Building with deep links to Winnipeg's Black history at risk after Sutherland Hotel blaze
CBC
The Craig Block now stands alone, flanked by empty lots on Main Street, an unassuming two-storey brick building that most Winnipeggers have probably passed without noticing before.
Built in 1894, it stood in the shadow of its much larger neighbour, the 1882 Sutherland Hotel, until now. A fire turned the hotel to rubble earlier this week, exposing the Craig Block like a tooth in the smile of a jack-o'-lantern.
It has also brought into the light the modest building's major — but relatively unknown — role in the history of the city's Black community.
It was there that the Order of Sleeping Car Porters, believed by many to be the first Black union in North America, gathered on the second floor, said local historian Christian Cassidy, who has researched and written extensively about the building in a blog called Winnipeg Places, which is part of his larger blog West End Dumplings.
It's where those men voted to walk off their jobs during the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919.
"The Craig Block has such a wonderful history. In a single building, it tells so much," Cassidy said, while lamenting the future of the building and its stories.
The block still stands after the Sutherland fire, but for how long?
"It was always my fear that one day it would burn to the ground, and that hasn't quite happened, but it still may end up having to come down," Cassidy said.
"I haven't heard anything about the condition, but … I mean, all the water just pounding down on that roof — to have this older building, I don't know what [the] foundation is like, if the water crept in there. There isn't a big store that owns the building or something that, with somebody saying, 'My God, I gotta save this.'
"I imagine that an insurance assessor will be visiting it pretty soon and I guess we'll find out what'll happen."
The building has no historical status protections or any signs to commemorate its history.
"We need to do a better job of telling the story of these buildings … and we just haven't. We've sort of failed the Black community. We've failed the Craig Building," Cassidy said.
It's also the education system that has failed to tell the stories of Black people, allowing sites like the Craig Block to fly under the radar, said Nadia Thompson, chair Black History Manitoba.
"The majority of our history, which is Canadian history [too], is not taught in schools," she said. "We've had several people try to make that a historical landmark, but they were unsuccessful."
