Pruitt Igoe

I had the opportunity to watch a documentary on Pruitt Igoe, a failed social housing projects in the United States that was created through racism and anti-blackness. A lot of my peer had a difficult time understanding how anti-blackness and racism led to both the construction and the demise of this project. Some of my peers believed that failure of this project was due to bad population projections or that many residents were migrating to the suburbs, but that simply is not the case. Here is a review I wrote on the Pruitt Igoe Myth

 The Pruitt Igoe Myth is directed by Chad Freidrichs and provides detail on the construction of this social housing project and its demise. Pruitt-Igoe was an example of fordist housing in the United States, it was large-scale homogenous high-rise to solve specific issues related to slum housing in the downtown area. Not only was Pruitt-Igoe used as a form of downtown renewal, it was also used as a tool for segregation. Pruitt-Igoe spread over 57 acres in St. Louis, Missouri, it housed mostly lower to middle class income families in the community. At the beginning of the development the housing solution seem as if it was a success, the residents were pleased and the units were well maintained. However, that quickly changed due to white flight in St. Louis in many other Northern cities in the United States. As Frey (1977) argues “racially motivated movement patterns and discriminatory housing practices, when superimposed upon market forces of the period, served to exacerbate the selective mobility of whites to the suburbs (p. 426).” With the whites and industries leaving the city center heading towards the suburbs there was a dramatic drop in the city’s population and tax based. They could no longer afford to maintain these units. The film succinctly demonstrated how both institutionalized racism and white flight impacted urban planning in St. Louis, Missouri. In particular, it highlights how racist policies related to housing led to Pruitt-Igoe to become derelict over time.

It is critical that we acknowledge the creation and failure of Pruitt-Igoe is centered around anti-black racism. During this time in the United States the Civil Rights movement was still occurring and the pivotal case of Brown v Board was decided, where schools could no longer be segregated by race. A lot of the policies created during this time were de facto segregation, this was segregation not by law, but by fact (Hall, 2005, p. 1251). Slum clearance and public housing where tools used to redistribute land to suit those in power (Friedrich, 2011). As the film highlights, urban renewal was use as a form of displacement to remove African-Americans from the downtown core. At that time, African-Americans did not have the same privileges as white-Americans. As Hall (2005) outlines zoning boards made these communities undesirable, real estate agents controlled who was allowed to buy property and at what prices, banks denied mortgages to African-Americans, and the Federal Housing Administration had lending policies that favoured segregation (p. 1241).

As mentioned earlier, population change greatly impacted the community, through data the city believed that the population would grow, so the development taking place in St. Louis was appropriate. Growth defined the war years and was expected to continue on. However, this was not the case. Although migrants from the South were coming into the city, and should have added to the growth. As we know this was not the case, the city population decreased due to residents moving out towards the suburbs.

The federal government had subsidies to make the suburbs affordable to the white middle class. So, whereas we saw funds from the government for slum removal, there was also funds for creation of an urban utopia for the middle class. These subsidies by the federal government eroded the tax base that St. Louis had which led to demise of Pruitt-Igoe. Without that large tax base in the city, the municipal government could no longer afford to provide services to all of its communities, this included the maintenance of Pruitt-Igoe. The same unsafe and unsanitary housing conditions the city was working to eliminate through slum clearance and public housing returned due to affordable suburbs. They city and city officials were working against themselves.

