Africville Apology

During the 1940s and 1950s in different parts of Canada, the federal, provincial and municipal governments were working together to take communities labelled "slums" and relocate the people to better housing.

Concrete plans of relocation, stimulated by the 1957 Stephenson Report, did not officially emerge until 1961 with the creation of the City's Department of Development.

Promising free lawyers and social workers, as well as such things as job training, employment assistance, education services to those affected, the Rose Report (publ.

Though filled with grief and feeling cheated out of their property, resistance to eviction became harder as more people accepted and homes disappeared.

[4] In light of the controversy surrounding the community, the City of Halifax created Seaview Memorial Park on the site in the 1980s, preserving it from development.

In May 2005, MLA Maureen MacDonald (Nova Scotia NDP) introduced a bill in the provincial legislature called the Africville Act.

Halifax mayor Peter Kelly has offered land, money, and various other services for a replica of the Seaview African United Baptist Church.

Among other things, Kelly said, We apologize for the heartache experienced at the loss of the Seaview United Baptist Church, the spiritual heart of the community, removed in the middle of the night.

Rhonda Britten, a leader in the African-Nova-Scotian community,[11] welcomed the settlement and said it was time to put the past behind them:[12]I know that there are some among us who are wounded, and some among us who bear those scars.