VMF2021 Neighbourhood: Hogan’s Alley (BSRP)
This year we’ve added Hogan’s Alley, a historical Black neighbourhood of Vancouver, to our festival lineup. As part of our Black Strathcona Resurgence Project (BSRP), we are bringing light back to Hogan’s Alley–a rich and thriving neighbourhood that was located in the now Strathcona / Chinatown area of Vancouver.
Why Strathcona? While Black communities are living all over Vancouver, Strathcona was once home to the earliest Black migrants as early as 1858, who continued to grow and flourish over the decades. Hogan’s Alley (derogatorily named) was a T-shaped alley that ran between Union and Prior Streets from approximately Main Street to Jackson Avenue, and was the area that held the highest concentration of Black people in Vancouver migrating from Oklahoma (via Alberta) and California. These were known as B.C.’s Black Pioneers who consisted of names such as Mifflin Wistar Gibbs who arrived in Victoria in 1858, Howard Estes to Vancouver Island in 1859, and Sylvia Stark in 1859 whose descendants live on Salt Spring Island to this day, amongst others. They had been invited to Vancouver Island by Governor, Sir James Douglas, in the 1800’s during the Gold Rush. Over time the community found themselves moving to Vancouver for work and finding themselves jobs at The Great Northern Railway as porters, located right next to the Hogan’s Alley area.
Between 1918 - 1960’s Hogan’s Alley boasted a lively nightlife with a range of restaurants and juke joints. Many of which were visited by well known musicians and entertainers, including Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole who would make their way to Vancouver via the railway. From the community came popular musicians such as the Crump Twins who would often be found playing in Hogan’s Alley and throughout Vancouver. A popular hangout for the community and visitors was Vie’s Chicken and Steak, which beyond a restaurant functioned as an integrated community hub. Hogan’s Alley was also home to Vancouver’s first Black owned church: Fountain Chapel, a location where everyone in the community could congregate - one of the founders of the church was Nora Hendrix (grandmother of Jimi Hendrix).
The Black community has been a systematic victim of violence and displacement. Freeways as a form of urban renewal were taking off across North America in prominent areas such as Chicago, and impoverished neighbourhoods were deemed the perfect location to build them through. In the 1960’s ,Vancouver’s Black community was gradually displaced when the city’s Urban Renewal project seeked to revitalise areas they deemed slums, and Strathcona at the time was known as “urban blight”, meaning the City of Vancouver refused to upkeep sidewalks or housing, and would often purchase property without reselling it in order to gain control of the area. The combination of an impoverished area with a concentrated hub of Black migrants that Canada at the time was trying to prohibit all across the country, gave leverage for the media to continuously portray Hogan’s Alley and Strathcona in a negative light. Thus in 1972, the development of the Georgia Viaduct in Vancouver ran right through the cultural hub of all the Black-owned businesses and homes, despite city wide protests that stopped the freeway from ever being built. BSRP Advisory Committee member Bertha Clark–granddaughter of the famous Vie Moore–recounts being a young girl when her family was forced to take up a new residence near the PNE.
Having both descendants of the area and expert researchers participate in guiding this project has been integral to its success. In more recent years, BIPOC leaders throughout Vancouver have made a concerted effort to bring greater awareness to the area’s historical past and the ways in which development displaced and destroyed these early immigrant communities. Groups such as the Black Cultural Association, BC Black History Awareness Society, the Hogan’s Alley Memorial Project, and Hogan’s Alley Society continue to strive for greater cultural recognition of the site and the respective contributions Black people made to not only British Columbia, but the rest of Canada.
