Keren Brathwaite was a committed scholar and community leader

July 10, 2023

In the summer of 1969, a group of core activists in the city turned up the heat to end the repression of Black youths in the Toronto school system.

The collective included University of Toronto Transitional Year Program (TYP) co-founder Keren Brathwaite who passed away on June 20.

Dr. Horace Campbell, a Professor in the Political Science department at Syracuse University, was part of the movement advocating for change.

“The collective efforts of the community had been spearheaded by a few individuals, including Ato Seitu and the late Elaine Maxwell,” he said. “The core organizers came from the Black Youth Organization that met at the Home Service on Bathurst Street. That summer, we lobbied the Praxis Group and Chick Hanley from the University of Toronto. It was agreed that the educational system was and is racist and hindered the full development of non-White students.”

Campbell was recruited to write the proposal for the establishment of the TYP.

“It was agreed a pilot program would be launched at York University in 1969,” the scholar noted. “The idea was that those who had access to higher education should also serve in the community. That motto inspired the creation of the Black Education Project (BEP) whose anchors were members of York University Black Student movement and the Black Youth organization. It was this alliance from the youths that birthed the TYP that opened opportunities for students, beginning in 1970 at Innis College.”

Brathwaite along with community stalwarts Joy Squire, Althea Prince, Selwyn Henry, Beth Allen, Maurice Rhodd, the late Marlene Greene along with Maxwell and Seitu were the driving force behind the collective efforts.

Campbell said Brathwaite joined the team with a vested interest as a parent, educator and anti-racist citizen.

“When the program started, she was employed in it and turned out to be the most tenacious in her long struggles to maintain this program,” he added. “Never forgetting the origins of the program in the Black community, she soldiered on, even after the fissures within the community dispersed the BEP and closed down the UNIA offices. As a scholar, administrator and community activist, she sought to use her skills and ideas to hold the educational authorities accountable. She must be remembered as a tenacious fighter for equal education who served the community with honour. We must never forget her tenacity as a committed scholar and community leader.”

The mark the TYP’s 30th anniversary in 2000, Brathwaite organized a conference at U of T. Out of that gathering emerged a book, ‘Access & Equity in the University: A Collection of Papers from the 30th Anniversary Conference on the Transition Year Program’ that she edited.

After retirement in December 2003, Brathwaite continued supporting students on a voluntary basis while maintaining an office at U of T.

“The work we did was groundbreaking and I thoroughly enjoyed my years at the university,” she told me in 2008. “They were both challenging and exhilarating times that I will never forget.”

Keren Brathwaite with retired Toronto District School Board Principal Emmanuel ‘Manny’ Dick (Photo by Ron Fanfair)

Born in Bolans, Antigua, Brathwaite obtained a Bachelor of Arts and a Diploma in Education from the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona Campus in Jamaica and taught English Literature and Writing at the Antigua Grammar School (AGS) and UWI’s Extra Mural Department in Antigua.

Her students at the AGS included Black Action Defense Committee member Dari Meade.

“She was one of the earlier women teachers coming back from university to teach at the all-boys school,” he said. “I was rebellious back then and she understood it.  She took me under her wings and made me feel special. Though I was a bit slow in school, I loved writing poetry. We were given a poetry assignment at Christmas and I finished it in five minutes. It won the top prize that was a David Copperfield book from Keren. She developed a race-centred analysis and was at the forefront of participating in the construction of our community in Toronto.”

Keren Brathwaite cared about the educational advancement of Black children (Photo by Ron Fanfair)

Brathwaite also taught at the Princess Margaret School in Antigua where her cousin, Dr. Carl James, was a student.

He said her legacy is dismantling barriers and providing access for Black children to excel in the education system.

“The work she did with the Transitional Year Program and the OPBC is legendary,” said the Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community & Diaspora at York University. “Those are organizations in the Black community that moved people through public and high school, got Black and other racialized students into university through the TYP and then nurtured and supported them while they navigated university.”

Brathwaite came to Canada in 1967 on a Commonwealth Scholarship to pursue a Master’s in Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

Keren Brathwaite listening to Venetta Goodall critique the Royal Commission on Learning report at an OPBC forum in March 1995 (Photo by Ron Fanfair)

She contributed to several significant community initiatives to promote equity and anti-racism in education.

They include the Organization of Parents of Black Children (OPBC) that she co-founded, the Canadian Alliance of Black Educators, the International Languages & Black/African Cultural Heritage Program, the Black Educators’ Working Group and the Toronto District School Board Community Equity Reference Group.

In addition, she spent enormous time voluntarily counselling parents and students experiencing difficulties navigating the public school system in the province.

During the 34 years spent at U of T, Brathwaite served on many committees and task forces and played a leading role in the Black Faculty Caucus and the Race & Ethnocultural Equity Faculty Committee.

The Antigua & Barbuda Association of Toronto member was the recipient of many awards, including the U of T Alumni Association Award of Excellence, the Jos Human Rights Prize, the Distinguished Alumni Award for Innovation in Education, the City of Toronto Award of Merit and the Urban Alliance on Race Relations Award to mark the organization’s 25th anniversary in 2000.

In 2009, Brathwaite was conferred with a U of T honourary degree.

In her convocation address, she told the graduates that the beacons for the profound engagement in education she was privileged to experience were her first school in Antigua, the OPBC and the TYP.

“I was invigorated in the TYP by the students once considered the drop-outs from Ontario schools who accessed U of T through TYP and were able to shine academically and earn undergraduate professional degrees and even doctorates,” she said. “This is the intense environment with an inclusive pedagogy where I was privileged to interact with students who allowed me to experience education as an exciting pursuit.

“The TYP was a source of my understanding and inspiration in education. For had I not helped to establish this groundbreaking program 40 years ago and had I not contributed to guiding it through the years, my understanding of educational possibilities would be far less developed today than it is.”

”To keep her memory alive, the Keren Brathwaite Education Award (Fund #304925), an annual award for TYP students and alumni who exemplify the spirit of university access, equity, creativity and innovation, has been established.

Contributions can be made through https://engage.utoronto.ca/site/SPageServer?pagename=donate#/fund/461

Keren Brathwaite was conferred with a U of T honourary degree in 2009 (Photo by Ron Fanfair)