Park to honour groundbreaking black Toronto politician William Peyton Hubbard

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/park-william-peyton-hubbard-1.3817224

Perspective: This story sent to me by Alwin Squire, editor of Vision Newspaper has been a great source of inspiration.

William Peyton Hubbard has shown that you cannot keep a good man down. The look of one’s face, their social background nor the colour of their skin should have nothing to do with their social mobility.

William Peyton Hubbard came from slavery but that is all. He possessed superb intellectual acumen, above average leadership and people skills … no one could stop him in life.

For a park to be named in his honour, speaks volumes of the quality of the man. This was a very white neighborhood in Toronto, Canada.

Poetic Commentary

Hubbard stood tall above the rest …
As he was gifted … the best …
It is not your pigmentation …
Instead your real contribution …
To development & production …
In the building of your nation …

Hubbard demonstrated this and all believed in him.

The transparency of the selection process to select his name for the park is instructive.

We hail Hubbard as a visionary … who was ahead of his time.

We have long opined in Vision that “Racism is an affront to decency”

May we as people of colour be motivated by the political successes of William Peyton Hubbard who did break through the proverbial glass ceiling from the late 18th century long before Barak Obama, Shelly-Ann Frazer-Pryce, and Dr. The Honourable Usain Bolt et al.

They are not responsible for their birth. Are they?

Commentary & Poetic excerpt is by Hopeton O’Connor-Dennie who is SIC Vision Newspaper Canada.