Patrice Dutil: What Toronto loses with the naming of Sankofa Square
If the purpose of renaming Yonge-Dundas Square was to honour Black Canadians, why not honour an individual who deeply affected her or his contemporaries and who left a positive legacy? There are many to choose from, and each of them has personal lessons to teach to us.
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Why not, for example, name it after William P. Hubbard (1842-1935), Toronto's first Black elected official? The man was so eloquent, they called him 'Cicero.' He had dreams for the city, and was very popular in his day.
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Or how about Anderson Ruffin Abbott (1837-1913), the first Black Canadian doctor, who distinguished himself as a surgeon in the Union Army during the U.S. Civil War.
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Or Daniel G. Hill (1923-2003), who became a prominent figure in Canada's civil rights movement in the 1950s and '60s?
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All three men — there are others — need to be remembered.
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'Sankofa' cannot last and I hope its existence will be short-lived. I could easily come up with a half-dozen ideas and people that better communicate the city's past as well as its ambition to be a great place to live. The vital task is to make it relevant to the Toronto and the Canadian experience.
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