Even closer to our hearts is the late 1950s story of an inspiring young Black announcer in Edmonton who sent out audition tapes, and got a call from a station about 40 miles away.  He drove there for the interview, but was not allowed past Reception when the interviewer, likely the PD, saw him face-to-face, so to speak.  My assumption is that they were worried about him being on Remotes, which the station, to this day, is still famous for.

I first met his about 5 years ago when he introduced himself while two of us from the Edmonton Broadcasters Club were having a coffee break and passionately talking about Broadcasting.  He has since joined the Club.

As for his career, that experience made him take a serious look at Reality, and he became an independent Electrician.  But he always had to be prepared to have a White employee available when he would occasionally arrive on a new Job Site and be "rejected".  He is in his late 70s now, still owns the business, but probably has not done any Electrical work in quite a few years.

RadioActive wrote:

This story was first posted here in 2016. Almost exactly five years to the day, The Star has resurrected it with a few updates. It's still pretty powerful - and pretty horrible, 

More than 60 years ago a Black teen from Malvern C.I. was told to stop dancing with a white girl on a Buffalo TV show. Toronto exploded

I can’t help but wonder if a similar situation to what happened in Buffalo would have happened in another part of Canada outside Toronto in those days. Even in my childhood split between London and rural Eastern Ontario 25-30 years ago, there was a huge difference in attitude towards visible minorities or LGBT individuals compared to Toronto. It was barely over 10 years ago that someone threw a banana at Wayne Simmonds when he played a preseason NHL game in London, and in 1997 we re-elected an openly homophobic mayor at a time Toronto was far more LGBT-friendly (though not as much as today).

Last edited by MJ Vancouver (February 14, 2021 6:10 pm)