Here’s a question that might sting a little: Did you know Canada had its own Black Power movement?

If you’re shaking your head right now, you’re not alone. Most of us: born and raised in this country: were never taught about the freedom fighters who walked these same streets, sat in these same classrooms, and risked everything to demand change. We weren’t told about the Sir George Williams Uprising. We didn’t learn about Brenda Dash, Canada’s answer to Angela Davis. Or Rocky Jones, dubbed the Malcolm X of Canada. Or Rosie Douglas, who went from Canadian prisoner to Prime Minister of Dominica.

That’s not an accident. That’s erasure.

And filmmaker Michèle Stephenson is doing something about it — and yes, her film True North premiered at TIFF50 (because sometimes “hidden history” still deserves a red carpet).

A Discovery That Changed Everything

Michèle Stephenson, co-founder of RADA Studio, didn’t set out to uncover her own family’s history of resistance. She was approached by producer Leslie Norville to direct an episode of Black Life: Untold Stories, a CBC-licensed series exploring Black Canadian history.

Stephenson’s background matters here. She’s a filmmaker whose work consistently centres the Black experience throughout the Americas — following the through-line of power, migration, identity, and resistance across borders (and calling out who gets written out of the “official” story).

“I said, I want to do something around the Black Power movement in Canada,” Michele explained during our conversation. “And came to discover this Sir George Williams uprising affair.”

What she found was personal. The participants weren’t strangers from a textbook: they were her parents’ generation. Some were family friends. One of them gave her first job in college. Yet none of them had ever spoken about it.

“I kind of felt robbed,” Michele said. “I was taking courses on Black history and Caribbean history at McGill, but this was never mentioned.”

Let that sink in. Michele attended McGill during the anti-apartheid divestment movement. She was out on campus pushing for change. And still, no one connected her to the Black resistance that had exploded just years earlier, right there in Montreal

February 1969: When Students Said Enough

True North (TIFF premiere included) takes us straight into the historical excavation: the 1969 student protests at Montreal’s Sir George Williams University (now Concordia) — and the way a so-called “multicultural haven” can still be cold to Black folks when it counts.

Here’s the context the film makes impossible to ignore: Haitian immigrants fleeing Duvalier’s regime came to Canada looking for safety, opportunity, and a place to breathe. But “welcome” wasn’t always the reality. The promises of multiculturalism didn’t protect Black students from racism in the classroom, in institutions, or in the way the public framed their resistance.

Here’s what happened: Caribbean students filed complaints against a biology professor for discriminatory grading practices that blocked their access to medical school. The university dragged its feet. For months.

On January 29, 1969, over 200 students occupied the computer centre — the ninth-floor computer lab. They held it for two weeks. On February 11, police stormed in. The result? An estimated $2 million in damages, 97 students arrested, and a media storm that poured abuse on the protesters rather than examining the racism they were fighting.

The protest “strongly influenced racial politics in Canada by raising awareness of anti-Black racism that had remained, until that time, largely unacknowledged.”

And True North doesn’t treat that moment like a random campus blow-up. It frames it the way it was lived: collective action as a pathway to Black liberation — a reminder that change usually shows up when people decide “actually, no” together.

But instead of becoming a foundational story in Canadian history, it was buried. The leaders were criminalized. And the country moved on as if nothing had happened.

The Freedom Fighters You Should Know

Michele’s documentary, True North, does what our education system failed to do: it centres the people who put their lives on the line.

Brenda Dash: The Leader We Nearly Lost

Brenda Dash was a force. She travelled across Canada and the United States on a Black Power tour, organizing and speaking and building solidarity. The RCMP had a file on her. The state surveillance was so intense that she eventually fled Canada: to the United States: for relief from the apparatus tracking her every move.

“Her interview was that much more important,” Michele said. “We spent about four hours in conversation. And I feel like that interview should be part of our national archive.”

Finding footage of Brenda was nearly impossible. Her contributions had been systematically silenced. She passed away in 2023, during the film’s edit, in Las Vegas: far from the country that had pushed her out.

“There is very little documentation of Brenda,” Michele explained. “That’s part of how her contributions were silenced.”

Rosie Douglas: From Canadian Prisoner to Prime Minister

Rosie Douglas came to Canada as a conservative from a prominent Dominican family. John Diefenbaker personally granted his student visa. But his experiences with Canadian racism transformed him.

He was sentenced to two years in prison for his role in the uprising, then deported. Instead of breaking him, it launched a political career. Douglas became Prime Minister of Dominica.

“His story should serve as an inspiration,” Michele said.

Rocky and Joan Jones: The Couple Who Awakened a Movement

Rocky Jones is often called the Malcolm X of Canada. But here’s what most people don’t know: his awakening came through his wife, Joan Jones.

“She was an instrumental leader in the Black Power movement in Canada,” Michele explained. “And is really the reason for the conscientization of Rocky Jones.”

Yet finding footage of Joan was a struggle. When the archive producer finally uncovered a clip of her talking to her daughter, holding a baby in her arms, the team knew it had to anchor the film.

“In terms of archival footage, the women who were involved, I don’t think got the flowers they should have,” Michele said. “Both in terms of the missing archive, and in terms of understanding deeply their contributions.”

This isn’t just history.

This is about understanding who we are: and where we come from.

“If I had been taught proper history of Black life in Canada, maybe my sense of belonging would have been stronger,” Michele reflected.

She’s right. When you don’t see yourself in the story of a nation, you start to believe you don’t belong there. When you’re not taught about the resistance in your own community, you feel isolated in your own struggles.

The truth? Black people have been in Canada as long as Europeans have. Slavery existed here. The Underground Railroad existed here. Angelique, the enslaved woman in Old Montreal who resisted, existed here.

“Our diaspora has been here since the Europeans have,” Michele said. “When the Europeans came, the African descendants came with them.”

A Healing Journey Through Film

For Michele: whose family fled Haiti during the Duvalier regime: making this documentary became personal in ways she didn’t anticipate.

“I learned through this film stories about my family’s resistance to Duvalier that they had never shared with me,” she said.

The film features Josette Élise Pierre-Louis, a Haitian woman whose story of immigrating to Canada resonated deeply with viewers whose parents made similar journeys. For those of us whose parents don’t talk about what they survived, seeing someone from that generation speak openly can feel like finally getting answers to questions we didn’t know how to ask.

“I think our families went through so much,” Michele said. “There’s the trauma around that. And then there’s coming here to a new space and facing discrimination.”

What You Can Do

Watch the film. True North is part of the Black Life: Untold Stories series. It’s historical excavation and community reclamation wrapped into one.

Follow the work. Sign up for the RADA Studio newsletter at radastudio.org and follow Michele on Instagram at @michele_0608.

Share the stories. The next time a kid decorates a door for Black History Month, let’s see Brenda Dash up there. Let’s see Rosie Douglas. Let’s see Joan Jones.

Reclaim your own history. Ask your parents. Ask your aunties and uncles. The stories are there: sometimes they just need permission to be told.

“We come from a long line, a long tradition of resistors,” Michele said. “Whose stories we’ve been deprived of. And it is important for us to think about that reconnection.”

The history exists. It was just hidden from us.

Time to take it back.

Want to share your own story of Black Canadian creativity and resistance? Submit your story to Black Canadian Creators.