Transcript of “Honouring Stanley G. Grizzle: An Activist For Our Times” - Episode 1
Transcript of “Honouring Stanley G. Grizzle: An Activist For Our Times” - Episode 1
Richard Provencher (RP): This episode contains offensive and potentially harmful language that refers to Black communities in Canada. Some of the stories that are shared also contain vivid descriptions of physical and verbal violence that may be difficult for some listeners to hear.
Discover Library and Archives Canada presents “Porter Talk.” This production explores the lived experiences of Black men who laboured as sleeping car porters for both the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Railways during the twentieth century. Their voices along with those of their wives and children relay stories of both hardship and resilience.
This is the first season of Voices Revealed, a series that amplifies the voices of underrepresented and marginalized communities held within Library and Archives Canada’s vast oral history holdings. Narratives of injustice, conflict, persistence, and resolution enable us to understand how the past powerfully defines our present. They also provide compelling insights that push us to imagine new directions for our collective future.
My name is Richard Provencher and as your host of the first season of Voices Revealed, I am pleased to guide you through the stories that are at the heart of “Porter Talk.”
Stanley G. Grizzle (SG): Interview conducted by Stanley G. Grizzle of Ted King, Vancouver … Interview of Clarence Coleman of Ottawa … Interview of Cordie, Mrs. Roy Williams …
RP: In 1986 and 1987, Stanley G. Grizzle travelled throughout Canada and the United States interviewing Black men who worked on the rails as sleeping car porters.
SG: You were recruited to work on the CPR where?…. I’ll ask you why did you take the job?
RP: Grizzle also encouraged the men’s wives and children to share their experiences of living in a porter household.
SG: Do you think his absence from home affected the home life at all?
SG: What do you remember about your father being a sleeping car porter? Any incidents?
RP: Stanley G. Grizzle, a Canadian Pacific Railway porter for twenty years, as well as a celebrated activist, civil servant, and citizenship judge, was also an avid historian who went to great lengths to document and preserve Black History in Canada and beyond. His collection is now held at Library and Archives Canada.
The oral history interviews Grizzle conducted with porters and their family members will be contextualized by Black scholars, Canadian historians, and family and community members. They speak truth to power, demonstrating how the lived realities of the past continue to impact racialized communities today.
Dr. Cecil Foster, Chairman of the Department of Transnational Studies at the University of Buffalo and author of They Call Me George: The Untold Story of Black Train Porters and the Birth of Modern Canada, developed a relationship with Stanley Grizzle in his latter years and remembers him fondly.
Cecil Foster (CF): I often think of Stan in a lovable way as a pack rat. In that he kept everything, buttons, scraps of paper. And of course, for researchers, those things become wonderful things to be looking at them twenty, thirty, forty years later. And you wonder how he could have had the foresight to have kept those things because many of us would throw those things away. And just about every letter is there and well I have to assume I mean he was a prolific letter writer. And I'm sure that there's some that are lost. But when you think of all the letters that he wrote and he really had a sense of history. And that's why I'm not surprised that he at the end went out and interviewed people because I think that he saw citizenship as part of a continuum of one generation handing on the baton to another generation which will hand on to another generation but the third fourth and fifth generations should still have an idea of what has gone before. In that sense he's a good old railroad man where you get on one train station and you might go to six or seven stations down the road but you still remember those that you pass through. And I think that is sort of like his kind of thinking. And as a result it’s a rich rich collection that he left for future generations.
RP: As a community knowledge keeper, Grizzle was also keenly aware of the importance of getting stories about the experiences of Black Canadians right. Dr. Saje Mathieu, Associate Professor of History at the University of Minnesota and author of North of the Color Line: Migration and Black Resistance in Canada 1870-1955, was a graduate student when she first connected with him.
Saje Mathieu (SM): Look I remember I remember the day I cold-called Stan Grizzle as a grad student. I still see myself sitting on the floor of my little dorm room while I did it papers spread everywhere. And I was so thankful that he took my call. I mean he didn't know who I was. And he was gracious and he answered my questions. He made me jump through some hoops first like everyone else. He was like do you know who I am? I was like yes I know who you are probably more than you would want me to actually. And so he asked me probably a good thirty minutes of questions. What did I do there? What happened in this town? Like when did this happen? And I guess I answered them well enough that he then agreed to continue speaking with me. And while I never met him in person I did have the opportunity to be on a CBC interview with him. He was always kind to me. I think that because he has done because he is from Toronto because he had a whole other career after being a porter because he was he was charming and good when he spoke you know because he kept his records and now there's a collection at Library and Archives Canada I think that Stanley Grizzle has come to represent you know the gusto the grit the refusal to down of sleeping car porters.
