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Image: Name, Title, Description
Digital Exhibitions → Derailed: The History of Black Railway Porters in Canada → Theme: Notable Porters
George Garraway
George Garraway would create history for the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) and Black people across North America. He was the first porter to work as a conductor in Canada. To achieve this honour, Garraway and the Toronto chapter of the BSCP had to convince the leadership of the international union in the United States to support them. In a press release issued April 30, 1955 the union celebrated: “A fight to end the colour bar in employment on Canadian railroads has scored its first success. Mr. George Garraway became the first Negro hired as a Sleeping Car conductor with the Canadian Railway…”
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Image 1: Newspaper articles announcing the employment discrimination complaints and subsequent hiring of George Garraway as the first Black conductor with the CPR. R12294, Vol. 21, File 1. Library and Archives Canada
Image 2: “A fight to end the colour bar in employment on Canadian railroads appears to have scored its first success.” R12294, Vol. 20, File
16. Library of Archives Canada/Canadian Labour Congress
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All aboard! This multimedia digital exhibition produced by Museum of
The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
Who were the driving forces behind the social and political
Notable Porters
This dramatic monologue portrays Stanley Grizzle, a Porter, activist, politician,
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Derailed: The History of Black Railway Porters in Canada
All aboard! This multimedia digital exhibition produced by Museum of Toronto in collaboration with author/scholar Cecil Foster.
1851: Spirit and Voice
A theatrical revisiting of the 1851 North American Convention of Colored Freemen.