A small team has spent the past three years tracing and recording the stories of Black families who have lived in New Brunswick for generations, producing a multi‑media project that combines photography, poetry and historical records.
From a personal search to a provincewide project
The initiative, known as Still Here, began as a personal quest. Project lead and poet Thandiwe McCarthy said he started to dig into his identity after feeling that his experience as a Black New Brunswicker was seen as "rare." He soon realised he could not carry the work alone and recruited others, including historian Mary McCarthy and photographer Gary Weekes, to help document families with deep roots in the province.
“This Still Here initiative was a project that started in my soul when I was looking for identity,”
Over several months of travel across New Brunswick the team identified 15 families who trace their presence in the province back many generations. The research and visits have produced group shots, 174 individual portraits and a series of poems written by Thandiwe inspired by each family’s account.
What the project includes
- Photographic record: 174 individual portraits and numerous group and candid images by Gary Weekes.
- Poetry: Original poems written for each family, linking contemporary lives with historical experience.
- Archival research: Historical documents collected to contextualise family narratives.
- Public programming: An exhibition at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton and speaking engagements across Canada.
- Publication: A forthcoming book compiling photographs, poems and historical records.
The creators describe the work as having “caught lightning” in the portraits and stories they gathered — a phrase they use to express both the rarity and the resonance of assembling such a concentrated record of long‑standing Black presence in the province.
Public events and the Emancipation weekend
The Still Here project will be visible to the broader public through its Beaverbrook Art Gallery exhibition in Fredericton and a four‑day Emancipation Celebration scheduled for the Aug. 1 weekend. That date marks the 1834 Slavery Abolition Act, which ended slavery in much of the British Empire, including territories that later became Canada.
Organisers have expanded the project beyond the book and gallery: they have accepted invitations for speaking events across Canada, signalling a desire to place New Brunswick’s Black histories within a larger North American story.
Families at the heart of the work
At the centre of Still Here are 15 family stories collected with the help of Mary McCarthy. The public material released so far included interviews with several participating families and imagery that emphasises continuity — the transmission of memory and belonging across generations within the province.
| Element | Details |
|---|---|
| Families documented | 15 |
| Individual portraits | 174 |
| Public exhibition | Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton |
For New Brunswick audiences, Still Here offers both an archival record and a prompt to rethink local history curricula, museum displays and public commemorations to include the long‑standing presence of Black families. The project’s public events this summer will provide opportunities for residents and visitors to see photographs, hear poems and engage directly with the histories on display.
As the team moves toward publication and broader touring, the work aims to make visible a story many residents may not know: that Black families have not only existed in New Brunswick for generations, but have shaped communities across the province.