RP: Like the many archival records that Dr. Mathieu consulted while researching her thesis, Grizzle was also a valuable historical resource himself. His vast textual collection, as well as the stories that he and others told him, enable us to understand the complexities of Black life in Canada throughout the twentieth century. His son, Stanley Grizzle Junior, gives us insight into the importance of the place of history in his father’s life and the friendships that sustained him.
Stanley Grizzle Jr. (SGJr): His house was up behind Casa Loma in that general area and he had one two bedrooms dedicated just for files and the filing cabinet after filing cabinet after filing cabinet. And you would ask him a question and he'd go right to the filing cabinet that was pertinent to that question.
RP: In addition to collecting all kinds of textual material related to Black experience in Canada and beyond, Grizzle’s friendships were vital to shaping his understanding of the times in which he lived. The stories that freely flowed between himself and others were special to him, and he was keenly aware of their need to be captured for future generations.
SGJr: Now he didn't drop many friends he didn't drop many he collected people. He was not one to shed people. They don't have to shed one take another. Dad was a collector of people eh? And that tape recorder he used to keep the tape recorder around his neck and take it off and put it down. I still have the tape recorder here that he used to use eh? I've still got probably 200 tapes here eh? I have no idea what's on them.
RP: For much of the twentieth century, collections like those created by Stanley Grizzle remained under beds and in the attics and basements of Black community members. The textual material always existed, living within communities, but it was not always accessible. Stories remained off limits too, shared only between trusted friends, family members, and acquaintances.
Dr. Steven High, Professor of History at Concordia University and the author of Deindustrializing Montreal: Entangled Histories of Race, Residence, and Class, speaks to the importance of Grizzle’s donation to Library and Archives Canada.
Steven High (SH): He created an archive right … Black history is largely invisible. Like whose stories make it into the archive? And that's a political question. And so he … by travelling the country and gathering sources and talking to people. There's the oral history interviews but there's also you know in the case of the Women's Auxiliary documentary evidence that would have likely have disappeared had he not done that when he did that.
RP: A park in Toronto directly across from the Main Street Subway Station and a laneway in the city’s east end extending south from Doncaster Avenue commemorate the ways Grizzle’s activism contributed to altering Canadian labour, immigration, and human rights policies. And yet few people are familiar with his life’s work as both a community historian and celebrated activist.
Stanley Grizzle’s highly coveted but out-of-print memoir My Name’s Not George: The Story of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in Canada walks us through the daily struggles he faced during his youth. These instances of everyday racism served as defining moments that shaped the devoted activist he became.
Scott Mayers reading memoir (SMayers): I was born in Toronto in 1918. My parents had come separately to Toronto from Jamaica in 1911 … My mother came as a domestic. The Grand Trunk Railway needed employees so my father found employment there as a chef … I was the oldest of seven children … I grew up in tough economic times … During the Depression we were on public welfare like many in the Black community … And those times served to ingrain racism more deeply. Besides the “Whites Only” rental signs we would often see signs like “Whites Only” in many public places … I recall that there were five or six African-Canadian children in my school. There wasn’t a day that went by when I wasn’t called a “N***”.
RP: Grizzle’s activism was also rooted in a violent incident experienced by his father, a familial story that continues to be shared two generations later. Here again is Stanley Grizzle Junior:
SGJr: Well I think when he was a young man his father was a taxi driver. My grandfather was a taxi driver in Toronto and he was parked out in front of the Royal York Hotel you know waiting for fares and white drivers came up to him and slashed him from the ear to the mouth and said that there'll be no n**** driving cabs in this city. And that's one thing that really really stuck with dad all his life that did.
RP: These incidents, combined with Grizzle’s first job as a CPR sleeping car porter, served as the foundation for his lifelong activism both within and outside of Toronto’s Black community.
