This 22-year-old is out to give Black stories 'more light' with launch of history database in Hamilton

Ever since he was a little kid, Aaron Parry "was extremely interested in Black history." 

In fact, the 22-year-old McMaster University graduate says he "was always talking to my aunties about our history and everything."

Parry says it was "a dream come true" when he was approached last year — while he was still a student at McMaster — about a research opportunity, focusing on Black history related to Hamilton, Ont. The research would be instrumental for a new joint project by the Afro-Canadian Caribbean Association of Hamilton (ACCA) and the Hamilton Black History Council, with funding provided by the Hamilton-based Centre for Community Engaged Narrative Arts.

Fast forward to this month and Parry's research has led to a one-stop-shop for Black history in Hamilton. The project, called the Hamilton Black History Database, is being introduced to the community Tuesday to help kick off Black History Month, with a virtual event aptly named A Walk Through Time.

"Regardless of how long your family or your community has been in Hamilton, it is all of our stories and they're continuing to be told," Parry told CBC Hamilton, ahead of the event. 

"As someone who is still kind of a youth, I think that it's our responsibility to carry those stories. Sometimes people in my age group might forget to honour the people that have come before us … but I think that it's very important to honour... the people who are still here and honour our ancestors in any way and honour the history of our community," he said. 

Evelyn Myrie, president of the ACCA, said the project is a good example of allyship, and will make local Black history more accessible.

The database will be virtual and the Hamilton Black History Council will launch it officially on Feb. 21, sharing the website then via social media. Tuesday's event — running between 12 and 1 p.m. online — offers a sneak peek. 

"There has been a big concern for many years and continues to be around the access to information on Black history, so this allows us to have accessible information about the Black community in Hamilton over a long period of time," Myrie told CBC.

"It really helps to debunk any perceptions that the Black community is new to Hamilton, so to speak. It really puts Black history in Hamilton at your fingertips."

One of the earliest pieces of Hamilton's Black history Parry found during his research was a speech written by Paola Brown to be delivered at Hamilton City Hall in the 1800s.

According to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Brown was born in Pennsylvania around 1807. He had runaway after being enslaved at a southern plantation.

Brown was documented as being in Upper Canada by late 1828 — a "leader of scattered Black families between Niagara (Niagara-on-the-Lake) and Dundas." He would settle in Hamilton, and "assumed a leadership role" there during the 1830s, when the city "attracted a small Black community." 

Although Parry was intrigued by Brown's story, it was something else that stood out to him the most from his research for the database.