Africville and the Politics of Displacement: How Policy Was Used to Justify Erasure

In postwar Halifax, city officials framed their urban planning ambitions as a progressive mission to modernize the city, improve public health, and serve the greater good. But for the historic Black community of Africville, these plans became the foundation for a policy-driven process of removal. Under the guise of redevelopment and reform, Halifax used public policy to marginalize, exclude, and ultimately erase a community that had long been denied the very services other neighbourhoods took for granted.

Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Africville residents requested basic infrastructure—clean water, sewerage, garbage collection, fire protection. Despite these repeated appeals, city officials dismissed the community’s needs, often blaming residents for the conditions they endured. Instead of expanding services, Halifax left Africville disconnected from essential infrastructure, then used those very absences to justify relocation.

In official rhetoric, Halifax City Council claimed to act on behalf of the vulnerable. It presented itself as a protector of the rights of underprivileged groups and argued that relocation of Africville was consistent with the responsibilities of government to improve living conditions for its most disadvantaged citizens. But the residents of Africville told a different story. They wanted to stay in their community, improve it, and be treated like other citizens. As reported in The Halifax Mail, they declared their willingness to pay for public services and asked to be recognized as part of the city rather than apart from it.

Despite these requests, no meaningful infrastructure investment occurred. Instead, a broader process of urban renewal began to unfold. In 1957, Halifax commissioned the Redevelopment Study of Halifax, authored by British planner Gordon Stephenson. This report—undertaken in partnership with the provincial government and the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation—provided the

policy framework for widespread clearance and redevelopment efforts. It did not focus in detail on Africville, but it did recommend citywide slum clearance, the redevelopment of areas deemed “substandard,” and the relocation of families from those areas. The language of the report echoed the idea that poor housing conditions were not just a public health concern, but a source of social strain that justified intervention.

When Stephenson briefly addressed Africville, he described it as a “shack town” of about seventy Black families, noting the complex land ownership in the area. He made no formal recommendation for redevelopment, nor did he propose a specific plan for the land. Yet soon after, the city intensified its efforts to buy out landowners and deny building permits to those who wanted to remain. One resident, who had previously been denied permission to build a new home, later agreed to negotiate a sale—likely recognizing that improvement was no longer possible under the city’s policies.

The justification for these actions was often couched in terms of housing quality and the public interest. But in reality, Africville’s location had become too valuable to ignore. Overlooking Bedford Basin and adjacent to expanding industrial zones, the land was now considered ripe for future development. Rather than serve and support the community already there, policy was used to push its residents out.

While public statements claimed to be acting in the name of progress and social justice, the practical effects were exclusionary. Services were withheld. Residents were portrayed as incapable. The community was systematically denied a future within the city’s vision for itself.

Africville was not cleared because there was no alternative. It was cleared because policymakers chose not to offer one. Their vision of progress did not include Africville.

This history remains urgent. It forces us to confront how policy can be used to displace rather than support, to silence rather than engage. It also challenges us to think critically about who is

included in decisions made in the name of the “public good”—and who is not.