SMayers: In June 1940 when I was 22 I started my first job with the railway. My parents had wanted me to stay in school. But with seven children and no welfare or unemployment insurance … it was difficult for them to provide for us as they would have preferred. Why did I get a job as a porter on the railway? I couldn’t get anything else – and I didn’t want to starve. Times were tough. Porters were well respected and looked up to by many in the community because they had steady employment. In essence, they were the aristocrats of African Canadian communities. They were the most eligible bachelors and parents often encouraged their daughters to marry a porter.
I received training for a week with a Porter Instructor Cyril Woods. The instructors used a 34-page manual and it emphasized that everything we did on the job was for the safety and comfort of the passengers. As one porter has said “everyone who got on the train was your boss.” The demands of constant servility took its toll on many. We were dubbed the “Diplomats of the Railway” and of all the railway workers we had the closest contact with the passengers. We brushed off their coats and hats, carried their luggage, shined their shoes, made their beds. We did everything for them. Yet if a passenger said anything negative about a porter anything at all it was grounds for dismissal … If you had a total of sixty demerit marks in one year you were automatically fired.
RP: Stanley Grizzle was not alone when it came to navigating racism and discrimination. These interview clips from conversations he had with Eddie Green, Raymond Coker, Leonard Oscar Johnston, and Roy Williams relay similar experiences:
Eddie Green (EG): I couldn't get a job in those times. It was uh the dirty '30s you know? And um getting a job was tough for a Black person anyway at that time.
Raymond Coker (RC): [chuckles] Well at the time there wasn't too much to go to. I mean when I came out of school I was qualified as an industrial chemist but and a musician but prejudice was so rampant then that-
Child in background: Help me set my television.
RC: You know couldn’t get anything.
Leonard Oscar Johnston (LOJ): Um the-the-the railroad porter was the only job that I could get. I applied for jobs but I was refused because of colour. Well actually they called me N***. And I remember one day I walked from Jane and Bloor to River Street along King Street lookin’ for a job as a-- I was a machinist. I had a couple of years machine shop and I was told to shine shoes. Yeah. Now that's fifty sixty years ago but and I decided “Okay I’ll shine shoes.” So I went down the CPR.
Roy Williams (RW): I went started railroading in 1936. There was no employment at that time and so it was very very depressing. So I thought I'd start railroading.
RP: Portering was both physically demanding and emotionally exhausting. Sleeping car porters met passengers as they boarded the train and attended to their every need until they arrived at their destinations. They were on the clock twenty-four hours a day, permitted to sleep just a few hours each night if their obligations allowed a break and another porter was available to cover their duties.
These highly exploitative and abusive labour practices replicated the treatment of those who were enslaved in the American South during the antebellum period, which extended from the conclusion of the War of 1812 to the beginning of the American Civil War in 1861.
Dr. Melinda Chateauvert, author of the classic text Marching Together: Women of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, explains the history of portering in the United States and its connection to the modern industrial age. We will soon see how these patterns were replicated in Canada.
Melinda Chateauvert (MC): The Pullman Palace Car Company was part of the nineteenth century’s dream of making things better for especially the rich. And what the idea that George Pullman had was to create a palace on a railway car. Up until that time even though we had had steam locomotives for quite a while and there'd been all sorts of other forms of conveyance the idea of travelling from city to city was quite onerous. And he wanted to create as I said a palace on wheels. They had places to sleep they had places to dine they had lounge cars they had lovely facilities for women and for men they provided services. It was really a hotel on wheels. And so passengers preferred or demanded and preferred and liked to have this kind of accommodation. George Pullman introduced the first car for the funeral of President Abraham Lincoln. And having chosen to do it that time he got all the national publicity that was attendant to that event. He also chose to hire Black men most of them recently emancipated to work on those cars to do to provide the services that were attendant upon first-class service. So that is where the legacy if you will of Black Pullman porters come from the Black sleeping car porters is kind of that heritage of Lincoln's funeral and Pullman's notion that Black men who had been enslaved as house men or butlers and other kinds of jobs … as slaves would be the best men to provide to give these jobs to or to hire to do this work.
Pullman replicated the racial job classifications that had already been institutionalized in the antebellum period into the modern industrial age. So in that regard Black people at the Pullman Company did heavy labour or they did service work.
