Celebrate Black History Month with your WESN community and the African Descent Society for a tribute to Joe Fortes.
We kick off the event with a talk with the Author of “Our Friend Joe” Lisa Anne Smith.
Lisa Anne Smith is an education docent at the Museum of Vancouver and a curator for the Old Hastings Mill Store Museum (the oldest building in Vancouver).
Utilizing extensive archival research and eye-witness accounts, Smith brings to life Vancouver’s disastrous fire of 1886 in her book Vancouver is Ashes: The Great Fire of 1886 (Ronsdale 2014). Smith, along with Barbara Rogers, also co-authored Our Friend Joe: The Joe Fortes Story (Ronsdale Press 2012). This is the first biography of Seraphim “Joe”
Afterward, Yasin Kiraga Misago, Executive Director of the African Descent Society of BC, will provide a talk on BC’s early history of African descent, dating back to 1858. Misago will then bring the conversation local to discuss Surrey’s African diaspora story.
We will then end the show with a performance from the African Descent Society’s youth dance group!
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