The U.S.A. has Barack Obama but we were first!!

I came across an interesting article by a guy named Roger Hunziker some of which is below.

William Peyton Hubbard became an alderman (city councillor) in 1894, the first black man to be elected to public office in Toronto.

Hubbard was a Toronto boy (like me), born and bred in a cabin in what was called ‘The Bush’ (the general area of Bloor and Brunswick today-A.K.A. the annex area of the city of Toronto today). I was not born in a cabin but my parents were refugees from a different era which is why this Hubbard dude sounds like a cool guy!

Hubbards father was a refugee slave from Virginia, and worked as a waiter to earn a living for his family. William was sent to school to learn to be a baker . Toronto public schools were not segregated, which gave the children of slaves a chance to get educated.

His own experience as a black man growing up in mid-nineteenth century Toronto later led him to champion the cause of tolerance, and to fight against racial prejudice. Hubbard worked as a baker for sixteen years until he decided to enter municipal politics. He re-elected every year for thirteen straight years.

He had many achievements while a Toronto alderman but will be remembered for standing up in council for the rights of the common man. He protected small Chinese laundry businesses from the assault of large laundry companies. Hubbard also fought to keep the city’s water supply public, and in 1907 Hubbard and Adam Beck pushed through the creation of a publicly owned hydroelectric company, now Hydro One. Beck and Hubbard were first to call for “public power”, not the Ontario New Democratic Party.

Hubbard was defeated for the first time in1908, ironically because the voters resented him for bringing about the Toronto Hydro-Electric System. He returned to council five years later. Even then Toronto voters were fickle-imagine that!

Hubbard lived to an old age witnessing the arrival of waves of immigrants, World War I, and the Depression and died in 1935.

So party on President Obama and remember those who were there before you.