material in the fonds that provides a voice for the residents.  Correspondence includes that with the Canadian Labour Congress to whom the residents of Africville appealed in their attempt to strengthen their social position in the community of Halifax at large, both with respect to housing, public services and appropriate and meaningful employment.    

Other material in the fonds is comprised of primary material originating in city hall, including copies of City Council Minutes which was in the Africville fonds at the HRMA.  Secondary source material relating to relocations and the theory relating to relocation and public housing projects rounds out this material.  Census records relating to Africville.  Genealogical material.   

• Book: P. E. McKerrow.  A Brief History of the Coloured Baptists of Nova Scotia [90.8].   

• Minutes of the Halifax Human Rights Advisory Committee [90.9]  Duplicates of the material found in the HRMA Africville fonds.     

• Fonds also primary source material from the research undertaken by Clairmont and Magill, in relation to their various studies of Africville, what they term their “field notes.”  Magill’s “Research Diary” dated July 1968.  The majority of this material is from Magill.   

• Map: Large format map of Africville: UA-26 [89.22]   

• Notes on Halifax’s ‘other slum,’ Jacob St. which was also redeveloped: UA-26 [90.2] 

• F. Henry.  Forgotten Canadians: The Blacks of Nova Scotia.  Inscribed “With best wishes, Frances Henry, York University.”  (Don Mills: Longman Canada, 1973).   

• “The Economic and Social Base of South Western Nova Scotia” A Study prepared for the Nova Scotia Department of Municipal Affairs” 

• Duplicate Council Correspondence re: Africville. 

• Historic Census Data – raw.  

• Chain of Land Conveyances [109.6] 

• Genealogical Charts [114.7] 

• Drafts and relevant correspondence of Clairmont and Magill’s Relocation report and later UofT publications resulting from it 

• Four reels of magnetic video tape – interviews 

• 3 black and white photographs of a post-relocation gathering at Africville ca. 1970.   

Notes:  

Interview with George Davis, Human Rights Committee Member, Africville Advisory Subcommittee Representative by Dennis W. Magill, 12 December 1969.   

DWM: What about the alternative of fixing up the facilities and supplying resources of water and sewerage in Africville?   

GD: This was discussed.  In fact I recall a resident of Africville who submitted plans fo[r] the City of Halifax for a home in the area of $25,000 because he had land there to build on but they turned him down because of the terrain  of the land was such it would not be able to establish satisfactory sewerage.   

DWM: The roughness of the land, and the rocks. 

GD: Yes. (pg.8)  

Interview with H. A. J. Wedderburn, 2 December 1969, by Dennis Magill [75.15]  

H. W.  – Let me start a little further back, let us say, the reason why ,for instance we were thinking of leaving the people there providing them with sewers and water and that kind of thing.  That couldn’t be dome because of the way the houses were situated on the land and the City Engineer explained to us that each time be put a bend in a sewer pipe it cost something like $300.  I selected one house which was near the main road in Africville and we figured it would cost $3,000-4,000 to put sewer alone in that house.  Okay, so the further you got away, the more complicated the darn things became.  When these things are done, someone has to pay for them.  The question is, who is going to pay the money to have all these things installed.  OK, so that was out. (pg.8) 

Interview with W. P. Oliver by D. W. Magill 8 December 1969 [75.13]  

DWM:  You stated earlier that it seemed in the community that there was almost a pessimistic spirit when it came to the relocation and they more or less had to go along with it.  What would be responsible for this feeling? 

O: I don’t want to be misunderstood.  I don’t think that they were defeated, as if to say they had gone along with it.  They just didn’t hear, the man doesn’t mean anything, it was just another talking again, another political move.  You see each time there was an election they used to hear something of this nature and nothing would happen, this sort of thing and they lost faith.  I suppose there was also another dimension, that it may be that they had lost confidence in themselves.  What’s the use of going and saying anything we’re not going to be able to accomplish anything.  I suppose this all has to do with aspiration or motivation because it had so little encouragement as a consequence of achievement [sic] (pg 4).  

DWM:  When I interviewed many people, City Hall particularly, and they talk about the relocation, they always described Africville as a slum, and that it was a slum that had to be removed, would you view the community as a slum?   