As noted in the film, the creation of Pruitt-Igoe and dealing with the influx of migrants in St. Louis were all top-down decisions. This is what city officials, planners, architects, and elites thought would be best for the city. Developers and investors enjoy the idea of slum clearance since it allowed for profitable re-development, they became the decision makers not those in need of affordable housing. Fordism often looked at solving issues at the macro scale, through large developments. But often not taking consideration of items at the micro scale, such as upward mobility, discrimination, and taxes. It is impossible to plan accordingly for community without engaging with community members, with top-down decision making the interests are created by the elites. In Bristol (1991), The Pruitt- Igoe Myth, George Kassabaum, a project architect for the building points out “you had middle class whites like myself designing for an entirely different group (p. 167).” Bristol goes on to argue “the implication was that low-income urban blacks constituted a tenant group with special needs: They were not instill with the middle-class value of taking pride in the upkeep of their environment, and they also brought with them certain destructive behaviours (p. 167).” Bristol argues that design and lack of consultation with the community was a factor that led to buildings to become derelict over time. Although, in the film the former residents discuss that they enjoyed the property and for some this was the first time of homeownership. Bristol highlights that many did not feel a sense of belonging, we saw this in the film with the widespread vandalism that took place.

Sandercock (2003) argues that diversity is part of the goal when planning in urban contexts and that we should plan for just cities, where everyone is treated with respect no matter their race, gender, ethnicity, or sexual preference (Sandercock, 2003). This is accurate, cities should be planned and designed that they are just for everyone. June-Manning Thomas (2008) argues for the need of the minority planner to create just cities, this is because minority race planners are perceived to be part of the community they are serving and are able to engage with the community differently (p. 239). Minority-race planners reflect the community they are serving and are able to sympathize with some of issues the community are going through. These are both planning practices that work today, but it would be difficult to use these practices in a segregated America of the past.

Was it possible to create urban policy to preserve social housings developments in the 1950’s? The short answer is no. We have to remember a majority of the policies that were in place were de facto segregation. Segregation was promoted through these urban policies at all levels of government and finance. To actually have policies to preserve social housing developments, we would have to have policies that were not discriminatory and racist. At that time most cities in the United States were not progressive, so Pruitt-Igoe and other social housing developments were bound to fail. In the film, they discuss the community of Blackjack and one of the first by-laws they created after they incorporated was to prohibit the construction of apartment buildings. As one resident states, they wanted to keep “trash people” out. Another resident states “if the colored move in and run real estate values down it is bound to create tension and you will have mixed-marriages and they becoming equal with whites.” From these sentiments alone, it is clear how people viewed African-Americans at that time. The entire system was against them.

Ideally, you would create policy that allowed everyone fair and equal access to social housing and ensure that all units are rent-geared-to-income. However, the Fair Housing Act was not enacted in the United States until 1968, just a few years before the destruction of Pruitt-Igoe (Yinger, 1986, p. 881). The act allowed that you could not refuse to sell or rent housing to anyone due to race, religion, sex, and colour. Meaning, a number of changes that could have possibility reduce white flight and allow for the equal home ownership for everybody did not take place until the project was already failing. If these laws were created earlier, it is possible that Pruitt-Igoe would not have failed as badly as it did.

I found it interesting in the way in which the state policed families living in Pruitt-Igoe, it was stipulated in the agreement that black fathers could be housed with their families. Meaning Pruitt-Igoe was home for mothers and their children. This stipulation of removing black fathers from the household added to the myth that there was a large percent of absentee fathers in the black community.

Pruitt-Igoe was a failed social housing project in St. Louis, Missouri that failed for a number of socio-economic reasons. We can highlight the hollowing out of the city’s population, eroding tax base, industries moving out, social housing as the end all solution for poverty, and incorrect growth calculations. The social housing project was a large scale project to allow for slum clearance and urban renewal, yet those in power never consulted the community what they actually needed. They created a solution that they thought would benefit the community. However, the main factor that led to the demise of the social housing project was institutional racism. If we examine the policies at the time, they were manufactured for segregation and only exacerbated inequality in the city.


Bristol, K. G. (1991). The Pruitt-Igoe Myth. Journal of Architectural Education, 44(3), 162-171.          doi: 10.1080/10464883.1991.11102687

Freidrichs, C. (Director). (2011). The Pruitt-Igoe Myth [Documentary]. United States: Unicorn           Stencil.

Frey, W. (1979). Central City White Flight: Racial and Nonracial Causes. American Sociological    Review, 44(3), 425-448. Retrieved from

Hall, J. D. (2005). The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past. The Journal        of American History, 91(4), 1233-1263.