SM: Indeed he doesn't even have a name. He's just ubiquitously called “George” after the owner of the Pullman Company. And the idea there was we shouldn't trouble white passengers with having to think about your name. So we'll just have you all have the same name after the owner of the company who effectively owns you as a worker. As in any relationship the company had its idea of what it would do with these Black workers but then those Black workers had ideas of their own and being willful participants in their own exploitation as workers wasn't part of the plan.
RP: That was Dr. Saje Mathieu emphasizing the everyday indignities of portering. Stanley Grizzle Junior goes further:
SGJr: So it was a form of bondage. It was better than working on the plantation. It was better than picking cotton. But no it had to eat at you to sit there and be treated in such a demeaning manner shining shoes and you know people buzzing the thing at three o'clock in the morning and say “Bring me a coffee boy” and stuff like that you know.
RP: Helen Wachter, the daughter and wife of a porter, Leonard Oscar Johnston, and Elaine Russell Padmore, whose father was also a porter, shared similar memories when Stanley Grizzle interviewed them.
Helen Wachter (HW): There was nothing else for the men to do except railroad. And the conditions under which they had to do it were so abominable. They go to work all hours of the night and day in all kinds of weather. They go on long trips. It was hard to get home and hard to leave. They didn't like it. And they didn't like the atmosphere of servitude. I know my own father he's a— He didn't like polishing shoes and somebody handing him "Here George" or "Here boy." He didn't like that at all. My father was not um for the railroad at all.
LOJ: Well I didn't like the confinement 'cause you-you were confined for days and then when you were starting out sometimes you'd work a whole month without being home. And that would add up to maybe 632 hours 21 hours a day … being confined with strangers all the time.
Elaine Russell Padmore (ERP): This is what they had to do. And at that time apparently uh the porters could be fired for the smallest misdemeanours or if perhaps a customer uh a paying customer didn't particularly like them or they could uh write them up.
RP: Stanley Grizzle was pulled away from his work as a porter when he was conscripted to serve in the Canadian forces during the Second World War. Similar to the defining moments he experienced in his youth, his service served only to reinforce his worldviews and ultimately his activism.
SMayers: In 1942 I received a letter instructing me to report for military service in His Majesty’s forces this pursuant to the Canadian Government’s passage of conscription legislation. I was sympathetic to the cause of the war but at the same time I was truly bothered by the fact that the democracy they were going to fight for in Europe didn’t apply to me here in Canada. In addition I was and still am a pacifist. From Newmarket I was sent to Camp Borden Ontario then to Terrace British Columbia where I took a two-week leave of absence to marry Kay in Hamilton Ontario in September 1942.
We were in Valcartier for about three or four months. Then we went to Halifax to prepare to go overseas. It took seven days to load the boat. I got on the boat the first day and on that day my first daughter was born Patricia. I was refused leave to go see her so I didn’t see her until she was three years old.
While I was in England the officers wanted a batman someone to shine their buttons and shoes. They apparently associated African Canadians solely with servants so I was approached and asked to be their batman. I found out it wasn’t part of my regimental duty to do that and so I refused. They asked another fellow from Barbados and he refused. Then they asked a Jewish fellow who was a friend and he refused too. We all refused.
Each week we were assigned a duty. There were about six different duties done on a rotation basis like cleaning the grounds, kitchen duty, making beds in the hospital unit. We didn’t have toilets just buckets called “honey buckets.” We would have to empty those. And because I refused to be a batman the officers put me on honey bucket duty for five consecutive weeks. When the fifth week came along I went on strike. Bombs and pilotless airplanes were falling all around us all over southern England. I figured I was going to die anyway so why not strike? My sergeant was hysterical. I asked to be taken to my commanding officer … and I asked to be discharged from the Canadian Army because the principles for which we were fighting didn’t apply to me.
His reply was that my problem was important but we were getting ready to cross the English Channel and were too busy to deal with it. He suggested that I go back to my tent and cool off for a couple of days. So I did just that. A few days later he called me back and asked me just what I wanted. I said I didn’t want any special favors I just wanted fair treatment … He assigned me to the quartermaster’s stores—a permanent post. It was a job that everybody wanted. I didn’t refuse it and within thirty days I had one stripe. Then I was given two stripes elevated to the rank of a corporal …
I returned to Canada in February 1946. I was discharged from the military. Finally I had a chance to see my daughter Patricia … the first of six children Nerene Pamela Stanley Edwin twins Sonya and Latanya and a foster child Ricky. I went back to work at the railway and took some courses at the University of Toronto …
RP: Like so many others, Grizzle returned from war a changed man. He rarely spoke of his experiences but they defined him nonetheless, reinforcing the vision he had for a new world free of racial discrimination and prejudice. His devotion to these causes, however, came at a price. They ultimately cost him his family.
