Being Black in B.C. means something different to many who are part of the population — but all experiences, backgrounds and career paths were welcomed, celebrated and honoured during a Surrey event.
The DIVERSEcity-organized free Black in BC: Celebrating Black Excellence event took place Friday (Feb. 7) at Surrey Arts Centre open to any person to enjoy, learn and honour Black history and Black excellence in Canada.
"Black History Month means a lot of different things for a lot of different people," said MC Michael Newman.
"For me, it means honouring the ancestors who have come before us and then try to glean the wisdom from those ancestors about how we propel our future.
"It's also about honouring the distinct and unique expressions of cultures, of communities throughout the African diaspora."
DIVERSEcity's Lenya Wilks also spoke at the event, sharing her passion for the work she gets to do through the organization to uplift and support racialized communities.
"I never understood the privilege I had growing up in Jamaica as a Black girl because it is privilege to go to school and your teachers are Black, the leader of your country is Black, the doctors, the lawyers, everybody looks like you. That is a privilege, but you don't realize that privilege until you move somewhere and become a minority," Wilks said.
"Today for me is highlighting that even though we are a minority, we are a minority in strength, and we have a lot of good things going for us."
Representation in art and its importance was the night's keynote topic, delivered by Elliott Slinn, a poet and poet laureate emeritus for New Westminster.
As a biracial individual, Slinn spoke about how growing up, he was often put in certain boxes due to his appearance and because of that, becoming a writer was never something he thought he could accomplish.
"When I went to school we studied Shakespeare, but we never studied James Baldwin or Maya Angelou, and I was always positioned that my ethnicity, the way that I looked was the ceiling. People would say 'You could be a rapper when you grow up', 'You could be a basketball player', 'You could be an athlete', 'You could be a DJ.' But it seemed that for my white counterparts, the way that they looked was the floor and they could be anything off of that. They could be an astronaut, they could be a lawyer," Slinn said.
"I wanted to show them that if they could see somebody who looked like them, maybe they could believe that they could do that thing also."
Jessie Sunner, newly elected MLA for Surrey-Newton, also shared a short speech, speaking from her background as a human rights and labour lawyer and also her new role as parliamentary secretary for anti-racism initiatives.
"Lately there has been a negative uptick when it comes to individuals in the Black communities, in the racialized communities and especially in B.C. as well, even though we're one of the most ethnically diverse provinces," Sunner said.
"There's a lot being done in the government, but there's a lot to do."
The event was also filled with music by Ndidi Cascade alongside Janelle Reid, Powys HJ, Maia and Hip-Hop dancing by Soul Roots Collective Dance, bringing energy and fun to the hundred-plus crowd.
Closing out the night were the Black Brilliance Awards, which had three categories: Rising Star, Trailblazer and Luminary Awards.
Each recipient for this year was presented the award by last year's winner, with the 2025 Rising Star award going to Ilhan Abdullahi, a Somali-Canadian public health instructor and filmmaker who conducts research on Black refugees. Two Trailblazer awards were presented, one to James Kanau from Beyond Hoops Africa, a sports development organization based in Kenya and Canada, while the other was to Winnie Chironga, who works with Indigenous elders through her role at Affiliation of Multicultural Societies and Service Agencies of BC.
The Luminary award was presented to Mabel Taunu, who is a pre-employment case manager at YWCA Metro Vancouver's Employment Navigator Program for single mothers. She has been working in community improvement for more than 15 years, working in racial equity and advancement of Black women.
