What Does It Mean to Be Black in Winnipeg? 5 Very Different Answers.
- 25 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Ask five Black Winnipeggers what their experience of this city looks like, and you'll get five different answers. Preserving 45 years of community history. Posting handwritten love notes around the city. Nearly dying because of medical racism. Transforming how the whole province handles its garbage.
These are just a few of the Black Winnipeggers we spoke to over the last year, and their stories paint a varied picture of what it means to be Black in Winnipeg today...and what we should do with that truth.
As Black History Month draws to a close, we're reflecting on 5 of the conversations that stayed with us over the past year, and what they mean looking forward:
Nadia Thompson: Celebrating 45 Years of Black History in Manitoba
As chair of Black History Manitoba, Nadia Thompson has been organizing, advocating, and bringing people together for nearly 20 years — but this year marked something bigger: the organization's 45th anniversary and the theme "Rooted in Legacy: Honouring a Century of Black History."
Nadia has a knack for making you rethink the whole premise of Black History Month. She describes it like a birthday: one month where the world has given Black communities a dedicated space to highlight pride and achievement, even as the fight for equity continues every other day of the year. She also shares some of Winnipeg's own overlooked history — buildings like the Craig Block and Pilgrim Baptist Church that once served as gathering places and safe havens for Black travellers and railway porters — and talks about the explosion of youth-led programming through Black Student Unions across Manitoba schools.
Ralph Bryant: Mental Health Advocacy
Ralph Bryant came to Winnipeg from the Bronx, and he brought with him a commitment to talking about the things people don't want to talk about — particularly Black men's mental health. His documentary project "On the Verge" draws on real audio from before and during his own hospitalization in 2018.
The statistics he shares are alarming: Black youth suicide rates are rising faster than any other demographic in Canada, and Black men are four times more likely to die by suicide than Black women. But Ralph's response to that reality isn't despair — it's the Love Notes Campaign, a citywide initiative that fills Winnipeg with words of affirmation on World Mental Health Day. As he puts it: "There is no more important right for us to be focused on than the right to our mental health."
Don Woodstock: The Man Who Made Manitoba Ditch the Plastic Bag
Don Woodstock grew up on a farm in Saint Elizabeth, Jamaica, learning sustainability from the land before the word was fashionable. When he arrived in Winnipeg, he saw a city with potential for real environmental change — and he didn't wait for permission to pursue it. He made a documentary, knocked on doors, and kept pushing until Manitoba's recycling participation shifted from 33% to 99%. Then he helped convince major grocery chains to adopt reusable bags across Canada.
His grandfather's question — "Is it bigger than you, son?" — runs through everything he does. Don talks about community organizing the way a farmer talks about planting: you tend to things consistently, even if the harvest is a long way off.
Jamie Paris: Why 'Toxic Masculinity' Isn't Helping Anyone (And What Will)
Jamie Paris is a University of Manitoba literature scholar who studies race, gender, and masculinity through the lens of Shakespeare — and yes, he makes that work in a conversation happening in 2025. His personal path, from growing up as an orphan to becoming a young father at 17 to finding his footing in academia, gives him a grounded perspective on what healthy masculinity actually looks like in practice.
His argument is that the "toxic masculinity" framing, while not wrong, has left a lot of young men feeling ashamed rather than inspired to change. He offers something different: a vision of masculinity rooted in the desire to protect, care for, and extend joy to others. For parents, educators, or anyone thinking about the role gender plays in the human rights conversations happening right now, this episode offers a lot to sit with.
Dr. Stanislas Bell: Breaking Barriers at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights
Dr. Stanislas Bell is the Manager of Visitor Services at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights — and the first Black manager in a position of power at that institution. Originally from Cameroon, he arrived in rural Manitoba at 16 speaking only French, and found his footing through sports before carving out a path that eventually led to one of Winnipeg's most prominent human rights institutions.
He shares a harrowing encounter with medical racism that nearly cost him his life — and explains how that experience, rather than turning him inward, deepened his commitment to service and community leadership. He talks about what it means to hold that kind of position at the CMHR, why representation builds trust in institutions meant to reflect everyone's humanity, and the community initiatives he's founded to support and empower Winnipeg's Black community.
These five conversations don't tell one unified story of what it means to be Black in Winnipeg — and that's exactly the point. They reflect people working across environmental justice, mental health, heritage, gender, and human rights institutions to make our city a better place for all of us.
February may be ending, but the work doesn't.
Find "Humans, On Rights" wherever you get your podcasts, or at humanrightshub.ca/podcast.
