JamesBy Lincoln DePradine

Dr Jean Augustine left frontline politics in 2006, and Terry James retired as a Toronto Police Service (TPS) sergeant in 2010. The two are “incredible’’ and are still impacting communities in Canada, according to Jacqueline Edwards, president of the Association of Black Law Enforcers (ABLE).

“You have created and cultivated changes in ways that will likely never be repeated – ever!’’ Edwards told Augustine and James at a ceremony in their honour on Tuesday in Scarborough.

Tuesday’s TPS Black History Month event, at the headquarters of Tropicana Community Services, was the second dedicated to the presentation of the inaugural “Terry James Trailblazer Award’’.

At the first, held February 1, a Trailblazer Award was presented to author and community advocate Rosemary Sadlier, former president of the Ontario Black History Society.

James, who was away on vacation and couldn’t attend the February 1 presentation to Sadlier at police headquarters, joined TPS in June 1980, becoming the first Black female officer on the police beat.

She recalled in comments Tuesday, after receiving her own award from police officials, that – almost 44 years ago – as “a skinny, Black girl’’ – walking into police headquarters, “hoping to make a difference in her life, as well as the life of others’’.

James, who served in various roles in the TPS, has been praised for mentoring others and for the 1994 launch of Black History Month observance at the Toronto Police Service.

Among others present were James’s daughter Crystal Devlin; Roy Williams, the first Black person to serve on the board of the Police service; current TPS board member Nadine Spencer; and Dave Mitchell, ABLE’s founding-president, who also has served as an assistant deputy minister for the Ontario Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services Youth Justice Services Division.

James “led the way’’ for many other Black women that later joined TPS and “wasn’t just a trailblazer; she’s a mentor’’, said Toronto Police Association present, Jon Reid.

According to Lauren Pogue, deputy chief of TPS, “each year, we will present this award to distinguished Black Canadians, which Terry certainly is. Of course, we can’t have a conversation about distinguished Black Canadians, without mentioning the Honourable Dr Jean Augustine’’.

In 1993, Augustine was elected MP for Etobicoke-Lakeshore, the first Black woman to serve in the federal parliament of Canada.

A former cabinet minister, she received unanimous parliamentary support in 1995, declaring February as Black History Month in Canada

Augustine thanked TPS for the Trailblazer Award, and referred to James as “outstanding’’.

At Tuesday’s event, attendees were treated to a screening of “Steadfast: The Messenger and The Message’’, a documentary film on Augustine.

Both Augustine and James were born in Grenada. “I would like to say thanks to the hard-working, dedicated, high-achieving Honourable Dr Jean Augustine and retired detective Terry James,’’ said Gerry Hopkin, Toronto-based Grenada consul general in Canada.

“I stand here with elevated pride as a Caribbean man, as a Grenadian; thanks to their achievements and their trailblazing work. May we continue to celebrate and to emulate the dedication, the leadership, the hard work and the achievements of these two outstanding female trailblazers.’’

James has been “a dear friend’’ and a “mentor’’, and she and Augustine are “two incredible and deserving Black women’’, said Edwards, the ABLE president and a veteran management officer with Correctional Service of Canada. “You have been, and continue to, impact communities, near and far.’’

Augustine and James have “made it that much easier’’ for Back community members to achieve success, Edwards said.

“We have no excuse but to be successful. Because, they gave us the blueprint; they passed the baton in a manner that has us already having won the race. We just have to do our part; run our leg,’’ said Edwards.

“A lot of us figure and think we got here on our own. They don’t realize what it took for us to be here today. It took a Terry James; it took a Dr Augustine; it took many people that are in this room tonight, for all of us to be able to here.’’