Sandercock, L. (2003). Cosmopolis II: Mongrel Cities. London, UK: Continuum.

Thomas, J. M. (2008). The Minority-Race Planner in the Quest for a Just City. Planning Theory, 7(3), 227–247. doi: 10.1177/1473095208094822

Yinger, J. (1986). Measuring Racial Discrimination with Fair Housing Audits: Caught in the Act. The American Economic Review, 76(5),881-893.

Public Health Urban

Lack of Black Educators on University Campuses

A conversation taking place across many campuses throughout Canada and the United States is where are the black professors? Clearly, there are educated scholars and academics of colour, but why are they not getting hired and tenured by universities?

Reading over some comments by university presidents, deans and provost  they all argue the importance of having an inclusive faculty and what it brings to the university and student engagement, both academically and financially. Arguing that it is an economic necessity and can be used as a special feature for recruitment, funding, and ranking (James, 2009, p. 129). I always feel uncomfortable when the argument for diversity and inclusiveness on campuses is used for economic benefit they bring instead of bringing positive change to the learning environment. However, even with this argument, there is very little action being done to make faculties more diverse.

Carl E. James (2009) stresses that there is affirmative action or employment equity programs in place across most Canadian universities, yet there continue to be a low number of racial minority faculty members at universities (p. 132). There is no shortage of academics who are racial minorities or visible minorities, the main issue that is holding back the appointment of racial minorities in academia is institutionalized racism. James explains that critical race theory “names and discusses ‘the pervasive, daily reality of racism in society which serves to disadvantage people of colour (p.134).”  As it stands, some people have difficulty viewing racism as a systemic structure, most view racism as these one-off individual comments. As Stovall (2006) explains:

Racism, like capitalism, is an accepted structural phenomenon centered in maintaining the status quo. It is not, and never has been, the result of individual bigotry it is often reduced to. Instead of race as a category, racism (i.e., White supremacy) should be understood as a set of systemic structures that maintain a racial ruling elites as demonstrated through enforcement of policies and laws that govern the land (Stovall, 2006, p. 250).

Meaning there are structures in place to normalize racism in academia and in other fields. For real change, universities need to have improved policies that look at recruiting and hiring racial minority faculty members, at the moment most Canadian universities are lacking in this area. Even with diversity hiring officers and equity programs in place, they are just not enough. Les Back (2004) discusses the culture of universities and racism, they discuss that universities have always been a white hegemony from their inception. They argue:

The discourse is evident in the claims by institutions that the predominance of White faculty in unintentional – it is just that universities as the rationalization goes, are not able to recruit qualified minority members, for it goes without say that all ‘qualified’ individuals can apply and will be appointed. It is farcical that this constructed notion of ‘racial unintentionality’ remains and will persist as long as individuals continue to believe that minority members are ‘always welcome even though they are not there’ (Back, 2004, p. 252).”

It really makes you think, when you view universities campuses today in Canada, the student body is very diverse yet there is no to little change in the faculty members that are teaching these students. As mentioned earlier, a lot of it has to do with institutionalized racism and that some universities don’t want to have that conversation or believe that the equity policy they have in place will work and hire racial minority faculty members. James suggests that not only do universities need to have equity and diversity policies that ensure the recruitment of racial minority faculty members. But faculties and universities need to acknowledge “and [talk] about the identities of faculty members, noting who should be recruited in order to have a diverse faculty – one that not merely reflect the student population but also, and importantly, represents different perspectives (James, 2009, p. 141).”

