Washington Black events aim to connect production crew with Black Nova Scotian communities
CBC
The showrunner of a TV series based on Esi Edugyan's novel Washington Black says shooting in Nova Scotia for the past few months has felt like coming home.
Selwyn Seyfu Hinds, who is also a writer and executive producer on the Disney+ series, called Nova Scotia "one of the most gorgeous places" he's ever shot. He also said the cast and crew have particularly appreciated connecting with local communities.
"Being able to tangibly touch and feel the Black Nova Scotian community here, which is such an important part of the book and important part of the show," he told CBC Radio's Information Morning on Friday.
"A barber cut my hair one day and just casually mentions that his family have been here for 500 years."
Listen to Selwyn Seyfu Hinds's full interview with Portia Clark:
The novel Washington Black follows a young Black man, George Washington Black — Wash for short — on an extraordinary series of adventures after he flees his former life as a slave on a sugar plantation in Barbados.
Wash's journey takes him all over the world, but one of his first stops is Nova Scotia.
The TV adaptation of Edugyan's story began shooting in the province in March, including in Lunenburg, The Ovens, Mount Uniacke and Halifax. It's expected to wrap up production here next week.
Edugyan told CBC News in a recent interview that she wanted to show the complexities of Black settlement in Nova Scotia.
The character of Wash expects Nova Scotia to be a haven for him, given Canada's connection to slavery as being the last stop on the Underground Railroad.
"He's going into it, expecting to find that he's fully accepted and greeted," Edugyan explains, "and that ends up not being the case. He finds that this is a place of great fractiousness."
The migration of Black Loyalists during the American Civil War made Shelburne, the town where Wash takes refuge in her book, the site of the largest colony of free Black people outside of Africa at the time.
However, as a result of the racism and discrimination the Black Loyalists faced, Shelburne was also where Canada's first recorded race riots took place in 1784.
An open letter written by Shekara Grant, a founding member of the Change is Brewing Collective, and posted on Instagram in February expressed concerns about people profiting from this difficult history without sharing the benefits with, or addressing the current problems facing the community the story is about.
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