Yearly Archives: 2019

Canadian Notes & Queries: Hey Porter

Canadian Notes & Queries: Hey Porter
Most of us recognize them from the odd period movie clip, bedecked in their black-and-white uniforms, special caps, and pocket watches; their ever-present, mile-wide smiles. They flit in and out of these shots like shadows: here helping a passenger to climb aboard a train; there serving a drink from a tray; acting as tourist guides...
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TVO – Excerpt: Cecil Foster’s ‘They Call Me George: The Untold Story of Black Train Porters and the Birth of Modern Canada’

TVO – Excerpt: Cecil Foster’s ‘They Call Me George: The Untold Story of Black Train Porters and the Birth of Modern Canada’
For years, cross-country rail travel was an integral part of Canadian identity, and Black train porters played a central role. But despite their contributions, they were treated like second-class citizens In 1891, a reporter from the New York Sun shadowed porters on the Canadian Pacific Railway transcontinental run to give readers a first-hand account of the...
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CBC – The untold story of Canada’s black train porters

CBC – The untold story of Canada’s black train porters
At the beginning of the 20th century, being a train porter in Canada was the exclusive domain of black men who laboured long hours for miserable pay. Cecil Foster is a journalist and academic whose book, They Call Me George; The Untold Story of Black Train Porters and the Birth of Modern Canada, chronicles the...
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The Toronto Star – In 1954, Black train porters called on Ottawa to transform Canada into ‘a country of equality’

The Toronto Star – In 1954, Black train porters called on Ottawa to transform Canada into ‘a country of equality’
On April 26, 1954 a train arrived in Ottawa. Inside one of its cars: a 35-member delegation of the Negro Citizenship Association. In They Call Me George, sociology professor and novelist (Independence) Cecil Foster makes the case that the moment was exceptional, a consequential threshold-crossing episode. The men, former and current porters (popularly known as “George’s boys”...
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Biblioasis – An Interview with Cecil Foster

Biblioasis – An Interview with Cecil Foster

...we’re eagerly awaiting February 5 and the Canadian publication of our first 2019 title: Cecil Foster’s They Call Me George: The Untold Story of Black Train Porters and the Birth of Modern Canada. Foster’s history documents the struggles, both individual and collective, of Black Canadians against the racist policies of their employers and their country. It was their actions, Foster argues, that laid the groundwork for the multicultural nation we know today. Incorporating the author’s own interviews with former porters and outlining the rarely-discussed institutional racism of early Canadian immigration and employment policies, They Call Me George is an indispensable read for the 21st century.

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