BIOGRAPHY OF
ROSEMARY SADLIER
Rosemary Sadlier has served since 1993 as the volunteer President of the Ontario Black
History Society (OBHS), the first and only provincial heritage organization in Canada
focused on African-Canadian history. February was first proclaimed as Black History
Month in Toronto in 1979 due to the efforts of the OBHS; under Sadlier’s leadership,
the OBHS obtained the formal proclamation of February as Black History Month at the
Ontario level and initiated the national declaration in Canada - effective December,
1995. The OBHS has also initiated the formal celebration of August 1st as Emancipation
Day, obtained at the Provincial level, and pending nationally. Sadlier has represented
the OBHS as a judge on the final selection committee of the Mathieu Da Costa Awards
- the programme devised by Canadian Heritage to mark the OBHS inspired national
declaration of February as Black History Month. The OBHS worked to create an
Underground Railroad exhibit, with Parks Canada and others, to be gifted to the OBHS
for inclusion in their planned cultural centre/museum of African-Canadian history in
Toronto.
You may be familiar with Sadlier from her participation in films such as Seeking Salvation:
A History of the Black Church in Canada, or A Scattering of Seeds: the Mary Ann Shadd
story. On behalf of the OBHS, she has given Black history presentations across Ontario.
Additionally, she has presented at summer institutes, libraries, forums and conferences
in Toronto, Halifax, Kingston, Calgary, Ottawa, St. John NB, Vancouver and Victoria and
many more.
Sadlier has received many awards including the William Peyton Hubbard Race Relations
Award, a Woman for PACE Award, the Black Links Award, the Planet Africa Marcus Garvey
Award, a Harry Jerome Award, the Order of Ontario, and she is a Kentucky Colonel! Her
work with the OBHS, in addition to her recent publications, including the best selling title,
The Kids Book of Black Canadian History, have made her a frequent guest on national
television and radio. She is the author of 6 books on African-Canadian history and
consultant/co-author of Black History: African, the Caribbean and the Americas (Emond
Montgomery Pub.) selected as the textbook for all schools in Nova Scotia. Her most
recent book is Harriet Tubman: Freedom Seeker, Freedom Leader by Dundurn Press.
She was a consultant and appeared in the PBS film Underground Railroad: The William
Still Story; she was the consultant for the recently released Historica Heritage Minute
on War of 1812 veteran Richard Pierpoint. She is a doctoral candidate of the Ontario
Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto
Black Canadian Curriculum – ETFO – 2014