The Lost Town
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ip91m82m82s&feature=rel
ated
Your text pages 169-170
 Halifax, Nova Scotia -- in the northern edge of the
Halifax peninsula, beside the Bedford Basin….
 Over its 120-year history, perhaps 90 to 100%
Blacks with a few white families. Permanent
residents and transients. At its peak,
Africville had perhaps 400 residents.
 What immigrant groups might have made
up this population?
 See handout section 2
 1830s - 1970. Developed slowly after the War of 1812,
grew after the American Civil War, thrived from the
1890s to the 1920s.
 During the 1950s it began a slow downturn until the
late 1960s.
 Relocation occurred between 1964 and 1967. The last
house was bulldozed January 2, 1970.
 A small, self-contained, tight-knit Black community
within the city limits of Halifax, Nova Scotia. At its
peak, just before World War I, it was made up of
approximately 80 families / 300 residents.
 What do you think the community developed and
valued?
 Africville became the preferred site for undesirable
facilities such as Rockhead Prison (1853), "night-soil"
disposal pits, the Infectious Diseases Hospital (1870s)
and the Trachoma Hospital (1905).
 The area was refused by the City of Halifax basic
utilities such as sanitary water, sewage, fire protection
and street lights.
 See handout top of 2nd page
 “Big yellow trucks” (garbage trucks) were used to
move residents.
– Mail Star, February 26, 1970
 “Pa” Carvery was the last remaining resident in
Africville. He resisted relocation, ignoring the
advancing construction of the nearby bridge in
November 1969. Miller was offered a suitcase
containing $14,000 in cash, which he did not
accept. Due to mounting pressure, Pa moved
several weeks later into a city-owned home and
accepted a cash settlement.
 Many Africville relocatees moved into public housing, which
necessitated major lifestyle adjustments. Approximately 24
relocatee families purchased homes with money received from
their settlements: about half settled in North End Halifax,
while seven others settled near metropolitan Halifax, with a
remaining few going farther afield (two moving out of Nova
Scotia). Many went into debt due to substantial monthly bills;
some eventually lost their new homes.
 Relocation produced personal crisis for an estimated 60 per
cent of relocatees – job problems, household changes, marital
strains, money worries, strains among relatives and stripping
away of kinship intimacy. Relocatees did not receive any
benefits or opportunities commensurate with their needs.
Rather, many lost their identity, their traditional security and a
potential bargaining resource (their land), with which they
might have been able to revive their own sense of community.
 See handout “Relocation Section”
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ8knQJH1Jc
 What does the community of Africville feel like from
this section of the film?
 Do you think people were happy and proud living there?
 What was it about their community that they felt so
attached to?
 How will this story become a piece of their culture &
heritage?
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVAIuKrRUic
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOfvBy1G_WI
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMv3k7XGWjk
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljtCHKkiCNk
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0jJknikgCY