Rosemary Brown
Photo Credit: royalbcmuseum.bc.ca
Rosemary Brown was the first Black woman to serve in a provincial legislature in Canada, and the first Black female candidate for the leadership of a federal political party in Canada.
Brown was born Rosemary Wedderburn in Jamaica on June 17, 1930. She grew up with her mother and grandmother as her father died when she was very young.
In her autobiography,
Being Brown: A Very Public Life, she described her upbringing as safe and supportive, in a house ruled by women.
“It was [a] large place that was filled with the noise of women and children, with their laughter, their joy, their anger…The men who came and went, uncles, brother, cousins did so quietly and with respect.”