Bromley Lloyd Armstrong, CM OOnt (February 9, 1926 – August 17, 2018) was a Canadian civil rights leader.
[2] He was also active in promoting equal rights for African-Canadians and was involved with the National Unity Association (NUA) in sit-ins in Dresden, Ontario restaurants that refused to serve blacks.
In response to delegations to the Ontario Legislature at Queen's Park in the provincial capital of Toronto, in the early 1950s Ontario Premier Leslie Frost brought two laws into place, the Fair Employment Practices Act and the Fair Accommodation Practices Act.
The Act triggered the repeal of the largely ineffective Racial Discrimination Act of 1944, which outlawed "the publication or display, on lands, premises, by newspaper or radio, of any notice, sign, symbol, emblem or other representation indicating racial discrimination.
"[3] After local Dresden businesses refused to comply with the Fair Accommodation Practices Act the same year it was enacted, Armstrong and other activists from the Toronto-based Joint Labour Committee for Human Rights conducted sit-ins in Dresden restaurants, testing the owners' non-compliance with the law, and then using that information to urge Premier Frost to eventually press charges against the restaurant owners.