Black History Month
Last week, riding my bike through Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria – as I regularly do – I spotted a flash of pink. Winter in the cemetery does not bring many vibrant colours, and the neon pink was not moving. So I biked over for a closer look.
It wasn’t a ghost or some sort of new headstone, just a small bright pink umbrella hanging from the tree. My guess is someone dropped it and then another person hung it up on the tree. It swayed in the wind gusts coming off the ocean.
It was an interesting scene and I snapped a photo before carrying on.
When I looked at the image later, I noticed the headstone of Paris Carter in the frame.
February is Black History Month, so it seems fitting to introduce readers to Carter and his relatively new headstone. I guess newsletter inspiration can come from anywhere – even a pink umbrella!
An All Black Militia
Paris Carter was born in Kentucky in 1820 and eventually travelled west to California before arriving at the colony of Vancouver Island in 1858.