You might have heard of Robert Sutherland, BA 1852, the first Black student at Queen’s who later saved the university from getting annexed by the University of Toronto. But do you know Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Musson Kawaley, BA’43? For alumna Tka Pinnock, Artsci’07, Kawaley’s story is a reminder that Black women have played an important role in Queen’s history, too. Pinnock’s feature from the spring 2023 issue of the Queen’s Alumni Review traces Kawaley’s beginnings in Bermuda to her time at Queen’s to her life as an educator, author, and activist. It was a finalist in the National Magazine Award’s B2B contest in the Best Feature category in 2024. Below is an excerpt from that story. You can read the full feature here.
Under the cover of night, her ship cut through the waves in darkness to avoid the enemy. It was 1939 and the Atlantic Ocean was no place for passenger vessels. Her trip had already been cancelled twice before but, as she cast her gaze toward starlit northern skies, she must have hoped that the third time would be the charm. This was it. She was finally leaving the warmth of Bermuda for the cold and uncertainty of Canada. But it was her dream.
Bags packed and hair straightened for a third time (“It was what you did in those days if you were going somewhere special,” she later recalled), 17-year-old Elizabeth bid goodbye to her family. War was in its infancy, she didn’t know a soul in Canada, and she had no inkling of when she would be able to return home. But she was undeterred. Armed with only the exuberance of youth, she sailed into her future.
Queen’s University was waiting.
Elizabeth arrived at Queen’s in the fall of 1939 to discover she was “the only Black girl on campus,” as one Bermuda news website recalled on her 100th birthday.
Whether she was or not, it is safe to say Elizabeth believed this to be the case, and with good reason.
“I was the only “Coloured” student at the school – and I knew of only one other Coloured family in Kingston, Ontario, itself,” she told last year.
People, she said, would “point and whisper in astonishment” and some were curious enough about her that they even wanted, much to Elizabeth’s surprise, to touch her skin.
“Some people in Kingston were appalled to see me,” she recalled in a 2018 interview. “They’d never seen a Black person before.”
But her three roommates – she called them her sisters – would link arms with her and say, “Come along.” These allies – Anna (Kleinsteuber) Wheal, Elnora (McCalpin) Sheppard and Ruth Cordy – were a balm to her soul. They ate in the cafeteria together, and she stayed with their families during school holidays. The sisterhood held strong – long after graduation and Elizabeth’s return home to Bermuda.
I would arrive at Queen’s 64 years later, in September 2003. Much like it was for Elizabeth, Queen’s and Kingston were unknown to me, having only migrated to Canada the year prior. And while I did not find Queen’s or Kingston to be particularly inhospitable, our experiences were perhaps not markedly different.
People may not have been appalled to see me in 2003, but it’s fair to say they were probably surprised a few times. I was not the only Black girl on campus. But I was, more often than not, the only Black person in each of my classes.
Year after year.
Keep reading the full feature here.
