History
The community traces its origins to the immigration of former African American slaves during the 18th and 19th centuries. Many have thought it was named after clergy Richard Preston, who set up 11 Baptist churches in Nova Scotia, and helped pass the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. However Richard Preston was an escaped slave from Virginia and took the name Preston from the community as Preston was where he was reunited with his mother as she had escaped slavery earlier in her life.
North Preston is the oldest and largest indigenous Black community in Canada, as well as having the highest concentration of Black Canadians across Canada. It is the home of boxers Kirk Johnson, Jason Downey and Custio Clayton.Canadian Idol finalist Kaleb Simmonds also hails from North Preston.
Read more about this topic: North Preston
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes.”
—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741–1794)
“I feel as tall as you.”
—Ellis Meredith, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 14, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)