Stand with the Hermit!
A social media campaign for the Africville church
UPDATE
After a week of steady pressure in November 2010, Mayor Peter Kelly issued a press release announcing that Halifax had paid the $2.5 million to the Africville Heritage Trust Board.
Mayor Kelly also began replying to the stream of emails the campaign generated (read his letter here) as did MP Megan Leslie and MLA Percy Paris.
A spring date was offered as the start time for the building of the church, so Stand with the Hermit! is standing down until then. Hopefully, the church will be built next year and the deep issues surrounding Africville fully addressed. If not, keep your fingers near your keyboards!
Eddie was heartened by the show of support and greatly appreciative of everyone's efforts to join his struggle in what ways they could. He is hopeful that this time, promises will be kept.
Stand with the Hermit!
Eddie Carvery has been protesting the destruction of Africville for 41 years, living in the abandoned fields of his home to fight racism and demand that justice be done. He is doing his job; it's time for the rest of us to do ours.
This is a social media campaign to make Halifax and Nova Scotia finally follow through on the promise to rebuild the Africville church - a church the city bulldozed in the middle of the night in 1967.
Nova Scotia first promised to rebuild the church in 1991 and Halifax made the same promise in February, 2010. Today, the only sign of Africville in Africville is Eddie Carvery and his brother Victor in their protest camp by the grounds of the missing church.
If you want to help them, send this email to Halifax Mayor Peter Kelly, CC'ing Percy Paris, the minister for African Nova Scotian Affairs, Megan Leslie, the MP for Halifax, me and Michael Lawlor, a California jounalist heading the social media campaign in the U.S. Please notify me and Michael if you receive a reply so we can track official response.
The idea is to create a snowstorm of emails demanding answers so that it is at the front of Mayor Kelly's mind and so that he (and others) understand there is a wide (and voting) desire to see the church rebuilt.
Thanks for your support! Send the email (adding your name at the bottom) and tweet this page, Facebook it and email it to your friends, then email it again - next year is the 20th anniversary of the first promise to rebuild the church. Let's help make it the year that promise is finally kept.
SUBJECT: Africville
TO: kellyp@halifax.ca
CC: percy@percyparis.ca; leslim1@parl.gc.ca; jon@jontattrie.ca; michael.lawlor@gmail.com
Dear Mayor Kelly,
In the apology you made to the people of Africville on February 24, 2010, as referenced in “The Hermit of Africville: the Life of Eddie Carvery” by Halifax journalist Jon Tattrie, you addressed the destruction of the Africville church. You said:
“We apologize for the heartache experienced at the loss of the Seaview United Baptist Church, the spiritual heart of the community, removed in the middle of the night. We acknowledge the tremendous importance the church had, both for the congregation and the community as a whole.”
You also promised to reconstruct the Seaview United Baptist Church, a promise Nova Scotia first made in 1991.
Although Martin Luther King III broke the soil on the church site 18 years ago to signify its reconstruction, and the Halifax Regional Municipality has agreed to contribute $3 million toward rebuilding the church, the site still remains empty.
When will the project to rebuild the church begin?
I think 2010 will be remembered as the year we began using social media tools to share information about the destruction of Africville by the City in 1967 and Eddie Carvery's protest there, which is now entering its 41st year.
I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,