As part of this year’s festival and in conjunction with our BSRP project, we have partnered with local Black artists, curators, businesses and communities to embark on Black storytelling through the visual impact of public murals. With support from our partner Vancity, Community Partner Hogan’s Alley Society and sponsors including Shaw Communications, BC Hydro and BC Housing, we have gained the support and funding needed to produce 13 murals in Hogan’s Alley. “BC Housing is grateful for the opportunity to support this project because it helps reclaim Black visibility while honouring the importance of the Chinatown community and Indigenous peoples,” says Vincent Tong, BC Housing’s VP, Development and Asset Strategies. “Community building projects like this help us re-establish historic roots and a sense of belonging that is vital to healthy communities.”
We have an incredible selection of artists working throughout Hogan’s Alley this year, some newer and some more established, all committed to amplifying the voices of the BIPOC community and expanding on its creative presence throughout Vancouver. However it is really through our emerging BSRP artists that audiences are exposed to a Black resurgence. Emilya Guerreroa known artistically as COMOHOMBRE, is a young emerging artist who was born and raised in the Strathcona neighbourhood. Her mural in its psychedelic meets sci-fi abstraction, functions as a tool for working towards Afro-Futurism and the new generation of Black creatives that will re-occupy Strathcona. Odera Igbokwe’s mural utilizes rich, bright colours that burst into a spectrum and does a phenomenal job creating a space of healing for those belonging to Vancouver’s Black communities of past, present and future.
One of our biggest walls this 2021 festival is dedicated to ‘Solidarity Storytelling”, a beautiful collaboration between Emma Xie, Chase Gray & John Sebastian. All three artists are of differing cultural backgrounds and have come together to celebrate and honour their respective heritages in a poignant three panel mural, symbolic of the inherent intersectionality of Hogan’s Alley as a place.
To find out more about BSRP, visit vanmuralfest.ca/bsrp. Download the VMF app to learn and discover 300+ murals across the city.
Thank you to all the BSRP partners and supporters.
Project Partner: Vancity
Community Partner: Hogan’s Alley Society
Sponsors: Shaw, BC Hydro, Goodbye Graffiti, Strathcona BIA, BC Housing
Mural artists in order of images: Enia Sitole, Joslyn Reid, Odera Igbokwe, Paige Jung, Rachel Achus, MEDIAH, Yaimel López
A word from our BSRP Presenting Partner - Vancity
Since our founding, 75 years ago, Vancity has been committed to inclusion. Our founders believed that everyone should have access to economic opportunity and prosperity. We uphold the same beliefs today and are committed to doing our part in removing financial barriers that stem from systemic exclusion and inequities that affect women, Indigenous, Black, and People of Colour (IBPOC), LGBTQ2S+, and people living with visible and invisible disabilities.
Vancouver’s Black Strathcona community is an important part of the history of Vancouver, and has played an important role in our 75 year history. In 1971, Vancity merged with the BC Unity Credit Union, the only Black-owned and run financial institution at the time that focused on financial literacy and equitable loan access for the area. Since our merger, the legacy of this credit union’s ethos lives on through us.
We are proud to support non-profits like Hogan’s Alley Society and BC Black History Awareness Society who are working to revive and celebrate the history of BC’s Black population and their contributions to our country’s achievements, and thrilled to partner with Vancouver Mural Festival to bring underrepresented voices to the forefront of public space and the work that supports the reclaiming of the representation and prominence of the Black community in Vancouver
It’s no longer enough to be “not racist”, to achieve equity we must be anti-racist by challenging the embedded inequities. This is the work we've set for ourselves as a credit union, and our commitment is to listen, learn and drive meaningful change through concrete actions. This has led our decisions to be a founding partner of Canada’s Black Entrepreneurship Program, join the BlackNorth Initiative, and participate in The 50 - 30 Challenge as we stay committed to continued growth. We’ve partnered with Vancouver Mural Festival’s Black Strathcona Resurgence Project to continue our commitment of anti-racism and to support our mission to create a clean and fair world for all.
To find out more about Vancity’s work towards becoming an inclusive and anti-racist organization click here
MEET THE HOGAN’S ALLEY (BSRP) MURAL ARTISTS:
