February Is Black History Month: Carrie Best

We often tend to think that Canada was somehow separated from the racial segregation that occurred in the U.S. and our attitude that we were 'better than that' is quite misinformed. 

Blacks faced plenty of discrimination in this country and a fine example was the case of Carrie Best, who, in 1943, challenged the segregation law by purchasing two tickets for her and her son to the lower seating level of the Roseland Theatre in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia.

Both were arrested and unsuccessfully fought the charges, subsequently being forced to pay damages to the theatre's owners. However, this experience gave Best the motivation to start a newspaper, the Clarion in 1946, which was the first published newspaper owned by a black person in Nova Scotia.

Ironically, in the first edition of the paper, Best wrote a story about another black woman, Viola Desmond, who also challenged the segregation law of the Roseland Theatre when she inadvertently sat in the lower seating area and was arrested for the 'crime'.

Desmond succeeded on a technicality but the case, brought in to the public eye by the newspaper article, helped set the wheels in motion to have these laws revoked as a milestone human rights case.

Best also started a radio show, "The Quiet Corner', which aired for 12 years and was a columnist for the Pictou advocate for 7 years. her son, James Calbert Best, went on to become a union activist, a senior public servant and served as High Commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago.

Carrie Best was made a Member Of The Order Of Canada in 1974 and was promoted to Officer in 1979. She received the Order Of Nova Scotia posthumously in 2002 and had a commemorative stamp issued in her honour in 2011.