Rosemary Brown

It was August 30, 1972, in Vancouver.

That day, the voters of Vancouver-Burrard chose a 42-year-old social worker, a candidate for the New Democratic Party.

Her name was Rosemary Brown. No Black woman had ever sat in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. None had ever sat in a provincial legislature in Canada.

She had been born Rosemary Wedderburn on June 17, 1930, in Kingston, Jamaica. Her family talked politics.

In 1951, she crossed the sea to study social work at McGill University.

Canada did not always welcome her. When she looked for a room or a summer job, doors closed. Because she was Black. Because she was a woman.

Those experiences of racism and sexism later fuelled her commitment to equality and human rights.

She earned her degree, then a master's in social work at the University of British Columbia.

In 1956, she helped found an association for the advancement of coloured people in British Columbia. She joined Voice of Women.

She worked at the Children's Aid Society. She was a counsellor at Simon Fraser University. She helped found the Vancouver Status of Women Council, and served as its "ombudswoman."

Then came 1972, and her seat in the legislature.

There she called for services for the elderly, the disadvantaged, immigrants and people with disabilities. In 1973, the United Nations gave her a human rights fellowship.

In 1975, she went a step further. She ran for the leadership of the federal NDP. Her slogan: "Brown is Beautiful."

She held on to the fourth and final ballot. She finished second, with 40.1 percent of the vote, behind Ed Broadbent.

She was the second woman to try, and the first Black woman to seek the leadership of a federal party.

In the legislature, from 1979 to 1986, she represented the riding of Burnaby-Edmonds.

Later, she helped found the Canadian Women's Foundation. From 1993 to 1996, she headed the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

In 1995, she received the Order of British Columbia. In 1996, she became an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 2001, Jamaica, her first homeland, named her a Commander of the Order of Distinction.

She died on April 26, 2003, in Vancouver. She was 72.

She had known closed doors. She said:

Her way of doing politics echoes Ubuntu, without being the same: you do not rise alone, you lift others with you.

In 2005, Vancouver named a park after her. In 2009, Canada Post put her face on a stamp. In 2021, an Ontario public school took her name.

Today, children go to class in a school that bears her name.