Virtual Lecture Series

Biography:

Mr. Green is a retired drama teacher and is currently an actor, singer/songwriter and producer of his own original music. He has served as a teacher for the Hamilton-Wentworth School Board in Hamilton, Ontario for 37 years. He initiated the Drama program at his high school and became the Assistant Head of the English department. teaching Drama and English in Canadian schools.

As an avid interest in the development of Black Canadian culture he grew up in the Owen Sound BME church where his great grandfather was once the pastor.

Mr. Green has won the Excellence in Education Award and in the past been nominated for the Reverend John C. Holland Award and participated in presentation for the Ontario Black History Society and The Speakers Corner for Emancipation Celebration Picnic 2014. civic groups dedicated to the advancement of Black Canadians.

His first CD…”Soul Dancing” was nominated for best Indie Album in 2013 and was highlighted in CBC’s talent search out performing numerous other contestants.

Mr. Green is a graduate of University of Guelph with a Specialized Honours in Drama, The University of London (Allthouse Teachers College) with a Bachelor of Education and The University of Toronto (Faculty of Education) Honours Specialist in Drama

Topic: From Slavery to Freedom – 6 Generations

Mr. Rob Green, a 6th generation descendent of survivors from the underground railway pioneered by the well-known Harriet Tubman et al. who led a great number of slaves to the promised land in Canada

The runaway slaves came from Maryland, Virginia and other southern states and used the Underground Railroad accessing freedom to Canada in 1850’s.

Mr. Green will present his family history, sharing his photos and remembrances of his Childhood growing up in Owen Sound  and provide a personal and in-depth account of   his knowledge of  the experience and struggle that these former black slaves encountered when they reached Canada and also an account of the history of his family as they progressed through the years to present day. Much has been told and written regarding the slavery issues and been depicted in novels, movies and documentaries. He will discuss his perspective remembrances of stories told to him by his Grandparents, Mother and Father and other relatives regarding life during the Depression, the World War and progressive development of his family (original Black Canadians) to present day.

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Biography

Ruth Murambadoro is a Black political feminist and seasoned public speaker whose scholarship sits at the intersection of feminist theory, politics, and justice. Her work interrogates the structures of power and oppression that shape the lived experiences of marginalized communities in the Global South—particularly women in Sub-Saharan Africa. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Black Feminisms at Memorial University of Newfoundland, located in Mi’kma’ki—the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq and Beothuk peoples.

Her growing body of work includes the monograph Transitional Justice in Africa: The Case of Zimbabwe (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) and the co-edited volume The PhD Experience in African Higher Education (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022). Ruth also contributes thought-provoking essays to platforms such as Kujenga Amani, Africa Is A Country, and Herizons, among others.

A former board member of the Zimbabwe Peace Project and the African Studies Association, Ruth is a committed scholar-activist who works to advance holistic peace and development—both within academia and in broader society. She holds research affiliations with the Harriet Tubman Institute and the Centre for Feminist Research. Her long-term project, Humanizing African Women Movements, brings together diverse Black artists to build a digital repository of research creations that (re)present African women’s resistance to the geographies of violence shaping their everyday lives.

Topic: Between Home and Away: African Diaspora Women’s Entangled Lives of Displacement, Resettlement and Resilience

Western understandings of home often emphasize its physicality, framing it as a bounded space occupied by individuals whose lives are shaped by socio-political and economic forces. In contrast, African worldviews conceptualize home as more than a physical location or commodified premise. It is a lived, relational, and spiritual construct that anchors identity and belonging. Drawing on the African proverb musha mukadzi (“a woman is the home”), this essay examines how African diaspora women in Canada negotiate notions of home in opposition to colonial logics and Western prescriptions.

Within Bantu indigenous knowledge systems, musha (home) carries multimodal meanings that inform women’s identity, positionality, and purpose across diverse contexts. Thus, musha mukadzi offers a critical lens to understand how African diaspora women navigate existence within racist, capitalist societies while sustaining cultural values and forging new forms of belonging. The essay draws on life histories of Zimbabwean women in Canada, complemented by digital ethnography of African diaspora women’s engagements on social media platforms such as Facebook and TikTok. These narratives reveal shared experiences of displacement, adaptation, and resilience, highlighting how women embody home as a portable, affective, and cultural construct.

Emerging data suggests that African women do not merely inhabit home; they constitute and reconstitute it through their bodies, practices, and relationships. In doing so, they create alternative worldviews that challenge dominant paradigms of mobility and settlement. Their positionality underscores the need to theorize home as an embodied, negotiated, and dynamic space through African feminist perspectives.

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Biography

Interested in Black History and eradicating racism against Black communities from an early age, Channon’s keen interest and passion in these areas, helped her realize that she must do all she could to educate others and raise awareness of the rich history of Black people. An enthusiast of reading, travel and writing poetry, Channon has an indescribable passion and thirst to not only know more about history, in particular- slavery (historical and modern), but to educate people on these issues and to assist in stopping it from continuing!

An honours graduate, with a Bachelor’s degree in History and Caribbean Studies from the University of Toronto, a Master’s Degree in Slavery Studies from the University of Hull in the UK, a Certificate in Adult Education from George Brown College and currently undertaking her PhD at Queen’s University, Channon has expanded her knowledge and information about Black History and the issues that the Black community faces both locally, here in Canada and internationally, by participating in conferences and workshops relating to the Black experience and history in Canada. Channon served as the Vice President for the Ontario Black History Society (OBHS) from 2017-2023, where she helped the organization to preserve, celebrate and spread the rich Black history of Ontario and Canada.

