Black History Month: Community Y and the role it plays in north-end Halifax

One may have heard the phrases “each one teach one” or “carry the book as well as the balls.”

These are philosophies Community YMCA says it has incorporated since 1970, particularly in education and basketball.

Lou Gannon, the first African Canadian appointed as the CEO of a YMCA in the country, says these philosophies are one they tried to set up kids for the future.

He says tutorial programs were set up at the schools in north-end Halifax and at the Halifax North Memorial Public Library with the help of community members.

The goal was to help kids struggling with education or who weren’t being taught at a level that reflected their full potential.

“We had an understanding that not every kid was going to go to university,” Gannon said. “And every kid is not going to necessarily graduate high school with honours. But you had some kind of education because the whole program dealt with your future.”

Bev Greenlaw, a Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame member, joined the Community Y in 1971, and continued to stay with the basketball community coaching.

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“The education part was always important. But again, basketball to me was also a form of education,” Greenlaw said. “It’s about life. It’s about values in basketball and in life, and you think about it, it merges. A lot of the stuff you learn in basketball, it’s a lesson for life. And some of the things you learn in life can be lessons for basketball.”

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While the Community Y program was successful on the court, the impact went far beyond basketball. People who have been part of the program say these past five decades have helped shape lives at a time when Halifax’s north end was portrayed by some as dangerous.

African Nova Scotians who lived in the Gottingen Street area also say the community frequently faced discrimination.

Lezlie States, a girls’ basketball coach for the eastern Canadian region, also played for Community Y growing up. She says the prominent location helped provide youth with the tools to battle the prejudices they would face, while also developing their skills in a game many of them loved to play.

“When you have everybody that’s on the same wavelength, the same page, with the same focus for our kids, which is to get them to the highest level possible for schooling, not necessarily sports, but if that works, and to help them become the best version of who they are, when we’re all on the same page of that, we have kids that become very successful,” she said.

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