Howard Douglas McCurdy CM OOnt (10 December 1932 – 20 February 2018) was a Canadian civil rights activist, politician and university professor.

[2][3] He moved to Amherstburg, Ontario, when he was 9 and encountered racism for the first time when he tried to join the Cub Scouts and was excluded, being told to form a Black-only troop.

[2] While at Michigan State, McCurdy founded the university's National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) chapter and became its first president.

[4] In 1962 he founded the Guardian Club a civil rights organization to fight racial discrimination in Windsor.

After initially being hired as a lecturer, he eventually became the first Canadian-born person of African descent to hold a tenure-track position in a Canadian university.

McCurdy authored more than 50 scientific papers and served on the editorial boards of Bacteriological Reviews and the Canadian Journal of Microbiology.

After stepping down as the head of the University of Windsor's Biology Department, he continued teaching there, but decided at the last minute to run for elected office, to build his credibility as a future candidate.

Clarke got into a physical altercation with another alderman in the council chamber as well as being noted for using foul language at meetings.

By making an issue of Clarke's lack of comportment at council meetings, McCurdy was able to defeat him, even though he did not live in Ward 3.

He moved his delegates over to fellow Windsor MP, Stephen Langdon,[13] and then decided to eventually endorse Audrey McLaughlin, who would go on to win.

[16] A tribute celebration in McCurdy's honour was given by the local NDP electoral district association on 5 March 1994.

[17] In April 1994, the federal NDP was in crisis mode as they were no longer an official party in the House of Commons.

[18] The nine-member House of Commons caucus threatened action if Audrey McLaughlin did not step down as the federal leader.

However, Premier Rae's Social Contract wage restriction policy, enacted in 1993, was unpopular with labour unions across the province.

This made him and the government targets of labour leaders such as CUPE Ontario's Sid Ryan and the Canadian Auto Workers Union's (CAW) Buzz Hargrove.

After publicly congratulating Rousseau, McCurdy met with reporters and said that labour was ""shooting itself in the foot" in order to punish the Rae government for imposing the hated social contract.