O- I really don’t know what a slum is.  I refused long ago to use that term because of the connotation and the reflection it makes on the people.  You can have slum buildings, or slum conditions.  We certainty have certainly suggested to you that you have people who were at the end of the line and who moved in and just built as squatters, who had no real stake in in the community and as a consequence made no real contribution.  I think that became evident when it came down to public issues and meetings where people had to take some stand.  Those people who felt a historical tie, who felt an investment tie, those were the ones who responded (pg 10).   

DWM: The next question is, “”Prior to the relocation why didn’t the city supply such resources as water, sewerage in Africville? 

O:  Well, I gather from some of them that there has certainly been an economic cost, they have accrued a great many debts and many of them from what I gathered have difficulty with their mortgages and one chap was telling me he was working fifteen hours a day trying to keep up his payments and this sort of thing.  I think there is a, I’m not sure the right term here, a psychological and emotional  They are very lonely, they miss the ties that they had when they were in the community. […]  They miss their church.  They can’t seem to identify with the institutions within the city (pg 11).   

Paratyphoid Cases in Africville 10 August 1962.  (Halifax Herald 4)  

“The recommendations, if implemented, would wipe out a settlement which had been clinging to fringe of Halifax for more than a century.”  […]  Conditions in the settlement are such it is considered amazing by health officials that there have been no serious outbreaks of disease.  There are no sewers and the only water available is drawn from shallow wells, on rocky soil.  Waste is disposed of through privies and there is always the danger of drainage into wells. […]  The City of Halifax Health Department is coping with the outbreak and every precaution is being taken to prevent the spread of the disease.  But so long as Africville remains neglected, unserviced area of this city, then so long will exist the threat of an epidemic of the many frightful diseases, of which typhoid and paratyphoid are but two, which can be traced to polluted water sourced and a general lack of hygiene and sanitation facilities.  

Interview with Dr. Fogo, Dennis W. Magill, 14 August 1969.  [85.7] 

D. M.  Could you describe the problems with the wells during the summer months? 

F.  At certain times the bacterial counts would become well over the acceptable limits and we would post signs advising the people to boil the water if they were going to use it.   

D. M.  Did many of the wells dry up?  

F.  Some of the shallow ones did.   

D. M. What about the problem with sewerage was this a health problem as well? 

F.  Oh yes, this was a health problem.  They had some very inadequate privies that weren’t properly constructed or maintained. 

D. M. Where there a large number of these? 

F.  Yes, there were.  This was the only sewerage disposal system they had (pg. 7).   

D. M. Was there anything that the health department could do to improve these?  

F.  Well, we could advise them about screening them and the use of chloride of lime, and other disinfectants, which we did.   

D. M.  And was the advice acted upon?  

F.  In some cases, yes.   

D. M.  In one of our interviews, one of the former Africville residents was complaining about the sewage that ran from the Basinview Hospital, then came down to the edge of the community and then flowed out to the harbour, but first went into a gully into the end of the community.  Do you know if this was the case?  

F.  I don’t know if that was the case.  It may be that some of that outfoul was exposed at low tide, but I always understood that the pipes all ran out below the low water mark.  I can’t dispute this but it never came to my attention that the outfoul was exposed.   

D. M.  Why were water pipes, sewerage and even improved roads never part of the city’s work program in Africville?  

F.  On one occasion, this must have been in the late war years, I think money was actually appropriated for the extension of a water line from the end of Gottingen Street to the central part of the village, to give a city water source.  But the argument always was that it was so expensive to blast through rock to put a water line down there, and that the days of the settlement were numbered.  It was always felt that the people should be relocated somewhere and it wasn’t worth the cost of putting in water for the time that the time that they were to be there.  This seemed to be the thinking all the time that I knew Africville (pg. 8)  

D. M.  Could you describe the water tanks that were installed in 1964?  

F.  No, I never saw the Works Department bury them under the soil.   

D. M.  The question I meant to ask, “Where you associated with the negotiations or procedures by which these water tanks were installed?  

F.  Yes, we were involved in some of the decisions of putting some sort of supply in there.  We considered several alternatives of course, laying pipe into a standpipe sort of thing, and it was considered whether or not it might be feasible even to run plastic pipe; it was thought that this might be open to destruction and probably somebody might cut it off and roll it and take it to sell it.  If they were looking for another bottle of beer or so.  Finally, it was decided that the practical things was to put a tank in the centre part of the village and another set of tanks in the western section (pg. 10)   

D. M.  Did you have any damage to these water tanks when they were installed?  

F.  No, I think the people used them very well.  I don’t think there was much problem with the pumps at all (pg.10)