Notes

Mary Ann Shadd was one of the first female journalists in Canada and became the first Black woman in North America to publish a newspaper.

Born in 1823 to free parents in Delaware, Mary Ann Shadd‘s father was very active in the anti-slavery movement and she grew up in a politically active and literate family. She spent her early years teaching in African-American schools in the States.

She was a contemporary of Henry and Mary Bibb who were publishers of a popular newspaper, the Voice of the Fugitive. It was Henry Bibb who, while Shadd was attending a convention in Toronto, encouraged her to come to Canada to set up a school.

In 1851, she established a school in Windsor where she quickly became involved in a dispute with the Bibbs. Shadd did not believe in separate schools for black children, as opposed to the Bibbs, who did. Henry Bibb carried the dispute over to the front page of the Voice of the Fugitive and in the end, funding for Mary Ann’s school was withdrawn. This defunding led directly to Mary Ann establishing her own newspaper.

The first edition of the Provincial Freeman was printed on March 24, 1853 in Sandwich (now Windsor, Ontario), and it highlighted the successes of Black persons living in Canada, as well as news of refugees arriving there. The over all purpose of the paper was to promote Canada as a refuge for Blacks.

Mary Ann Shadd has had a long-lasting impact on generations of, not only Black women, but on women overall. She died on June 5, 1893 but her legacy continues. In 1994, she was made a National Historic Person and in January, 2024, a postage stamp was issued in her honour.