SGJr: Well he was a unique individual. Dad and I had a Dad had a rough relationship with all his kids. He was a very very progressive person. He strove for excellence in everything he did and he expected that of his children as well eh? I don't think it was too unlike a lot of people that came back from the war. And that structure that they learned in the army of I guess discipline and that type of thing was something that pretty much every family was exposed to.
So Dad was a very very good provider. We lived in probably one of the largest houses in our area in East York. We had a double lot which was unusual. And we had a four-car garage that mom rented out the part of the … to local people and dad worked very very hard and provided for seven kids. We never wanted for anything. We ran into a bit of a problem in ‘63 when mom and dad separated actually February 1964 mom and dad separated. And then that was sort of the end of the family unit and it became mom and dad type of thing. And dad sort of rode off into the sunset … And he was always involved in the labour union. A member of the labour union people were always at the house. There was sleeping car porters at the house constantly big meetings. He was very involved in that.
There was always people coming to ask dad what about this here what about that there? And not just Black people you know these are they were Indo-Canadians Chinese Canadians First Nations people you know. Dad studied the non-violent the non-violent revolution. He was also President of the Martin Luther King Fund of Canada. He worked closely with Coretta King after Martin Luther King’s passing. So the house always ... When dad was home there was always shh your dad's busy you know or you know don't go don't go bother those people they're busy. But I still had to go in and say hi to them you know what I mean? And they impressed me they were well dressed they were articulate. Very impressive.
RP: Stanley Grizzle’s home served as the centre of his activism. As his son stated, the door to their home was always open and there tended to be a colourful cast of characters from Toronto’s Black community and beyond seated at the kitchen table into the early morning hours of most nights. This was especially true as he became more embedded in the labour union movement and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in particular.
RD: Within ten days of starting back on the road I was elected secretary of the union organizing committee … Later I was elected president of the local union. The short lesson for us was: if you were the head of a union you had to have integrity. You had to be exemplary. We were mostly family men committed to the union and would stick together on those runs. We did not drink or gamble. Generally we would go out bowling or to the theatre while others might play cards. That was my group. There was one crowd that would get dressed up and go out looking for women.
RP: Stories of legendary characters pop up across Grizzle’s interview collection. Porters Willis Richardson, George Forray, Odelle Holmes, and Clarence Nathaniel Este acquaint us with some of the memorable men who ran with this crowd.
Willis Richardson (WR): Right away after I started on the road I met a porter out of Moose Jaw called Count D-Berry.
SG: Oh yes.
WR: And he was a picturesque figure. He was the most picturesque [laughs] porter that I ever seen. He was well liked.
SG: Mm-hmm.
WR: And he ran for years from Moose Jaw to up around Saskatoon or someplace.
SG: Mm-hmm.
WR: And uh he was an outstanding man. He'd been around the world. He'd been all over the United States and he'd been a cook and he'd been all these various things. And he could keep you in stitches for hours telling you of all the different things that he was. And he was a ladies man too you know? Oh he liked to dress. And he used to when they had the train—the CPR train running into Chicago he would put on his best and he'd have the his girlfriends meet him down at the station. And he'd be all ready.
George Forray (GF): Oh well we had one fellow Dewberry from out west that we used to call him “The Count.”
SG: Oh yeah.
GF: He was always sharp always walked with his cane.
SG: Oh yeah.
GF: Oh yes.
SG: He dressed sharp.
GF: He dressed sharp and looked sharp. And always wore his diamonds. Oh yes. Whenever he wore them he was out strutting. He had his cane and he was called a “Count.” Yes. He was the Western Count in Winnipeg.
Odelle Holmes (OH): We had some pretty good characters. They had characters around Winnipeg that I say was quite uh yeah I think it was more nicknames around there than any place. They had a guy there named D-Berry Count D-Berry.