Channon is the founder of Oyeniran Education Support (OyES), an educational organization that helps individuals and institutions identify and align with their intrinsic values, gifts and nurtures them to greatness. Channon uses the OyES platform and others, to teach people about Black History. Channon Oyeniran was born in Scarborough, Ontario but is a longtime resident of the Durham Region. She currently resides in the Durham Region with her husband and their sons.

Topic: An Overview of Black Canadian Historical Settlements and Communities

This presentation will provide an overview of the thriving settlements and communities people of African descent  built for themselves and their families in the late 18th century, 19th century and early 20th century.

This presentation will explore and discuss:

Early Black settlements and communities across Canada.

1. The individuals who helped to build these settlements and communities.
2. Important institutions built within these settlements and communities.

This presentation provides an opportunity for attendees to think critically about the various ways Black people arrived in Canada, and how they created thriving settlements and communities for themselves and families.”

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Biography

Dr. Natasha Henry-Dixon is an assistant professor of African Canadian History at York University. She is an award-winning author and an award-winning curriculum developer. Dr. Henry-Dixon is a 2025 recipient of the King Charles III Coronation Medal in recognition of her leadership and ongoing work to advance understanding of Black history in Ontario.

Her research and publications deal with the enslavement of Black people in Ontario, their quest for freedom, the commemoration of Emancipation Day, and Black communities in the province. Her publications include the books Emancipation Day: Celebrating Freedom in Canada (June 2010), Talking about Freedom: Celebrating Freedom in Canada (2012), a number of youth-focused titles, and several entries for the Canadian Encyclopedia on African Canadian history. Recently, her biographical series with the Dictionary of Canadian Biography on the lives of a select number of Black people enslaved in colonial Ontario was released. Dr. Henry-Dixon’s most recent public history projects include the self-guided walking tour, Tracing Mary Ann Shadd Cary’s Footsteps in Mid‑19th Century Black Toronto. She is the curator for the new Archives of Ontario exhibit, Illuminate Black: Shining Light on the Black Presence in Ontario. Dr. Henry-Dixon’s multifaceted work reflects her unwavering commitment to researching, preserving, and sharing the histories of Black Canadians, making her a vital voice in the field.

Topic:

George Martin was one of the few Black people enslaved in Upper Canada as a child who gained their freedom. This talk traces his story and highlights the process of piecing together archival fragments to genealogically reconstruct his narrative.

Nate Hendley – November 5 at 2 p.m.

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Biography

Nate Hendley is a Toronto-based journalist and an author, who was born in New Haven Connecticut, and raised in Waterloo, Ontario.

His work has appeared in the Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, The National Post, Maclean’s magazine, and numerous trade and business publications. He has also written several non-fiction books, primarily in the true-crime and historical genres.

His latest book, Atrocity on the Atlantic, recounts the deliberate torpedoing of Canadian hospital ship Llandovery Castle by a German submarine in World War One.

In a subsequent trial about the attack, a German court said obeying orders is not a defense for war crimes. This precedent forever changed war crime prosecutions, yet the Llandovery Castle tragedy has been largely forgotten.

Nate’s website (www.natehendley.ca) offers more details about his books and background.

Topic – Atrocity on the Atlantic

On the evening of June 27, 1918, a clearly marked Canadian hospital ship called the Llandovery Castle was torpedoed off the Irish Coast.

Sinking hospital ships violated the Hague Conventions—international, prewar treaties that tried to regulate combat—so the submarine commander tried to kill the survivors to conceal his war crime.

Most of the British crew and the Canadian medical personnel on board—including fourteen female nurses—died. A handful of survivors escaped to bear witness, leading to global outrage.

In 1921, the attack was prosecuted at the Leipzig War Crimes Trials (the little-known attempt to bring German war criminals to justice after the Great War). In ruling on the Llandovery Castle case, the German court set two epochal precedents: war crimes should be judged by international standards and following orders is not a defense for committing illegal acts in wartime.

These two principles guided Nazi-era war crime prosecutions and helped shape the legal foundation of the International Criminal Court (ICC), established in 2002 to bring war criminals from around the world to justice.

Yet for all this, the Llandovery Castle has been largely forgotten.

Published in February 2024 by Dundurn Press, Atrocity on the Atlantic examines a Canadian naval tragedy that took the lives of over 230 people and forever changed war crimes prosecutions

Sara Karn – November 26, 4 p.m.

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Biography

Dr. Sara Karn is a Postdoctoral Fellow for the project Thinking Historically for Canada’s Future and is based in the Department of History at McMaster University. Her award-winning research explores empathy and emotion in history and social studies education. Dr. Karn is also a certified K-12 Ontario teacher and currently teaches courses on history/social studies methods, transformative pedagogy, and climate justice education at the postsecondary level. In 2016, she worked as a Student Historical Interpreter Assistant at the Simcoe County Museum.

Topic – Teaching with Historical Empathy: Commemorating War and Promoting Peace

How might empathy be elicited when teaching about war and peace, within and beyond the history classroom? This presentation explores pedagogical approaches to fostering historical empathy—a process of attempting to understand the thoughts, feelings, experiences, decisions, and actions of historical actors—through the commemoration of war. Drawing on interviews with high school history teachers across Ontario, the presentation highlights the many ways that teachers design learning experiences centred around empathy, war, and commemoration—from collaborative learning in partnership with museums to field trips and overseas study tours. The presentation offers history teachers suggestions for approaching the design of historical empathy learning experiences with their students in ways that are attentive to the emotional aspects of learning and that highlight local and community histories and contemporary experiences of war and peace.