Evidence shows that faculty members of colour bring much more to the university than their white counterparts. It is not just their scholarship and ability attract different funders and make the campus ‘unique’. Stanley (2006) reveals that they play a much more crucial role, they mentor students of colour, serve on the university equity and diversity committees, provide support to local communities, provide support to other faculty members of colour, and educate administrators, staff and students about diversity (Stanley, 2006, p. 719). Faculty members of colour bring a whole different experience to university campuses when they are hired, this aspect alone is a benefit to recruit racial minority faculty because there ‘reach’ is beyond the university campuses. However, the ‘reach’ that they have makes it more demanding to be a faculty of colour. Henry and Tator (2007) reveal that faculty of colour have more pressure on them than their white counterparts. They demonstrate that “there are inordinate demands placed on faculty of colour, for instance, minority students wishing to have them as mentors and role models, the broader students wishing to have them as mentors and role models, the broader student population seeking their expertise, their colleagues asking them to speak on issues of diversity and racism, and administrators needing their ‘physical presence on committees to prove that the committee is representative’ (Henry & Tator, 2007, p. 25).” This means that faculty of colour have an increasingly large role to play on campuses, which can also be a burden and result in them burning out. These faculty members have a dual role to play, not only do they have to meet their commitments related to their scholarship and contractual obligations, they have a series of other commitments mentoring students and educating others on racism and discrimination.

I was recently at a panel discussion in the Faculty of Environmental Studies on “Where are all the black professors?”, on the panel, there was a black professor from the Departments of Languages and Linguistics. He shared that it is difficult being a faculty member of colour because he has a lot of students that come to him for mentorship or discuss issues facing the Afro-Caribbean and Black community. This exemplifies the need for faculty of colour since students are coming up to this professor and seeking advice, mentorship, and someone they can talk to. However, he shared that he feels overwhelmed by this because he is one just out of few black professors on the campus.

So where are the black faculty members? They are not being recruited and hired, these academics do exist, but there is a structure of racism and discrimination that are holding them back. If universities really want to hire racial and visible minority faculty they can. What is next? How do we change universities to be more diverse and inclusive? There needs to be a change in equity policies that are in place at most Canadian universities to actively search for academics and researcher who are racial minorities. Universities need to have an honest conversation about racism in university and how they can address it. They also need to note that many faculty members of colour are playing two roles on campus, one of scholarship and contractual obligations and then one of a mentorship and support to students and staff. This can negatively impact hiring and tenure when these faculty members have these commitments. It is intriguing to know that provosts and deans can view the economic benefit and the benefit it has on student engagement of having faculty of colour, yet nothing is actively being done to make this happen.


Back, L. (2004). ‘Ivory Towers? The Academy of Racism.’ In I. Law, D. Phillips, and L. Turney (Eds.), Institutional Racism in Higher Education, (pp 1-6). Trent, UK: Trentham Books.

Henry, F. & Tator, C. (2007). Through a Looking Glass: Enduring Racism on the University Campus. Journal of Higher Education: Academic Matters, Feb, 24-25.

James, C. E., (2009). ‘It Will Happen without Putting in Place Special Measures’: Racially Diversifying Universities. In F. Henry & C. Tator (Eds.), Racism in the Canadian University: Demanding Social Justice, Inclusion, and Equity 137-159. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.

Stanley, C. A. (2006). Coloring the Academic Landscape: Faculty of Color Breaking the Silence in Predominantly White Colleges and Universities. American Education Research Journal, 43(4), 701-736.

Stovall, D. (2006). Forging Community in Race and Class: Critical Race Theory and the Quest for Social Justice in Education. Race, Ethnicity and Education, 43(4), 7-29.

Recommended Reading:



Lack of  diversity leads to burden on professors of color


Canadian campuses suffer from lack of racial inclusion 


Black Lives Matter Toronto and Media Bias

It is very interesting to see the ways in which the media perceives Black Lives Matter, at sometimes they are viewed as protestors fighting for injustice and other times they are viewed as annoyances or bullies. It makes you think, why are they portrayed in these two lights when they are fighting for important changes? Why is it that they are questioning and demonizing their right to protest? Does it make the public feel uncomfortable knowing that marginalized groups are still oppressed?

