Broadening the story: the beginnings of a people’s history of sport in Canada

Room 306, School of Social Work

In The Twentieth Century: A People’s History, Howard Zinn (2003: x) asserts that “If history is to be creative, to anticipate a possible future without denying the past, it should, I believe, emphasize new possibilities by disclosing those hidden episodes of the past when, even if in brief flashes, people showed their ability to resist, to join together, occasionally to win.” The historiography of Canadian sport still privileges dominant institutions and mainstream sports/leagues, overlooking the experiences of many. The larger project of which this paper is a component takes up Zinn’s call, in an effort to (re)map the landscape of Canadian sport history and broaden our understanding of the ways in which people express themselves through sport and re-conceptualize the lived experiences of sport. The beginning of a People’s History of Canadian sport focused on the history of sport in African Nova Scotian communities, with particular attention paid to the community of Africville. Archives were consulted, oral history interviews were conducted, and privately held documents were accessed, while museum exhibits considered the public presentation of African Nova Scotian sport history. This paper attempts to bring some coherence to these diverse historical sources, but does so in consideration of the methodological challenges of such an effort, of trying to construct a narrative, and do justice to an under-told narrative, through empirical gaps. Moreover, it explores the theoretical questions of the historian’s outsider status within a community as well as who has ownership of this narrative and the right to tell it.