Black Heritage Sites in our Equinox Community

A PDF map and listing of locations that includes addresses, approximate distance times (which will vary for different walkers, wheelers, and means of travel), and links for further reading.

Map and listing of locations

Our school is surrounded by histories of Black Torontonians who lived and worked in our neighbourhood and contributed to a more just community through the press, through government policy and leadership, through underground movements to support freedom-seekers, through local mutual aid, through naming and condemning discrimination. In learning their stories and hearing their experiences of racism in Toronto, we can more deeply understand this place we live and learn, and what struggles continue, what work there is yet to do.

Thank you to friend of Equinox, Lanrick Bennett Jr. for the research and inspiration that made this project possible.

Places Of Significance

Plaque honouring Black community members that helped ‘forge the identity’ of Leslieville

899 Queen St East, Toronto, ON M4M 1J4
Walk time: 34 minutes
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/new-plaque-hon…

William Peyton Hubbard House

660 Broadview Avenue, Toronto, ON
Walk time: 46 Mins
https://torontoist.com/2009/02/historicist_public_history…

https://leslievillehistory.com/tag/william-peyton-hubbard/

Hubbard Park

550 Gerrard St E, Toronto, ON
Walk time: 34 Mins
https://www.toronto.com/news-story/6925163-hubbard…

Mary Ann Shadd Walk

Mary Ann Shadd Ln, Toronto, ON
Walk time: 41 Mins
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/… 

The Isaac Price House

216 Greenwood, Toronto ON
Walk time: 7 Mins
https://leslievillehistory.com/2016/02/01/weaving-our-hist…

Kapapamahchakwew – Wandering Spirit School formerly Eastern Commerce Collegiate Institute

16 Phin Ave, Toronto, ON M4J 3T2
Walk time: 23 Mins
https://www.blogto.com/film/2019/02/eastern-commerce…

Proposal for “Grandison and Luella Lane”

6A Redwood Avenue (not marked on map)
Walk time: 6 Mins
https://www.blogto.com/city/2020/09/historian-wants-name…

Lucie & Thornton Blackburn Conference Centre Mural

80 Cooperage, Toronto, Ontario M5A 1H7
Walk time: 55 Mins
https://institutewithoutboundaries.ca/lucie-and-thornton…
https://globalnews.ca/news/6601355/thornton-lucie-black…
(If you’re in Cabbagetown, you can visit the site of their home, now Inglenook Alternative High School, and read a plaque honouring their contributions: https://torontoist.com/2016/02/now-and-then-thornton-and-lucie-blackburn/)

Lincoln MacCauley Alexander’s grade school (Earl Grey Public School)
100 Strathcona Ave, Toronto, ON M4J 1G8
Walk time: 39 Mins
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Alexander 

The Lightfoot family home

269 Woodfield Ave, Toronto ON
Walk time: 5 Mins
https://leslievillehistory.com/wonderful-woodfield/ 

The Home of C. Maynard, of the Negro Progressive Club of Canada

51 Craven Rd, Toronto ON
Walk time: 11 Mins
https://leslievillehistory.com/erie-terrace-to-craven-road/ (it’s a looong page; use control F to find “Craven roaders” on the page and you’ll find C. Maynard’s letter to the editor. Note: use of N-word)

The Home of St. Clair Pindar

50 Rhodes Av, Toronto ON
Walk time: 12 Mins
http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/en/explore/online/dan_hill/…