Promises Unfulfilled
In February 2010, HRM mayor Peter Kelly called a public meeting in the YMCA in Halifax’s North End. After decades of pressure, he was going to apologize on behalf of the city for the destruction of Africville. Flanked by African Nova Scotian Affairs Minister Percy Paris, Africville Genealogy Society president Irvine Carvery and others, Kelly delivered the apology.
He promised money to rebuild the church that the city destroyed in the middle of the night in 1967. People cried, cheered, danced and sang songs of victory.
Almost a year later, the only sign of Africville in Africville is Eddie Carvery, taking his protest into its 41st winter. His camp is a few feet from the site of the original church, which is marked by a makeshift shrine he and his brother Victor built and the grave of his dog, Spike.
Carvery is not surprised nothing has happened on the ground and bemused by the ever-lasting delays. “The only thing I know for sure is there’s no church there,” he says.
Official promises to rebuild the Seaview United Baptist Church date back decades. The first promise was made in 1991 by Donald Cameron’s Progressive Conservative government. An access road was being built through Africville and the church was offered as compensation. The $1.5 million road was built, but the church was not.
Halifax Magazine investigated the state of the most recent promise to find out if the sanctuary is, as long promised, about to be built, or if the February promise was just another photo op doomed to fade with the camera flashes.
Reached on the phone at the office of African Nova Scotian Affairs, Percy Paris said the federal $250,000 has been paid and the provincial $1.5 million is waiting to be released once the project gets under way, as per the deal.
“People are anxious to bring closure to this file,” he said. “People are anxious to see justice being done here.”
He’s well aware of the long history of broken promises and said he’s made it a priority since taking office in 2009. “We’re going to bring closure to this on my watch,” he said. “One of the key differences between [1991] and now is that the province of Nova Scotia has a minister of African Nova Scotian descent.”
Sitting in a comfortable chair at the back of his City Hall office by a coffee table decorated with newspaper cartoons of himself, Peter Kelly says the city is swiftly delivering all of its promises. Of the $3 million pledged, $2.5 million has been paid and is being held in trust by a lawyer for AGS. The other $500,000 was held back to get water and sewer services to Africville. The land transfer, involving federal and municipal land, is underway and he was hopeful it would be done by the end of 2010.
Kelly directed further questions to the Africville Heritage Trust Board, which was created to oversee building and running the church. It was incorporated March 18, 2010, but had yet to go public.
Asked who was on the board, Kelly paused. “I understand they’re waiting to do a public announcement,” he said. Asked what precautions the city had taken to ensure the money will be spent on the church and delivering other promises, Kelly said only “it will happen.”
Days after being interviewed by Halifax Magazine, Kelly went public with the fact that the money had been transferred.
A search of the Nova Scotia Registry of Joint Stocks shows nine listed members of AHT. Two are also listed with AGS and a third is the son of an AGS board member.
Reached on his cellphone, Irvine Carvery confirmed AGS has the money and said construction will start in the spring. He said the Africville Genealogy Society board appointed the Africville Heritage Trust board and that he and many other members of AGS are also on the board of AHT. There was no wider consultation for nominating members. The 12 directors can serve two terms, at which point it will seek out new members. At least half of the board is to be made up of people with direct ties to Africville.
Critics have voiced concerns the AGS board has expired its term and therefore has no mandate to appoint the AHT board. Carvery admitted his term as president ended in October 2010 and blames exhaustion from organizing the summer picnic for not holding elections. He couldn’t say when elections would be held.
“The trust board was established well before the end of the mandate of this [AGS] board,” he said.
Further investigation leads to an interview with Daureen Lewis at her office as
principal of NSCC’s Leed Street campus. She was appointed to the AHT board in the spring and serves as chairwoman. She said the church will be built. “It’s not a question,” she said. Lewis, who was the first African Nova Scotian mayor of Annapolis Royal, said she brings her skills of working with municipalities to the board. She doesn’t have any direct ties to Africville.
The board is moving slowly to get it right, she said. Site plans are in place and AHT knows what the church exhibits will look like, but she would not reveal that publically. “It’s not top secret, but it’s a matter of we need to go to the community first and let them know what’s happening,” she said. “They should be the recipients of it first. They shouldn’t read about it in some publication.”
Lewis said AHT would meet with former Africville residents in a general meeting, but she declined to say where or when the meeting would take place. She also declined to say when or where the church would be built, only that it would happen sometime in 2011. She declined to say when the AHT board would assume a public role. She gave assurances that the board would operate openly and be accountable for how it spends the $2.5 million HRM gave it.
“Because we are publicly funded, everything would have to be very open and very transparent,” she said. Lewis couldn’t provide details on how it would make itself accountable.
“It needs to go to the community first,” she said.
Asked about what role AHT sees for Eddie Carvery, Lewis said she had not met the political activist.
“There is a very clear, definite recognition of Eddie’s involvement, Eddie’s contribution and what his commitment is to the Africville site,” she said. “It’s not the matter that somebody is going around anybody, it’s just we have not gone out to anyone at this point.”
One day after being interviewed by Halifax Magazine, Lewis went public with her role as chairwoman of AHT.
Back in Africville, Eddie Carvery is baffled no one from HRM, AGS or AHT has ever stopped by to talk to him. From his perspective as the only resident of Africville, it seems the same old story – lots of talk far away, but no direct consultation with the people on the ground.
“I’ve been here for 40 years. They haven’t come out and said, ‘Mr. Carvery, why are you in Africville?’” he says. “If I was included, I would feel I had some input. Evidently, all these years I’ve been sitting here, my input isn’t important enough.”
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Sidebar: The Africville Heritage Trust Board has 12 listed members: Irvine Carvery, Daurene Lewis, April Howe, Paula Grant-Smith, Linda Mantley, Shawn Mantley, Andrew Murphy, Andrew Paris, Marie Chapman, Fred MacGillivray, Mickey McDonald and Phil Townsend.
- This article first appeared in the January 2011 edition of Halifax Magazine -