Black Women: Changemakers of the 19^th and 20^th Centuries

Black women in Canada have battled anti-Black racism in a variety of ways, both big and small. Caribbean women started immigrating to Canada in significant numbers in the 1950s and 1960s as part of the West Indian Domestic Scheme. This program targeted young single women to come and work in white Canadian homes for a year of employment. The scope of work included living in the employer’s house, cleaning, and taking care of children for long periods of time. These women banded together to make a better life for themselves and to sponsor their families to come to Canada, even though that decision meant at least a year of often non-stop labour in psychologically unsafe environments.