Published: 2010-07-25

The story of Africville

History of razed community revealed in biography of longtime protester

By Stephen Patrick Clare (Ted Pritchard photo)

WHILE growing up in Halifax, Jon Tattrie heard stories about the rise and fall of Africville. "They never added up," says the author and journalist. Tattrie’s latest book, The Hermit of Africville: The Life of Eddie Carvery, recounts the history and hardship of both the person and the place.

"I had heard it (destruction of Africville) was urban renewal to make life better, but then Eddie and Victor Carvery made global news during the 1995 G7 summit in Halifax saying it was a crime. I had heard it was to make way for the MacKay bridge, but then I went down to Seaview Park and noticed that the bridge didn’t touch any of the prime Africville land."

The writer’s curiosity eventually got the better of him.

"In August 2009, I was covering the Africville summer reunion as a reporter, looking for a quote about how great it was that a service road had been renamed Africville Road, but instead I got Eddie Carvery. I knew who he was from his protest, but was surprised to learn he was still there. He spoke about his protest, about racism, about the buried history of Africville, and I knew I had my path to a better understanding of Africville."

To his amazement, Eddie’s story had never been told.

"He appears on the periphery of many accounts, but is routinely dismissed as a ‘squatter’ or a guy in search of cash. People act as though the best idea he ever had was to sit in a field for 40 years and hope someone cut him a cheque. I wanted to present the real story."

Along with 40 hours of face-time with his subject, Tattrie read as many books as he could find, watched several movies, visited the Black Cultural Centre and scoured newspaper clippings at the library for information.

"That formed a general structure of the Africville story into which I mixed Eddie’s own incredible journey through violence, drug addiction and despair into the new peace he’s found late in life."

The real challenge, Tattrie said, was piecing all of the data together into a comprehensive and compelling narrative.

"Eddie has a strong, episodic memory, but establishing chronology was hard work," said Tattrie. "I did that by cross-referencing his story with historical records and the accounts of other people involved in his life. It’s an old saying that the victors write history and in this case, the people of Africville lost badly.

Due to the chaotic nature of the bulldozing of the community in the 1960s and the repeated destruction of Eddie’s campers — and all the photos and documents he had gathered over the years — re-constructing his life was a laborious process."

As Tattrie would discover, the man and the myth were decidedly distinct.

"One journalist described him to me as an unstable improvised explosive device," he said. "‘Crazy Eddie’ had a reputation as a man you would not want to spend 40 hours with in a small camper. I expected the interviewing process to be hard and unpleasant, but I found a gentle, friendly, open man who’s at a point in his life when he’s not running any more, not hiding, and was ready to tell his story. It’s often a bad story and he hurt a lot of people — the kind of damage that never goes away. He knows that. He’s looked deep into his soul and reported his findings to me.

"This isn’t a book about Eddie, the hero, or Eddie, the villain. It’s a book about Eddie, the human."

He hopes that it is also a book that will raise as many questions as it attempts to answer.

"If you’re a middle-class white guy like me, you hear a pretty nice story about Nova Scotia as a land of liberty. Other people have very different experiences. Our black and Mi’kmaq history is an extraordinary story of struggle, oppression and resistance and it is shamefully under-represented in our lives.

"Africville today is literally buried under mountains of trucked-in landfill and history can be buried, too."

Stephen Patrick Clare is a freelance writer who lives in Halifax.