In a series of interview conducted by Peter Jackson for his research on the Construction of Criminality, he interviewed community members, organizations and political leaders. One of the respondents provided a statement about protest and the need for justice. Hugh Evelyn, a black parent in Scarborough had this to say:

…each time there is an outcry for justice from black community, there is an attempt to discredit those who come to the fore, by labelling them ‘agitators’. The Dudley Lawses of this society [spokesperson for Back Action Defense Committee] have as much right to peaceful protest as the Art Lymers [Former President of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Association] (Jackson, 1994, p. 233).

This comment is echoed by many others in the movement, it is clear that the media does have a bias when reporting the news, especially concerning Black Lives Matter. The group has both been applauded and demonize in the Canadian media. In the Toronto Star one journalist applauded the work of the organization and that the criticism they face is a form of racism. The article states “as the Star has argued before, criticism of BLM Toronto and its methods often been nothing more than thinly veiled expressions of racism (Toronto Star, 2016).” However, in that same paragraph they criticize how the group gains attention and the tactics they use.

In another article from the Globe and Mail, the journalist Margaret Wente demonizes the group by calling them bullies. She writes:

The new bully on the black is Black Lives Matter, a tiny group of noisy activist who borrow their branding and their belligerence from the United States. They’ve proved they can bully just about anyone, including city hall, the mayor, and the provincial Premier. The Pride Parade was a pushover (Wente, 2016).”

This statement from Wente is problematic, where she labels the organizing and protesting from the group as a form of bullying, which it is not. Black Lives Matter Toronto are protesting for valid reasons, to remove all forms of anti-black racism. Wente is ignorant by brushing these claims overs and reducing the work by the group as noise.  It is despairing to read that a marginalize group wanting anit-black laws and policies remove at all levels of government and the response from this journalist is that their bullies.

The group did receive some positive attention from a senior editor from The Huffington Post, Joshua Ostroff wrote an article regarding some the public and medias outcry for the protest at Toronto’s Pride by Black Lives Matter Toronto.  He writes:

“So instead of griping about a 25-minute delay, or complaing when people bring up issues that don’t personally affect you, how about adding a little empathy to your pride instead of prejudice? LGBT rights have progressed because of protest and people who have benefited from those actions should look beyond themselves and consider the struggles of those still fighting because Pride is, always has been and always will be, political (Ostroff, 2016).”

After the tragic shooting of Candice Rochelle Bobb in Rexdale, a mother who was pregnant with her son, some of the media began to ask ‘what is Blacks Lives Matter Toronto doing about black on black crime.?’  During a 640 Toronto call-in segment, both the host and callers provided not only inaccurate but racist reasoning for violence in Rexdale. They link the violence in Rexdale due to absentee fathers, the removal of carding, and black on black violence. All of which are incorrect. The first assumption that crime committed in the area is done by black youth due to the lack of black fathers is incorrect. Absentee fathers in the black community is an extremely racist myth, black fathers and black father figures are very much involved in their families. The notion a majority of violence in the area is due to black on black crime and that Black Lives Matter should care more about their community is dismissive. Flynn and Shihadeh (1996) argue that “spatial unevenness is positively associated with serious black violence at the city level (p. 1325).” They also mention that there are factors with the combination of isolation that leads to violence, they include “rates of unemployment, poverty, youth institutional attachment, and female-headed households (p. 1325).” They note that even in communities where black isolation is medium to low there is still a chance for serious violence to take place. Flynn and Shihadeh suggest that “black isolation can also divest black urban communities of the advantages of pluralist politics and makes them vulnerable to economic downturns and government cutbacks (p. 1325).” Communities may not be as polarized as they are in the Unites States, but examining our neighbourhood improvement areas there are some striking similarities.  From what Flynn and Shihaded argue there are a number of factors that lead to black on black crime, with spatial uneveness and isolation being the dominant factors. Further, there are other organizations in the Greator Toronto Area and in Rexdale that give those living in this area opportunities instead of turning to crime. Lastly, there is no relationship between stopping racialized individuals and an increase in gun violence. There is nothing that shows that carding, which is a discriminatory policy actually helped to reduce crime (Ontario Humans Rights Commission, 2016).

