Freelance writer unravels mystery of a destroyed community

Africville was an African-Canadian settlement located near Halifax, until the government decided to demolish the impoverished community, despite protests from locals. While most Canadians have heard of Africville, it took a young freelance writer to actually bring the community’s history to life, through extensive research and interviews with one of the most outspoken protesters against its demolition. Freelancer John Tattrie had always heard about Africville’s demise, but something about the reason to demolish the community in the 1960s never made any logical sense. While authorities argued that bulldozing the impoverished area served as urban renewal, the locals saw the destruction of their community as nothing short of a human rights violation.

Tattrie met Eddie Carvery, an eccentric and reportedly volatile hermit who spent 40 years living in a camper near the grounds of Africville, last year and despite repeated warnings from his freelance colleagues and other journalists, he sat down with him for extensive interviews. In total, Tattrie spent some 40 hours listening to Carvery’s stories and personal accounts about Africville and his at times controversial struggle to bring justice, as well as protest Nova Scotia’s mistreatment of African-Canadians and Aboriginal peoples. Tattrie’s book, entitled The Hermit of Africville, manages to do what even more established journalists and writers could not: go deep into a long-vanished community’s history and tell stories about everyday life in Africville from the perspective of an eye witness. The freelancer noted that Africville is still there, but it is literally buried under several tons of landfill and the community’s history has yet to be unearthed.