Discover Toronto's history as told through its plaques
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Albert Jackson
Photo by contributor Pancheta Barnett - Posted August 2017
Photo by contributor Pancheta Barnett - Posted August 2017
This 2017 Heritage Toronto plaque can be seen on the south side of Lombard Street east of Victoria Street. Here's what it says:
Coordinates: 43.651399 -79.376492 |
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Born into slavery in Delaware during the late 1850s, Albert Jackson became the first Black letter carrier in Toronto and one of the few people of colour to be appointed a civil servant in 19th-century Canada.
Jackson's mother, Ann Maria, escape from the United States to Canada with the help of the Underground Railroad network after two of her sons were sold and her husband died of grief. In 1858, Ann Maria and seven children arrived in Toronto where Albert, a toddler at the time, grew up and was educated.
Jackson was appointed a letter carrier on May 12, 1882. Because of racial discrimination, white postal workers refused to train Albert to deliver mail so his supervisor assigned him to an indoor position as a hall porter instead.
Toronto's Black community organized support for Jackson, arranging a public meeting and creating a committee to advocate for him. A heated debate ensued in the press about his appointment, during which he was supported by Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald who was courting Black voters. Jackson began his training on June 2, 1882; he worked at the post office for 36 years until his death in 1918.
The Toronto General Post Office stood on this site from 1873 to 1958, and it was here that Jackson picked up mail for delivery along his routes.
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Here are the visitors' comments for this page.
> Posted January 26, 2019
Albert Jackson was honoured on a postage stamp, issued today in Toronto. An unveiling ceremony the night before at St. Lawrence Hall National Historic Site (see related plaque pages) saw several generations of Jacksons gather to celebrate his, and their, legacy, including his grandchildren (in their 80s and 90s), great-grandchildren, great-greats, and great-great-greats!
The stamp is the latest in what's become an annual Black History Month series. Its designers were on hand, as well as the author of a musical play, "The Postman", which was produced in 2015, and performed as a piece of walking theater on the porches of houses to which Jackson delivered mail.
Also appearing was the author of the book that brought the Jackson story to light. Karolyn Smardz Frost's 2007 work, "I've Got a Home in Glory Land" took her on a 20-year journey to discover the tale of Thornton and Lucie Blackburn (see related plaque pages). Along the way, she also unearthed the Albert Jackson story, finding the families were buried near one another at Toronto's Necropolis, not far from George Brown's gravesite.
Both a historian and an archeologist, Frost made the trip to Toronto from Wolfville, NS, where she is based at Acadian University. Her book won the Governor General's Award for non-fiction, and she had praise for both torontoplaques.ca and ontarioplaques.ca as valued resources.
-Wayne
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