It is sad to read articles or listen to talk radio that either dismiss the work being done by Black Lives Matter Toronto or to say that they do not belong in Canada, since Canadians are not facing the problems as Americans, this is not true. Media bias can influence how the public perceives issues and organizations like Black Lives Matter Toronto, so it is harmful when there are news sources branding the group ass bullies and nuisances.  How do we combat this? If you can, do your own research on Black Lives Matter Toronto and the oppression many marginalized groups face in Canada. Try to diversify how you receive the news, by reading from a number of newspapers both mainstream and independent.


Black Lives Matter should think twice about making outsiders of allies: Editorial. (2016, July 5). The Toronto Star. Retrieved from

Flynn, N., & Shihaded, E. (1996). Segregation and crime: the effect of black social isolation on the rates of black urban violence. Social Forces, 74(4), 1325. Retrieved from

Jackson, P. (1994). Constructions of Criminality: Police Community Relations in Toronto. Antipode, 26(3), 216–235.

Ostroff, J. (2016, July 4). Black Lives Matter Protest Proves Pride Needs More Empathy, Less Prejudice. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from

Mandhane, R. (2016, February 4). Don’t blame the end of carding for an increase in gun violence. Ontario Human Rights Commission. Retrieved from

Wente, M. (2016, July 4). The bullies of Black Lives Matter. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved from

Recommend Reading:

MTV News Debunks Four Black Lives Matter Myths Spun bt Right-News Media

What Canadians Have All Wrong About Black Lives Matter Toronto

Black Lives Matter-Toroto: The Colossal Understimation of the Strength of This Movement 

Black Lives Matter Toronto: Is Canada to Polite to Talk about Racism 

Media Bias







Exploring Anti-Blackness in Canada





















Recommend Reading

The Suffocating Expereince of Being Black in Canada

Canadian Judge Acknowledge Anti-Black Racism in Court

Public Health Urban

The creation of Black Lives Matter and their fight for justice.

Black Lives Matter movement was created by Alicia Garcia, Opal Tometi, and Patrisse Cullors in 2014 after the trial of George Zimmerman. Zimmerman was a resident of a Florida neighbourhood who shot and killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed teenager.

Although the movement was created after the police killing of Trayvon, it was also created “as a response to the anti-black racism that permeated out society (Black Lives Matter, 2016).”  The creators describe the movement as “an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. It is an affirmation of Black folks’ contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression.”

The movement has participated in a number of protests and organizing since the creation of the group. Some of these events include the organizing and protest of unarmed black men and women such as FergusonWalter ScottFreddie Gray and Sandra Bland.

There has also been organizing and protesting in Canada by Black Lives Matter Toronto and Vancouver, and in Montreal by the Black Coalition of Quebec. In Toronto, Black Lives Matter have held a number of events and rallies around police brutality, racism, and fatal encounters the police have with people of colour and the mentally disabled. Some of these events include the protest around the shooting of Jermaine Carby by Peel Police, protest around carding and street checks by police departments across the GTA, and most recently protesting and organizing around the death of Abdirahman Abdi.

One question I keep asking myself and others is, what separates Black Lives Matter with other movements and organizations in the past that fought against anti-blackness, police brutality, and civil rights? Movements like the civil rights, black power and black feminist, black liberation, and anti-apartheid movements all come to mind. Groups like the National Council of Jamaicans and the Black Action Defense Committee also come to mind.

Reviewing the Civil Rights movements, it is clear that there are two stories associated with the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, there is a dominant story that places the movement starting in the 1950s. There is also an alternative story that places the movement beginning in the 1940s. The movement in the 1940s was sparked by a number of events, the great depression, and international events; the persecution of Jews by Nazi’s (Hall, 2005, p. 1245). Hall describes the Black Popular Front and the organizing done by Martha Biondi as the first phase of the civil rights movement (p. 1245). Hall also argues that the persecution of Jews by Nazis brought striking similarities between racism and anti-Semitism (1247.) Other events include anti-colonialism movements in Africa and Asia, intersectional feminism, and the inclusion of African-Americans into American society.

