Hogan's Alley used to be a vibrant African-Canadian community in Vancouver – particularly in the 1930s, '40s and '50s.
What happened to all-but-eradicate this once-thriving neighbourhood?
That's a story told by the documentary Union Street: Racism and Resilience, the next presentation of South Rock Social Justice at White Rock Community Centre at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, May 30.
Directed by filmmaker Jamila Pomeroy, Union Street recounts a sad history of racism, displacement and cultural erasure.
Much of the area was razed in the late 1960s, to make way for the Georgia Viaduct and other misguided "urban renewal" initiatives.
But the 2022 film – which had a sold-out four-day Vancouver International Film Festival run when first released – also offers hope for the future, as it showcases a group of Black Vancouverites working to rebuild the community, facilitate Black joy and redefine what it means to be African Canadian.
The film was funded and released by Telus, as part of its Telus Originals series.
Pomeroy logged thousands of hours of research for the film on her own dime – after first learning about Hogan's Alley in 2008 – acknowledging that she was initially curious why Vancouver had so few African-Canadian residents.
Her film traces the history of a neighbourhood first established in the late 19th century by Black train porters who worked the national railways – its location determined by proximity to the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific terminals, and its narrow boundaries drawn by economic barriers and the limited racial tolerance of the time.
The story of Hogan's Alley is one typical of the ghettoization of minorities in North American cities. And yet it transcended its limitations to become a magnetic hub of restaurants and speakeasies and a vital local music scene.
It also became a mecca for celebrated Black musicians and entertainers (Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald among them) whenever they played the city.
But others within the city – inspired by social scientist Leonard Marsh's 1950 treatise Rebuilding A Neighborhood – had a zeal to 'modernize' the city and remove 'slum areas' that thinly masked racist imperatives and an agenda of class warfare.
They were working, through systematic neglect, to marginalize and ultimately remove this cultural enclave, along with Chinatown and other ethnic areas of Strathcona.
While other areas were saved when a plan for a city freeway were defeated, Hogan's Alley was an early victim of wholesale demolition to build the Georgia Viaduct.
But while only vestiges of the original Hogan's Alley remain, Union Street also documents ongoing latter-day efforts to reclaim cultural spaces within the boundaries of the old neighbourhood.
The White Rock screening will be followed by a question and answer session with Pomeroy, also a screenwriter and internationally published author, and Vancouver activist Adrianna Spyker.
White Rock Community Centre is located at 15154 Russell Ave., which offers free parking. Doors will open at 6:00 p.m. and admission is by donation.
