Early Black Communities

Hogan’s Alley/Black Strathcona, in Vancouver’s working-class Strathcona neighbourhood, was home to multiple immigrant communities, but was known largely for its Black population. By 1871, there were more than 500 people of African descent living in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Black community had established itself in the Hogan’s Alley/Black Strathcona area by the early 1920s, and at its height in the 1940s, the Black population was approximately 800 people. Hogan’s Alley/Black Strathcona was a thriving, vibrant neighbourhood that was a cultural hub for restaurants, music, performers and artists. The African Methodist Episcopal Fountain Chapel was the centre of the community and consistently hosted religious services, meetings, dinners, and marketplaces. Hogan’s Alley/Black Strathcona was also home to a large population of Black men who worked as sleeping car porters on the Canadian railways. Other notable Black people who once lived in Hogan’s Alley/Black Strathcona include farmer and community leader, Fielding Spotts; musical entertainers, the Crump Brothers; and Jimi Hendrix’s grandmother, Nora Hendrix; to name a few.