Kamloops Diversity Collaboration co-founders encourage locals to seek out Black stories during Black History Month

In June of 2020, hundreds of Kamloops residents gathered at Riverside Park to protest racism. The rally was in response to a string of police-involved killings of Black people in the United States.

Tobi Jensen and Alisa Hopkins were among those who shared their own stories of encountering racism.

“It was, I think, really influential to see the support in Kamloops that we had and how many people reached out to us after the fact to say how proud they were of us and how it made them feel uplifted and could see that there were issues that they weren’t aware of,” Hopkins said.

But nearly nine months later, the momentum of the movement has slowed.

“At the time people were very reactionary,” Jensen said, “but I don’t believe they tackled that and used that in a more positive way in terms of doing more research and supporting Black-owned businesses and things like that. I think because of how vocal everyone was at the time I have seen support for Black issues go down.”

However, through the rally, the Kamloops Diversity Collaboration (KDC) was born, a Facebook group dedicated to keeping the conversation going.

“We do try and share stories, we try and share articles and other members who joined the Facebook page will also share stories about what’s going on,” Jensen said.

In October, the KDC had a Pro-D Day conversation with teachers at Sorrento Elementary about how to start conversations around race with young students.

Hopkins says she’s been happy to see an increase in education around Indigenous history and she would like to see schools provide some education around Black history as well.

“Not everything has to be the civil rights movement, not everything has to be the bad things that have happened,” she said. “There have been so many good things in history that people need to celebrate — scientists, engineers, doctors, even politicians, this year especially. I would hope there was schooling done to even talk about Kamala Harris being elected and how influential that was for women and people of colour.”

Within Kamloops, there have been significant moments of progress. In 1903, John Fremont Smith became the first Black alderman elected in the city.

It’s history like this that Hopkins and Jensen hope people will seek out while learning to be sensitive to the issues Black people face.

“It’s as simple as taking the hour and a half out of your entire week to watch a story about people who don’t look like you, so maybe you can understand their stories a little better and you can see who these people are as opposed to who you think they are,” Hopkins said.

For Jensen, Black History Month is a time to reflect and take pride in the progress that has been made while looking to what the future could hold.

“It’s a month where I feel I get to be unapologetically Black and absolutely embrace my culture, embrace Black heritage and learn more about all of the achievements and all of the amazing things that have been done as Black people, as people of colour in this society to make it more inclusive for people like me.”

by Jill Sperling

Kamloops Diversity Collaboration co-founders encourage locals to seek out Black stories during Black History Month

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