An effigy of a black man hung by the neck in a store window is just one of several racial incidents reported by the employee of a furniture store in the eastern Canadian city of Dartmouth. Elsworth Bottomley complained to the Human Rights Commission in the province of Nova Scotia after he quit working at the local Leon’s furniture store.
Bottomley said he was called “nigger” and that a fellow driver sent him a text message making negative comments about the intelligence of black people.
Leon’s issued a news release saying two employees were fired over the incidents. It called them offensive and apologized to anyone who saw the effigy. Leon’s said it has offered diversity and sensitivity training in recent weeks.
Another incident investigated
A human rights board of inquiry is investigating another alleged case of racial discrimination at the same store. Garnetta Cromwell alleges a Leon’s manager referred to her employee evaluation as a lynching. The board is considering whether Bottomley’s evidence should be admissible in Cromwell’s case as relevant information.
Nova Scotia has over 20,000 people of African origin. Some fled slavery in the United States. Others were British loyalists who left the US after the War of Independence for a new life in the British colony. A sizeable number came from the Caribbean, and more recently from Africa and Latin America.
The government of Nova Scotia has several initiatives with the African community and has named a Minister of African Nova Scotian Affairs.
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