Telling Black Canadian stories excites award-winning documentary filmmaker Anthony Sherwood
May 17, 2023
Anthony Sherwood was destined to be an entertainer.
The fifth generation Canadian maternal grandmother, Alice White, was an accomplished music teacher and performer who taught her five daughters to play musical instruments.
One of them – Helen Kane -- sang commercial jingles on radio in Halifax and six of her children, including Sherwood, are in the entertainment business
Kane’s cousin, Portia White, is considered one of the 20th century’s best classical vocalists.
In the early 1950s, Sherwood parents – his father Easton Sherwood migrated from Jamaica and was a railway porter – moved to Montreal after spending a short time in Winnipeg.
“Halifax, in the 1940s, was extremely racist and they wanted to go to a place where there were more opportunities,” he said. “Montreal, then, was the economic centre of Canada.”
The family settled in the Little Burgundy District that is the historical home of the city’s Black English-speaking working-class community.
The neighbourhood produced world-class musicians, including acclaimed pianists Oliver Jones and the late Oscar Peterson who was a seven-time Grammy winner.
Surrounded by music and enormous musical talent around him all his life, it didn’t take long for Sherwood to jump into the performing arts.
For eight years, he was an R & B singer performing mainly in nightclubs.
“It was very tough in those days growing up in Montreal and trying to make a living as an R & B band because you had to fetch equipment and travel around the province,” Sherwood recalled. “It just got hard on me because travelling with six musicians, some of whom are not thinking the same way you are, was something I didn’t want to do anymore.”
Still wanting to perform, he took acting classes and enjoyed them.
“It was an easy transition for me because I was used to performing on stage as a nightclub singer,” Sherwood said.
He found the perfect launch pad for acting.
Established 53 years ago, Black Theatre Workshop -- Canada’s longest running Black Theatre Company -- reflects Black culture and community by developing and providing visibility for Black Canadian artists.
“That is where I learnt how to cut my teeth performing plays,” said Sherwood who produced the original stage production, ‘Follow the North Star’ for the Canadian government. “Black Theatre Workshop was doing some powerful African-American well-known plays and I had the opportunity to do the lead role in a lot of them. Eventually, I started doing other musicals in Montreal, like ‘Razz M Jazz’ and ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’ and then coming to Toronto and doing ‘Dreamgirls’. I really had the opportunity to develop as a musical performer.”
While he relished theatre because stamina and focus are required to work for long periods, producing projects promoting African-Canadian history was something he wanted to do.
There was however a stumbling block.
“One of the things I realized was that even though the film industry was in its infancy in Canada during the late 70s, most Canadian actors made their living doing television commercials,” pointed out Sherwood who has developed educational plays for Black History Month, including ‘William Hall’ that was presented in Toronto, Halifax and at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.
Choosing to go down that path, the former March 21 International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination Campaign National Chair ran into a major hurdle.
“When I started auditioning, casting agents told me and other Black actors that the advertiser didn’t want Black people in their commercials,” the 2008 Harry Jerome Award recipient said. “It hit me. In those days, it was blatant and told right to our face.”
Sherwood had an answer for the unashamed racism.
In 1981, he started the Black Performers Association that lobbied the television industry for greater representation of visible minority performers.
There was backlash to his strident activism.
“We put pressure on them and that led to me being blacklisted,” said Sherwood. “I was out of work for two years. But I kept plugging away and forced the advertising industry to alter their views. Eventually they did, not out of the goodness of their heart, but realizing they were missing out on a huge consumer market. The face of Canada was changing. Today, you see visible minorities in all kinds of TV commercials. I strongly believe that our little organization in Montreal with actors and singers was instrumental in helping to change that.”
He was cast for five seasons in the American television series, ‘Airwolf II’, playing the role of Jason Locke.
After two years in Vancouver doing the series, Sherwood had to choose between going to Los Angeles where agents were reaching out to him or staying in Canada.
He selected Toronto to be close to his children who were in Montreal.
There was another reason.
After the Parti Quebecois election victory in 1976 and growing restrictions on the use of English, many Anglophones fled the province. Most of them went to Ontario.
“I didn’t see much of a future for Anglophone artists in Montreal,” said Sherwood.
As one of Canada’s most successful Black actors and documentary film-makers in the last 35 years on stage and in television and motion pictures, he got the opportunity to meet several legendary stars.
Raised in Little Burgundy where Peterson grew up and fell in love with music, Sherwood worked with the musical icon who wrote the music for his play, ‘Rockhead’s Paradise’ in 1995.
