Mary Ann Shadd Cary printed her paper weekly at a print shop on King Street around 1854. Today, not far from the print shop’s original location in Toronto, you can print your own newspaper on a working printing press at Toronto History Museums’ Mackenzie House located at 82 Bond Street. Programs at Mackenzie House offer students the opportunity to experience hands-on printing on the 1845 press and discuss topics connected with the history of media and activism, via the newspapers of William Lyon Mackenzie and Mary Ann Shadd Cary, the first Black woman to edit and publish a newspaper in North America.
The artwork featured in this digital reimagining of “The Provincial Freeman” was created by the students of the Africentric Alternative School, Amesbury Middle School, Weston Collegiate Institute and Winston Churchill Collegiate Institute.
The students worked in collaboration with Dwayne Morgan, Tanika Riley aka iNsight, Neil Donaldson aka Logik and Danilo Deluxo, as well as The Centre of Excellence for Black Student Achievement. They provide powerful commentary on the same themes Mary Ann Shadd Cary’s had advocated for nearly 200 years earlier.