The dominant story of the civil rights movement begins towards the end of the 1950s “it involved blacks and whites, southerners and northerners, local people and federal officials, secularists and men and women of faith (p. 1251).” The goal of the movement was

dismantling  Jim Crow, a system built as much on economic exploitation as on de jure and de facto spatial separation. In the mind of the movement activist, integration was never about ‘racial mingling’ or ‘merely sitting next to whites in school.’ as it is sometimes caricatured now. Nor did it imply assimilation into status white-defined institutions, however much whites assumed that it did. True integration was an is an expansive and radical goal, not an ending or abolition of something that once was – the legal separation of bodies by race – but a process of transforming institutions and building on equitable, democratic, multiracial, and multiethnic society (p. 1251-1252).

Brown v. Board of Education, Martin Luther King Jr. and his contributions to the movement and the March on Washington in 1963 are all part of the dominant story of the movement. As mentioned earlier, the goal of the movement was to dismantle Jim Crow laws, that allowed for legal racial segregation, and to ensure that everyone had equal rights.

Hall raises two important points about the movement that are often overlooked, the involvement of black women in organizing and the role of urban planning.

It was Claudia James and the Congress of American Women that brought up the concept of triple oppression of black women, their race, class, and gender (p. 1247). It was these women that were at the March on Washington “demanding jobs for all, decent housing, fair pay, and equal rights…thus asserting both their racial solidarity and their identities as activists and workers and thereby the equals of men (p. 1252)”.

This solidifies the importance of black women in organizing and fighting against oppression both during the civil rights movements in the past and the current Black Lives Matter movements of today.

Urban planning had a huge impact on black lives and racial inequality in the United States, I will touch on some of these planning decisions in a later post. However, some of these decisions included highway building choices, zoning by-laws, denying mortgages to African-Americans, and federal lending policies that mandated racial homogeneity (p. 1241).

The Black Power Movement was a movement documented from beginning in the 1950’s and ending in 1975 (Joseph, 2001, p. 2) The movement began around the same time as the Cold War and the political repression the war had on Americans. It was heavily influenced by the political atmosphere in the Unites States and “global events including anti-colonial uprisings in Ghana, Cuba, and the African Congo (Joseph, p. 3).” The difference between the two movements was that the Civil Rights Movement emphasized on getting their message across through non-violence, whereas the Black Power Movement was fine with being militant. The Black Power movement left two lasting impressions on the Unites States.

These two movements provide historical context of black radicalism, organizing and fighting for change. It shows that the fight for civil rights and fair treatment was not just an “American thing”, this was truly a global movement and continues to be a global movement to this day. Some of the arguments in Canada and in the Canadian media when discussing Black Lives Matter is that they often say “its an American issue” or that “black Canadians are not facing the same oppression as black-Americans”. That is simply not true, Canadians continue to face discrimination by police departments, the justice system, and issues with the Children’s Aid Society.

There have also been organizations in the past in Canada that have also fought against police brutality and racism in Canada with organizations like the National Council of Jamaicans and the Black Action Defence Committee. Both organizations have worked individually and together in the past to fight against discriminatory policies and police brutality. The National Council of Jamaicans was able to change discriminatory immigration policies and help add passages to the Fair Employment Act and the Fair Accommodation Practices Act (Powell, 2015). In 1988, the Black Action Defence Committee was created due to a number of shootings of black men (Jackson, 1994, p. 219).  The goal of the BADC was the “elimination of racism particularly as it impacts the Black community by advocating policies and practices that are geared toward this end (Black Action Defence Committee, 2016). The work done by the BADC in the early 1990s is responsible for the creation of the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) in Ontario (Black Action Defence Committee, 2016). The role of the SIU is to investigate “circumstances involving police and civilians that result in death, serious injury, or allegations of sexual assault (Powell, 2015).”

