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