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There's a common misconception that Vancouver doesn't have a Black community or history. That's just not true.
Hogan's Alley was a vibrant Black neighbourhood razed by the City in the '50s to make space for a freeway.
The freeway was never built. Instead, we got the viaducts.
Hogan's Alley was a vibrant Black neighbourhood razed by the City in the '50s to make space for a freeway.
The freeway was never built. Instead, we got the viaducts.
Follow @hogans_alley Society for more of this history and to support the future-building work they do. Their work memorializes Hogan's Alley and, in their words, aims to "advanc[e] the social, political, economic & cultural well-being of people of African Descent in Vancouver."
There's also a great little film about it here, "Return to Hogan's Alley": , featuring @WaydeCompton, among others.
"It was a good area then. It would have been a good area now if it hadn't uprooted the community." -Ronald Crump
There's also a great book called "Opening Doors" by Daphne Marlatt & Carole Itter. In 1977 they walked thru Strathcona knocking on doors & recording oral histories w anyone who was game. There's some gems from Hogan's Alley, incl stories from Nora Hendrix http://www.harbourpublishing.com/title/OpeningDoors
I love to read Opening Doors & think about all this vibrancy: these stories, these lives, the music, as I walk through these spaces today.
But with that said, I think it's important for people like me (aka white Vancouverites) to not just commemorate Vancouver's Black community as a thing of the past, significant as that history is, but to see it here today, and in Vancouver's future.