SG: Well why was he-
OH: He was- I don't know exactly. He used to be such a well-dressed guy. He was wearing almost a tuxedo-type suit, a dark suit, very formally dressed all the time. And he had a handlebar mustache and uh it was waxed right out to uh just about four or five inches long you know that type of thing. And he would go to work dressed like he was going to a formal dinner and they called him “the Count.” Now that guy he stands out because I met him the first about the first second trip I made on the road in 1940. And so he stands out in my mind yet.
Clarence Nathaniel Este (CNE): Yes uh for instance we had a porter who was very very very liked and who wanted to be called—
SG: Liked?
CNE: Liked. Very very—What’d I say?
SG: You said--
CNE: A porter who was very very bright.
SG: Oh bright.
CNE: Bright.
SG: Oh I see.
CNE: And who wanted to be recognized with a title that fit his characteristics. And his name is Count Dewberry. He wanted everybody to know him as a Count.
SG: Right.
CNE: And therefore he accepted the title as being “Count Dewberry.”
SG: Uh royalty uh.
CNE: Royalty. We also had one porter who was very restrained who was a very restrained person but he thought a lot of himself and he uh called himself “Good-lookin’ Morrison.”
SG: [laughs]
CNE: [laughs] He said you say I am ugly but my mother told me I was good-lookin’ and therefore my name is “Good-lookin’ Morrison.”
SG: [laughs] Right.
CNE: [laughs]
RP: Although Grizzle’s children rarely understood the choices their father made and his noteworthy absences from their lives were often too much to bear, the discussions that transformed their home remain memorable. With hindsight, they offer another way into understanding the complex person their father was. At the time however, living history was exhausting. It was impossible to understand how portering, which took their father away from home for long periods of time combined with his obsessive approach to activism, was helping to change Canada.
SGJr: [I]t took him away from the family which I don't think is that unusual for people that are that driven. And so there was a lot of acrimony with a lot of the kids. I guess I was to remain closest to Dad out of all the kids. After the split in ‘64 there was sort of a shattering of the family. Yeah and the rest of the older sisters didn't really abide by hanging around with Dad any longer … But he was very creative loved music. There was always music in the house. And I learned right from people like Stan Kenton and the Duke and all these people that listening to Dad's music. He was extremely musical. And he was a lot of fun. And a great woodworker. He loved woodworking as well which I think I came by that honestly because I love woodworking as well. I just love the smell of wood love working with wood. So those are the younger days that I recall with Dad.
RP: While Grizzle imparted a love of music and woodworking to his son Stanley, he was rarely present in the lives of his wife and other children. The toll that raising seven children took on his wife soon became unforgivable.
SGJr: Well there was I mean she had seven at the point in time now the kids say twins weren't born until ‘62. So during we had there was I guess five of us kicking around the house. All fairly active. I mean Nerene Tish were very active in school plays. “Guys and Gals” I remember that. And she was also a cheerleader. Nerene was a cheerleader and track and field into track and field so she was busy. There was me I played hockey. I started playing hockey when I was six. And I played hockey constantly. Rep hockey. I was a good little hockey player. And so we were all busy busy busy. And dad wasn't home. You know dad was on the train so mom had to organize all these things you know she gave me one of my sister’s student tickets TTC tickets so I could get to hockey. I don’t think Dad was ever at a hockey. I think he was at one of my hockey games and I played hockey for eight years. Or nine years yeah. And he was at one game that I recall. So and you know I didn’t like that at the time because everybody else’s dads were there tying their skates and that but in hindsight I know what he was doing. He was busy creating a bigger you know a bigger better society type of thing eh? And their marriage succumbed to I guess what most marriages succumb to just people going in different directions eh?
RP: Grizzle’s memoir leaves out the personal details that led to the disintegration of both his marriage and the relationships he had with most of his children. It remains unclear as to whether he ever viewed the situation from their perspective. Family stories reveal that the reality was much more complex.
SMayers: In 1962 I ended my association with the union. Almost a year after I left the railway I became the first African Canadian to be employed by the Ontario Ministry of Labour and I started as a clerk with the Ontario Labour Relations Board … I was earning about $1000 a year less as a clerk with the Ministry of Labour than I was as a porter … It was a sacrifice that seriously affected my marriage which eventually broke up.
In January 1978 I resigned from the provincial civil service to accept an appointment by Prime Minister Trudeau as a Judge in the Court of Canadian Citizenship the first African Canadian in the court’s history. I held that position for five years and ten months … I enjoyed the experience of meeting people from nearly 100 countries during my tenure and retired in 1983.