The National Council of Jamaicans, Black Action Defence Committee, and Black Lives Matter Toronto all have similar themes and are fighting for the same goal; removing all forms of anti-black racism. I believe Black Lives Matter Toronto is just continuing the work that BADC did in the past. The sole difference from Black Lives Matter Toronto and the organizations that came before them is the use of technology. Even though the time has changed there is still a need to fight for racial equality.

There have been a number of accomplishments from the work Black Lives Matter have done both in the United States and Canada. In the United States, they have successfully raised awareness around police violence against women and the trans community, forced schools to look into their racial history, and brought attention to racial bias in the criminal justice system (Workneh, 2015). In Canada, the organization has garnered attention from their protest which had led to coroner’s inquest, a discussion around carding and street checks, which eventually led to the suspension of this policy (Battersby, 2016). Black Lives Matter and organizations similar to it will continue to remain relevant until anti-blackness and discriminatory policies are removed from every facet of everyday life.

Battersby, S. J. (2016, April 16). From Jermaine Carby to Andrew Loki: a timeline of Black Lives Matter in Toronto. The Toronto Star. Retrieved from

Black Action Defense Committee. (2016). About Us. Retrieved from

Black Lives Matter. (2016). A HerStory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement. Retrieved from


Joseph, P. (2001). Black Liberation Without Apology: Reconceptualizing the Black Power Movement. The Black Scholar, 31(3-4), 2-19

Powell, B. (2014). Settling in Canada: Jamaicans have a story to tell. Retrieved from           

Workneh, L. (2015, December 22). 11 Big Accomplishments Black Activists Achieved in 2015. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from

Recommened Reading:

From Black Action Defense to Black Lives Matter TO: decades apart but demands are the same

From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation 





Urban Planning and Hip-Hop

I would like to share with you all a great article that interviews Mike Ford. Ford is an architect and discusses the relationship between hip-hop and urban planning.He mentions that hip-hop came to be through structural racism, poor urban planning, and architect. Near the end of his interview, he emphasizes the importance of representation in urban planning and architecture, not only as professionals. But as community leaders, authors and researchers. Ford recognize that:

As long as people from the outside are telling the story, that narrative will continue. We need to continue to get people of color involved in architecture, as urban planners, as professors, as authors. It’s important for minorities to enter architecture because, throughout the United States, our communities have been designed, uprooted, and pretty much destroyed by architects and urban planners who do not look like us and unfortunately have little to desire to communicate with us during the planning of those events.

So what can happen if we get more minorities involved in architecture and architecture fields such as urban planning? You’re gonna have people at the table who are sensitive to the fabrics of [their] communities and understand what it means to not uproot them. Having a voice at that table to be an advocate for those underrepresented communities is essential. Architecture can destroy and inhibit people from becoming their best, but it also has the power to uplift and empower them. If we’re going to achieve the latter, it’s got to be a collaborative effort.

This excerpt resonated with me, both scholarly articles and testimonials from community members are pointing towards advocacy  and equity planning for communities for a number of reasons. One of them being, people of colour involved in architecture and planning can better represent the community and understand the needs of community members.

There are a number of hip-hop songs that discuss everyday life and poor planning, artist like Public Enemy, Snoop Dogg, NWA, A Trible Called Quest, Kendrick Lamar and Grandmaster Flash all come to mind. Here’s Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five rapping about the conditions in New York in the early 1980s:

There are a number of hip-hop songs that discuss everyday life and poor planning, artists like Public Enemy, Snoop Dogg, NWA, A Trible Called Quest, Kendrick Lamar and Grandmaster Flash all come to mind. Here’s Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five rapping about the conditions in New York in the early 1980s:

How Bad Urban Planning Led to The Birth of a Billion-Dollar Genre

Hip-Hop Architecture



Social Movements and Black Lives Matter






















Recommend Readings:


Pedagogy of the Oppressed – Paulo Freire





Public Health Urban