Becky D. Alexander thebeckster.alexander@gmail.com Cambridge, Ontario
Mary Ann Shadd (1823-1893) I watch you sprout roots as a ten-year-old student in your Quaker school, and from your father’s Free Man upbringing that nurtured your abolitionist soul, as you process one-way tickets at that Delaware station for the underground railroad. In the daguerreotype, you appear to be about 30, around the time you settled in Windsor, Canada West, your likeness stamped on the backdrop of those long ago black and white days. I see you at work, your fingers stained with the ink of typeset as you forge your route to glory with the Provincial Freedom— first newspaper published by a Canadian woman, first black woman published in North America. One of your eyebrows peaks more than the other, you stare out, questioning a world confounded by the view that freed men, slaves, and white-washed immigrants must live and learn apart: you kicked all of that out of the way— just debris on a tired path. The strength of your teacher’s arm, and hard-earned law degree held the cord, helped pull back the curtains on segregated thought.
Issue 010
Devour: Art and Lit Canada
64