RP: Dr. Dorothy Williams, author of the seminal texts Blacks in Montreal: 1628-1986 and The Road to Now: A History of Blacks in Montreal, views Grizzle as a vital community knowledge keeper who captured important glimpses of Black experience in Canada. We must see him in the same light as someone who was keenly aware of the fleeting nature of history. Much would have been lost had Grizzle not taken the time to clip newspaper articles, preserve speeches and texts, maintain union records, and capture the voices of those around him.
Dorothy Williams (DW): Well I mean he was a chronicler and you know he's telling a story from his own his own vantage point and that's good. I mean we need a lot more stories. We need … Because history is the written word when you throw them out in the garbage you're throwing out history. Because for whatever they say about you know oral history it's still not perceived even though you know there's an expression in that when a person dies a library dies right? This library gets closed when they die. Yes because they're sharing their stories. But if it's not in writing then there's going to be a loss right? So we still need the chroniclers. We still need our writers our dreamers our visionaries to put it on paper and to help flesh out this the story of the Black experience in Canada. It's gonna take other disciplines to come in and help to fill in even minutely start to fill in little parts of those gaps that are there. We've lost a lot. It's taken us a long time. I don't know. We're never gonna have the full story. Why? Because it was not a discipline that was tracked from the beginning. Right now we have this we have the scholars coming out of the woodwork right? When I was doing what I was doing in the 1980s and the 1990s I was alone. That was it you know? Even in the 2000s there were a few other people very few of them people were getting support wherever they could including the United States. But within Canada it’s like Black what? Who cares? You know what is that?
RP: In addition to holding a vast array of documentation pertinent to Grizzle’s experiences, Library and Archives Canada recently digitized forty-three oral history interviews he conducted with CPR and CNR porters and their family members in 1986 and 1987. These interviews and their accompanying transcripts, made possible with charitable support from the LAC Foundation, are freely available on our website.
Moving forward, each “Porter Talk” episode will turn the mic over to Grizzle’s interviewees, giving them the time and space they need to narrate the experiences of their lives. We will always provide detailed timestamps in the accompanying podcast transcript so that you can engage with the interviews on your own terms.
Melvin Crump, a sleeping car porter who worked out of the CPR’s Calgary Division for eighteen years, described these conversations as “Porter Talk.” His use of this term, a beautiful reminder of the relationships the men developed both on and off the rails, inspired the title for this first season of Voices Revealed.
MC: Oh-oh-oh-oh yes. Yeah I know what you mean. You mean porter talk? You mean porter talk? Well uh uh some of the porter talk names I wouldn’t wanna mention on tape because if I did uh it would shock some of the readers or some of the listeners but they had a language all of their own I’ll tell you. And some of the conversations that they would get in between themselves. I couldn’t dare I wouldn’t dare to start to-to mention none of those things.
RP: It is rare when listening to oral history interviews for the sounds that one hears in the background to be just as interesting and important as the stories being shared by interviewees. But this is the case with Grizzle’s interview collection. Almost immediately we are swept into his world where the formalities of the typical interview are cast aside. Informal banter transpires and drinks, complete with clinking ice cubes, are stirred in the background. The interviews provide us with an intimate snapshot into a past that ceases to exist but surely continues to shape the present moment.
Grizzle’s interviews will bring you deep into his world of porter talk. In addition to pondering what was lost when he haphazardly stopped and restarted his recorder, listeners are presented with wonderful opportunities to hear the ways that various sounds cut across these narratives, providing a deeper understanding of who Grizzle’s interviewees were.
Their voices reveal the varied countries from which they descended. Heavy accents from America’s Deep South and those from a host of Caribbean nations tell us about lives lived elsewhere. The struggle of these migrant labourers to make a better life in Canada is front and centre. Everyday soundscapes also loom large. Radios and televisions wail alongside birds chirping in the background and children playing in neighbouring rooms. The banging of pots and pans reveals the presence of women in nearby kitchens, likely preparing a meal for their esteemed guest before they too sat down to share their stories. The stomping of feet above the heads of Grizzle and his interviewees alongside the flushing of toilets speak to the substandard tenement housing from which some porters, then retired, were never able to escape. This beauty of lives well lived and the complexities of those everyday experiences are at the heart of “Porter Talk.”
