By Lincoln DePradine

The establishment in 1990 of the independent Special Investigations Unit (SIU), which probes incidents of police interaction with the public that result in death or serious injury to an Ontario civilian, came after intense pressure from members of the Black and Caribbean community, including widespread public protest.

The community elders, who spearheaded the campaign, are well-known. They included the founding-head of the Black Action Defense Committee (BADC), Dudley Laws, and other activists such as Lennox Farrell and Nomvuyo Hyman and the late Charles Roach and Sherona Hall.

Less known, among the activists of the 1980s and 1980s, are many young men and women that were in their late teens and early 20s. Their experiences and participation in the struggle for police reform and accountability, and broader societal changes, are now being told in “Generation X Marks the Spot’’, a multimedia exhibition curated by communications specialist and manager Dayo Kefentse.

“I thought it was important to tell those stories and get those stories out,’’ Kefentse, managing director of Dayo Media & Communications, told The Caribbean Camera.

“We know the stories of Dudley Laws and Charles Roach and some of the other elders on whose shoulders we stand on. But there was another group of people whose stories weren’t always told.’’

The seminal incidents that ignited the protest marches and led to the founding of the SIU included the December 1988 Peel Regional Police shooting death of 17-year-old Michael Wade Lawson, and what has become known as the “Yonge Street Riot’’ of May 4, 1992.

The Yonge Street protest was called after the acquittal of the Los Angele police officers, who had beaten African-American Rodney King; and also from anger in Toronto after Raymond Lawrence, a young Black man, was killed by two cops.

One of the young BADC activists that protested the shootings was Charles Senior, a “Gen Xer’’ – a youth who has grown into adulthood and now is considered part of “Generation X’’.

Kefentse, after discovering that Senior possessed documents relating to the 1980s and 1990s era of demonstrations, asked if she could have them. He agreed.

What she did decide to do was produce an audio documentary as her final thesis project to earn her Master’s degree from Ryerson, now known as Toronto Metropolitan University.

“I wanted to do an audio project that focused on some of the activism that happened by what we typically call ‘Generation X’, born between 1965 and 1980, and who are first generation Canadians,’’ Kefentse said.

Kefentse  interviewed Senior, Heather Infantry, Shawne Gray and Dee Baptiste.

The interview, and Kefentse’s Master’s thesis project, now form part of the “Generation X Marks the Spot’’, which explores the intersection of Black history with youth activism. It’s at Mississauga’s Bradley Museum on Orr Road.

The exhibition also includes an interview with Ingrid Pellew-Berkeley, who was a newly recruited cop, and one of a few Black Peel Region Police officers, when Lawson was shot and killed in 1988.

Pellew-Berkeley, who rose to the rank of deputy chief, was called to the scene of the shooting.

“Generation X Marks the Spot’’ is described as a “testament to the resilience and activism’’ of a generation of youth.

“Often when we speak about things that happened, we talk about people who are older, as if youth culture didn’t have a significant impact on things; particularly, in immigrant spaces where we are trained to respect elders and speak only when spoken to,’’ said Kefentse.

“What I’m hoping people leave with, is that they understand that there are several generations of people, not only older generations, that have played a role in shaping the Canada that we know now.’’

The exhibition, which is free to the public, is on display until December. Visitors, with the use of headphones, are able to listen to Kefentse’s audio documentary.

The production also is available for listening online at https://dayo.ca/genxexhibit/ 

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter