Historic Black Community Combines Civic Business and Celebration

AFRICAN NOVA SCOTIAN AFFAIRS--Historic Black Community Combines Civic Business and Celebration

The Municipality of Annapolis County has found a unique way to combine civic business and celebration.

For the last seven years, the Annapolis municipal council has held its regular February session in the historic Black community of Inglewood, Annapolis Co. This year's meeting was held today, Feb. 15, in the Inglewood Community Hall.

For the second year, Barry Barnet, Minister of African Nova Scotian Affairs, attended and brought greetings on behalf of the province.

"Part of the mandate of the Office of African Nova Scotian Affairs is to create and promote an integrated approach within government on matters related to the African Nova Scotian community," he said. "By hosting a municipal meeting while celebrating African Heritage Month, Annapolis municipal council is doing just that."

Inglewood is one of the sites where Black Loyalists settled after siding with the British and fleeing slavery during the American revolution.

Edith Cromwell, life-long Inglewood resident and 2002 recipient of the Order of Nova Scotia, says that holding the event in the Inglewood community hall is also significant. "It was our old one-room school house," she explains. "It's where I went to school and later taught before schools were integrated. It was also where the Black community held meetings."

Along with regular civic business, the agenda also included singing of the black national anthem and presentations by the Students of the Respect for Diversity Committee.