The conversations that began at Stanley Grizzle’s kitchen table and continued on the rails, at union meetings, and in protests on the street laid the foundation for modern Canada. The personal costs he and his family bore were not for nothing. His voice, along with those of other porters stationed throughout the nation, pushed to affect change on the ground, especially in terms of labour laws, immigration policies, and approaches to human rights. But as Grizzle reminds us, the work required to continue to fight against the systemic, institutional, and everyday racism and discrimination which has long affected marginalized communities continues. “Porter Talk,” like Grizzle’s words, offers us powerful ways to continue moving forward on this quest.
SMayers: I am reminded of A. Philip Randolph’s words to me on one occasion: “Brother Grizzle right has a peculiar way of rising to the surface.” Notwithstanding, I am afraid that man’s inhumanity to man, whether it is based on colour, race, religion, or culture, is going to be with us for a long time in our society. We have conquered outer space but we have not conquered ourselves. We have come a long way but we have a long way to go.
RP: Coming up in the second episode of “Porter Talk” we’ll delve into who the porters were. Listen in as these men recount where they came from, how they found themselves on the rails, and the unexpected challenges they faced.
James Laverne Robbins (JLR): I enjoyed the companionship of the porters themselves, but actually working there it was just a job to get by so I could raise my family and Black men couldn’t get a job no place else.
RP: If you’re interested in hearing more from James Laverne Robbins and other sleeping car porters who welcomed Stanley Grizzle into their homes in the late 1980s, subscribe to Discover Library and Archives Canada. You’ll receive episodes as they are released, which introduce you to these men as well as their wives and children. Together they give voice to Black life on and off the rails during the early twentieth century. Leading Black scholars and historians help us contextualize porters’ experiences, enabling us to understand the myriad ways these citizens faced obstacles and persisted nevertheless.
Thank you for being with us. I’m Richard Provencher, your host. You’ve been listening to “Porter Talk,” the first season of Voices Revealed.
Special thanks to our guests: Stanley Grizzle Junior, Dr. Cecil Foster, Dr. Saje Mathieu, Dr. Melinda Chateauvert, Dr. Steven High, and Dr. Dorothy Williams. You can find biographies of each person who participated in this episode in the show notes. There you will also find an episode transcript with embedded timestamps that link you to the original interview content in the Grizzle collection. Feel free to explore and share these stories widely!
We also acknowledge the contribution of Scott Mayers, who read the excerpts from Stanley Grizzle’s memoir you heard in this episode. Voiceover for the French equivalent of this episode was done by Euphrasie Mujawamungu, Roldson Dieudonné, and Lerntz Joseph.
You can find French versions of all our episodes on our website or your favourite podcast app. Simply search for “Découvrez Bibliothèque et Archives Canada.”
Acclaimed musician and producer Paul Novotny composed “Jazz Dance,” the theme song for “Porter Talk.” Joe Sealy, famed jazz pianist who is the son of a porter, is also featured on the recording.
All other music in this episode is from the audio library at BlueDotSessions.com. This episode was produced, written, engineered, and edited by Tom Thompson, Jennifer Woodley, and Stacey Zembrzycki.
For more information on our podcasts, go to Library and Archives Canada’s homepage, type “podcast” in the search bar in the top-right corner, and click on the first link. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions, reach out to the podcast team at the email address located at the bottom of the episode page.
References
Melinda Chateauvert, Marching Together: Women of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (University of Illinois Press, 1998).
Cecil Foster, “They call me George”: The Untold Story of Black Train Porters and the Birth of Modern Canada (Windsor: Biblioasis, 2019).
Stanley G. Grizzle with John Cooper, My Name’s Not George: The Story of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in Canada. Personal Reminiscences of Stanley G. Grizzle (Toronto: Umbrella Press, 1998).
Steven High, Deindustrializing Montreal: Entangled Histories of Race, Residence, and Class (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022).
Saje Mathieu, North of the Color Line: Migration and Black Resistance in Canada, 1870-1955 (University of North Carolina Press, 2010).
Dorothy W. Williams, Blacks in Montreal: 1628-1986 (Les Éditions Yvon Blais Inc, 1989).
Dorothy W. Williams, The Road to Now: A History of Blacks in Montreal (Montreal: Véhicule Press, 1997).