Several recent historical works have challenged interpretations of the civil rights
movement in the United States as a strictly domestic story by considering its connections to
anti-racist struggles around the world. Adding a Canadian dimension to this approach, this
article considers linkages between African Canadian anti-discrimination activism in the
1950s and early 1960s and African American civil rights organizing. It argues that Canadian
anti-discrimination activists were interested in and influenced by the American movement.
They followed American civil rights campaigns, adapted relevant ideas, and leveraged the
prominent American example when pressing for change in their own country. African Canadian
activists and organizations also impacted the American movement through financial and moral
support. This article contributes to the study of African Canadian history, Canadian human
rights history, and the American civil rights movement by emphasizing the local origins of
anti-discrimination activism in Canada, while also arguing that such efforts are best
understood when contextualized within a broader period of intensive global anti-racist
activism that transcended national borders.
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