Owned by Jamaican-born Rufus Rockhead, the club was the hottest nightspot in the city.
“Working with Oscar was a real joy because I knew who he was,” he said. “It was such a privilege collaborating with him even though he was confined to a wheelchair at the time. However, he had that passion and you could still see the light in his eyes when we talked about music. I was so happy that I had the chance to talk with him for a long period of time and hear his stories.”
In the late 1980’s, Sherwood worked opposite his acting idol, Sidney Poitier, in ‘Free of Eden’ shot in Toronto.
That is one of the highlights of his acting career.
“You are always worried about meeting your hero because you don’t know if they are going to live up to your expectations,” the former Obsidian Theatre Company President said. “When I was casted in the film with him, I was so anxious to meet him. When the opportunity arose, I was blown away by his humility and generosity. He was so kind to his fellow actors. If an actor told him how great he was and how much they admired him, he would deflect the compliment and say ‘I am really impressed by your work and by you’.
Off all the creative projects Sherwood has worked on, ‘Honour Before Glory’ stands out.
The one-hour award-winning documentary tells the story of Canada’s only Black Battalion.
The No.2 Construction, whose nearly 600 members served mostly in France, was formally authorized as a unit of the Canadian Expeditionary Force 112 years ago.
Sherwood’s great uncle, Reverend William White, led the formation of the battalion.
“I grew up hearing stories about him, but what I didn’t know was that he was the Chaplain for this all-Black battalion during the First World War,” he said. “He was given that opportunity because when the war started, Black men trying to enlist were refused based on their skin colour. He spearheaded a movement to force the government to allow Black men to join. Because of his efforts, the Canadian government offered him the position of Chaplain.”
While serving in France, White kept a journal that detailed the racism the Black soldiers were subjected to by their superior officers.
“I was blown away when I read the diary, because he wrote everything he saw and what was happening to those Black soldiers,” said Sherwood who hosted, for seven years, the documentary series, ‘Forbidden Places’ on the Discovery Channel in addition to writing and directing several episodes.
Finding funding for the project, he noted, was not easy.
“There was great difficulty in getting it done because nobody wanted to put money into it,” Sherwood, who also produced ‘Knocking on Heaven’s Door’, Nowhere to Run’, ‘Mozambique-A Land of Hope’ and ‘100 Years of Faith’, said. “All of the government agencies said no because they were embarrassed by the story. I had to beat the pavement to get it done.”
In 2016, he directed & co-produced ‘The Colour of Courage’ that commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Battalion’s formation.
Sherwood was part of the 22-member National Apology Advisory Committee established in 2021 as an advisory arm to the Canadian government in shaping an official apology for the blatant racism the Black soldiers faced while trying to fight for their country.
Last July, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued an apology to descendants of the Battalion.
“I strongly believe that my film and play were instrumental in getting the Canadian government to do that apology,” said Sherwood who, last September, was the recipient of a Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal for his artistic contributions.
To mark Black History Month in February, the Royal Canadian Mint issued a Pure Silver Coin honouring the No. 2 Construction Battalion.
In September 2018, the French government invited Sherwood to attend the unveiling of a monument bearing the names of the 29 forestry engineers who were buried in the town of Supt. Of the 29, ten were members of the No. 2 Construction Battalion.
With all he has accomplished in the arts, there is no slowing down for Sherwood who knows you are only as good as your last project.
He recently completed a documentary, ‘The London Chapel Project’, that was screened at the London Public Library last month. Built in 1848 by runaway slaves who came to Canada via the Underground Railroad, the city was threatening to demolish the church that was falling apart.
“The documentary chronicles a group of citizens’ efforts to save the historic building,” said Sherwood who played the role of Dillon Beck in the CBC television series, ‘Street Legal’.
He is also working on a film focusing on Oakville’s Black community.
The town was a major gateway for Blacks coming to Canada through the Underground Railroad.
“Some of the early Black settlers were entrepreneurs and inventors who made significant contributions to the development of Oakville,” said the host and writer of the television talk show, ‘In the Black’ that was the first program on Canada TV that featured exclusive interviews with prominent African-Canadians.
With major contributions to the Canadian artistic landscape, how will Sherwood want to be remembered?
“As someone who was very passionate about his heritage, very proud of his family’s history and dedicated to telling the stories from our community,” he added. “I will never stop because there are so many stories to tell.”
On May 25, Sherwood and journalist/actor Nerene Virgin will engage in a candid conversation about their extensive industry experience and lifelong commitment to justice and equality.
The Canadian Museum of History will host the event presented by TD.
