Don’t Call it A Book Tour: Catch Me at The 103rd North Buxton Homecoming

Some sports-minded writing advice for the aspiring scribes:

Authors are like point guards in that we’re as good, or as bad, as the decisions we make. Setting, story structure, dialogue, plots and subplots — all intentional and within our control. The better the storyteller’s decisions, the stronger the story. It’s why we struggle to come up with alternate endings for books we love, but can imagine multiple outcomes for ones that underwhelm us. So when readers leave me precious five-star reviews on their preferred book nerd web sites, or email me to tell me they enjoyed my book, it’s another way of saying they appreciate the choices I made.

If you’ve read my memoir, you’ll remember that it opens with my daily commute, crossing the border between Windsor and Detroit on the Transit Windsor Tunnel Bus (RIP), chatting with a woman who was descended from freedom seekers who came to Canada via the Underground Railroad. The geography, the characters, the dialogue and the placement at the very beginning of my book all spring from meticulous, deliberate choices. My conversation with the other commuter spans only a couple of pages, but sets up the themes the rest of the book will explore.

The interplay between history and heritage.

The blurry lines between blood relations and fictive kinship.

The long relationship between Canada and Black America.

Leading with that specific conversation felt natural but it was still a choice. I could have opened my memoir in Mississauga or in Chicago but I picked Windsor because it’s the midpoint between my hometown and the city where my parents grew up, and the border is as much a character in this memoir as the feuding factions of my family are. We’re not Underground Railroad descendants but, like the great-great-great-great grandparents of my buddy from the Tunnel Bus, my folks also crossed Detroit River en route to a new life in Canada.

So the decision to bring my memoir to Kent County for the 103rd North Buxton Homecoming? Easiest one I’ve made since becoming an author. Like calling a Jalen Hurts Tush Push on 4th and 1, or slotting Andre De Grasse into the anchor leg of your relay team. It’s the best, most obvious choice.

For the new folks, the reunion takes place every Labour Day weekend on the campus of the North Buxton Historic Site and Museum in North Buxton, Ont., about an hour east of the border. Right now I’m scheduled to present at 3:15pm on Monday, Sept. 7, inside the historic SS #13 Schoolhouse.

And for the people familiar with me and my work, you already know that this particular speaking engagement was a no-brainer.

An entire weekend celebrating border-straddling Black families? The largest gathering of AfroAmeriCanadians since my Uncle Ken’s epic birthday parties back in the 90s? A whole afternoon to chat with folks who traveled to North Buxton specifically indulge a deep interest in Black history on both sides of the Detroit River?

I can’t think of a group of people, besides my actual family and friends, better positioned to pick up what my memoir puts down. Only audience more tailor-made for this book are the people I’ll see the following weekend at Printers Row in Chicago, but those details only the North Buxton booking feel special to me.

Consecutive weekends in September, I’m bringing my book to new markets, and to regions that play a role in the stories I tell. Half my memoir takes place in Chicago and the other half in Mississauga. The road between those two regions goes through Southwest Ontario, where Black folks settled after escaping slavery in the U.S., and where Black history museums still dot the landscape.

I didn’t decide on the timing of this visit, but it works perfectly. In the summer of 2005 I visited the Amherstburg Freedom Museum, and a few weeks back I met Sam Walls, whose dad, Bryan, runs the John Freeman Walls Historic Site in Emeryville. I haven’t stopped by there yet, but I’ll take my crossing paths with Sam as a signal that I’m overdue.

As for North Buxton… I spent an afternoon there in August of 2015, back when Shannon Prince ran the site. And if I’d met her in Chicago I’d have peppered her with questions about who her people were, because she looked like one of us. Split the difference between my mom and her little sister and you have Shannon Prince.

Shannon also taught me about Lucien Boyd, who had come to North Buxton after escaping slavery, then returned to the U.S. during the Civil War to join the Union Army. He returned to North Buxton in April of 1865 and was promptly imprisoned for a crime called Breach of Enlistment. As far as the Canadian legal system was concerned, fighting for your people’s freedom was a felony, and Boyd spent two years at the federal penitentiary in Kingston.

His story flashed across my mind a in June as I sketched out the structure of my Juneteenth Keynote for the Black Talent Initiative. I remembered the details but couldn’t recall his name, and no web search could help me find it. So I called the museum, explained the situation to the current curator, Michelle Robbins, and 15 minutes later she emailed me Lucien Boyd’s file.

So when I say I’m making plans to visit every Black history museum in Southwest Ontario, I’m not just highlighting them as tourist attractions. They’re also resources, curators and custodians of Black history from both sides of the border. Every right wing attack on Black history in the U.S. underscores the need to keep these Canadian institutions healthy.

I contribute however I can — by visiting, or donating, or making the three-hour drive from Toronto’s eastern exurbs to Kent County for an author talk. Whatever I can do to keep these museums thriving as we head into the second quarter of the 21st century. Either we support and engage with these places, or risk losing touch with the history they preserve.

Another easy decision.

I’ll stand up for Black history every time.

If you live within driving distance, I’ll see you on Labour Day.

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