North of the Color Line

Migration and Black Resistance in Canada, 1870-1955

By Sarah-Jane Mathieu

296 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 25 illus., 2 maps, notes, bibl., index

  • Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8078-7166-9
    Published: November 2010
  • E-book EPUB ISBN: 978-0-8078-9939-7
    Published: November 2010
  • E-book PDF ISBN: 979-8-8908-8241-7
    Published: November 2010

John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture

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North of the Color Line examines life in Canada for the estimated 5,000 blacks, both African Americans and West Indians, who immigrated to Canada after the end of Reconstruction in the United States. Through the experiences of black railway workers and their union, the Order of Sleeping Car Porters, Sarah-Jane Mathieu connects social, political, labor, immigration, and black diaspora history during the Jim Crow era.

By World War I, sleeping car portering had become the exclusive province of black men. White railwaymen protested the presence of the black workers and insisted on a segregated workforce. Using the firsthand accounts of former sleeping car porters, Mathieu shows that porters often found themselves leading racial uplift organizations, galvanizing their communities, and becoming the bedrock of civil rights activism.

Examining the spread of segregation laws and practices in Canada, whose citizens often imagined themselves as devoid of racism, Mathieu historicizes Canadian racial attitudes, and explores how black migrants brought their own sensibilities about race to Canada, participating in and changing political discourse there.

About the Author

Sarah-Jane Mathieu is assistant professor of history at the University of Minnesota.
For more information about Sarah-Jane Mathieu, visit the Author Page.

Reviews

"In all, this book achieves a great deal, not the least of which is giving voice to the lives and experiences of black communities in Canada—groups generally underrepresented in the historiography. . . . This book should be required reading for scholars and students on both sides of the border (and beyond) who are interested in race, labor, and migration foremost,but as well for historians of the United States and Canada more generally. It is a significant achievement that warrants a broad audience."—Canadian Historical Review

"North of the Color Line is an illuminating study of black resistance in Canada from the late nineteenth century through the first half of the twentieth century. . . . An important addition to both the history of transnational civil rights struggles and the black Canadian experience."—Journal of American Ethnic History

"An argumentative, but not contentious, work, and an excellent addition to North American black historiography and Canadian historiography as a whole. It is suitable for undergraduate or graduate students or simply those interested in Canadian history."—H-Canada

“A truly innovative study. Recommended.”—CHOICE

"Sarah-Jane Mathieu's scholarship opens up and deepens our understanding of race, migration, immigration, urbanization, and the discourse of white supremacy through its exploration of the United States' northern neighbor. She exposes multiple assumptions and contradictions presently embedded in the consciousness of citizens of Canada and the United States as well as the historical literature. Her treatment is creative, well-researched, and beautifully written."—Beth Tompkins Bates, author of Pullman Porters and the Rise of Protest Politics in Black America, 1925=1945

"North of the Color Line is written with verve, and brings fresh light and new information to an important but relatively under-reported era in African-Canadian history. It goes beyond anything we have on the Porters in this period, and offers much useful detail on the black community in Winnipeg."—James W. St.G. Walker, University of Waterloo