Viva Rosie Douglas: 40th Anniversary of Computer Trashing at Sir George Williams

Today is the 40th Anniversary of the trashing of the computer room at Sir George Williams University in Montreal .  Rosie Douglas and other student activists were protesting a racist professor.  It was one of the most important actions of the student movement and the burgeoning Black Power movement in Canada at the time.

I met Rosie a little later in Toronto when he had given up his most radical trashing action ways but was still very political and a socialist.  The Canadian government was trying to deport him to the native Dominica and we organized a Committee to End Racism and Political Repression to stop the deportation.  It was the mid-1970's.  It was where I first met my friend Akua Benjamin who became an important leader of the Black community in Toronto.  We failed to stop his deportation and I don't remember a whole lot else except that he had a driver we called the General.  He was always counselling us to commit violence but we disagreed.  Turned out many years later he was an RCMP agent.

Rosie was deported and he became the President of Dominica and died in office only 8 months after taking power in 2000.  Today I remember Rosie and all the comrades I have worked with over these many years who continued to work for social justice all of their lives.  Viva Rosie Douglas!