Seven Days in Halifax
When citizens confronted the racists, liars and incompetents who ran their city
by Robert Ashe
Brings to life a dramatic and forgotten episode in Halifax’s recent history, where the ignorance, incompetence and racism of the city’s power structure was laid bare.
Halifax today lives with the results of bad decisions made decades ago. A container port accessible only through narrow downtown streets. A park, bridge and port on the spot where Africville was demolished. A mega-interchange going nowhere, finally torn down. The thoughtless power brokers who made these decisions are long gone, but Haligonians still live now with the choices they made.
Yet for seven days in 1970, Nova Scotians saw a brilliant spotlight shone on the city’s power structure, exposing incompetence, ignorance, racism, and lies. In Seven Days in Halifax, Robert Ashe presents this forgotten event in the city’s life. Twelve highly qualified outsiders — including a passionate Black pastor, a feisty Canadian labour leader, and a no-holds-barred journalist — spent a week in a public investigation of the city and how it worked. Each evening, Nova Scotians were glued to live television broadcasts where the 12 experts grilled local authorities.
The event, called Encounter, was a one-off. But it showed how a local power structure can fail a city’s citizens — and face no consequences.
Robert Ashe’s story of Encounter explains much about Halifax’s recent history, and offers timely lessons on the importance of accountability on the part of those in the city’s power structure today.
About the Author
ROBERT ASHE is an award-winning journalist and author who was raised on the outskirts of Halifax. He is the author of Halifax Champion: Black Power in Gloves and coauthor, with John Paris Jr., of They Called Me Chocolate Rocket. His other books include Even the Babe Came to Play, about a New Brunswick baseball team during the Great Depression, and a collection of columns about life in Saint John entitled Just Enough Fog to Keep It Cool. He lives in Ottawa.
Reviews
"This book is ready-made to illustrate the maxim that ignorance of history condemns us to repeat it. Every problem highlighted by Encounter in 1970--race, housing, a small, stodgy economic elite--remains on the Halifax agenda. It is a timely reminder of how important open and frank public dialogue is to the process of building a community."
"Roberta Ashe has taken a unique approach to bring alive a little-known event in Halifax's history that resonates 55 years later. The book is for anyone wanting to better understand Nova Scotia's largest city."
"While this is an examination of a week in the life of our city in 1970, it could be today."
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