A small but dedicated team has spent the past three years working to make Black New Brunswick history a fixture in the North American narrative through a project called Still Here.
“This Still Here initiative was a project that started in my soul when I was looking for identity,” said poet and project lead Thandiwe McCarthy.
Growing up as a Black New Brunswicker, he said, he felt that people saw him as “rare” — and that they didn’t know “Black families have thrived here for over seven generations.”
“I walked along the path alone, trying to find how to dig deeper into this story and realize that I couldn’t do it alone … I needed a village.”
The families
At the heart of the Still Here project are 15 Black New Brunswick families who go back generations, tracked down by Thandiwe’s mother, historian Mary McCarthy, and visited by him and photographer Gary Weekes.
Over the course of these provincewide visits, Weekes took group photos and 174 individual portraits and also captured candid moments. Thandiwe wrote poems based on each family’s story.
“We’ve caught lightning — 15 lightning bolts … with every single one of these families.”
WATCH | Black families have thrived in N.B. for more than 7 generations, Thandiwe McCarthy says:
Still Here project celebrates generations of Black New Brunswick history
Thandiwe McCarthy and his Still Here team are bringing the stories and legacy of 15 Black families in the province to light through photography, » Read More
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