Outstanding legacy of David Woods praised
December 9, 2022
Suffering mental block in his first year in university resulted in David Woods changing careers.
Registering for Political Science at Dalhousie University, he intended to go to law school and become a legal practitioner.
In the first year, Woods enrolled in the university’s Transition Year Program Black History and Culture classes and was the Student Council Arts representative.
The first paper he was assigned was submitted two weeks late and was 110 pages in length.
“When I finally handed it in, I remember my shocked professor looking at me and saying I had submitted an essay that was the length of an MA thesis rather than the double space pages he had asked me for,” recalled Woods who was awarded an honourary degree at Dalhousie University on November 2. “This first paper was a sign of much problems to come.”
With his term papers becoming longer and more elaborate, he admitted becoming more concerned with capturing the full nuances of his thoughts on the subject matters he was engaged in than in completing the projects.
“By January of the first year, the anxiety of over-writing and the continuous lateness of my essays overwhelmed me and I shut down,” said Woods in his convocation address. “I would put pen to paper, but nothing would come. Frustrated at having no one to discuss this with, I stayed away from my classes, hiding in shame.”
It was during this time of uncertainty that he turned to creative expression.
“These were works of the imagination drawn from my youth, from a summer camp I had worked in the summer before college where I met and fell in love with all the children and people in Preston, the Black community on the outskirts of Dartmouth,” he said. “These were works that examined my life, questioned my future and explored my personal and racial history. There was no anxiety or blockage in these things. They became part of my daily routine of mixed expression and attitudes and formal studies of various art forms from books which I borrowed from the Killam Memorial Library.”
At age four, Woods parents migrated to England from Trinidad & Tobago, leaving him and his siblings behind in the care of their grandparents.
He reunited with his parents in Canada nine years later in 1972.
“That was a disaster as there was a lot of abuse,” he said. “Again, I did well in school (as he did in T & T) and was known for that, but emotionally I was starved. I kept my spirit at home by waiting till everyone slept at night and then I would get up and write and paint till the early morning light, exploring the world and my imagination. This reaction in college to my first year had a precedent. I think it was also because when I approached university, I approached it as something that would be all-consuming and without balance.”
A few months after leaving university in 1980, Woods joined the Black United Front (BUF) and successfully argued that all Black children -- not only those of mixed backgrounds and Black kids growing up in White foster homes -- should be exposed to Black history and culture.
Within a year, he organized seven cultural youth groups in high schools. In 1985, his innovative program won a Commonwealth Youth Service Award and an international scholarship.
After the BUF dropped the popular program, the Cultural Awareness Youth Group of Nova Scotia – created with the assistance of the Halifax North Branch library and the Department of Secretary of State -- emerged with Woods at the helm.
“In a sense, creating CAYG was very much like me creating all the art work that I did in my first year because in those youths, the ambitions that had been blocked had found its expression in all the activities they were now doing,” said the 2016 Harry Jerome awardee and self-taught artist. “Many of the participants in the group went on to become the ‘Who is Who’ of the leadership in the Black community today.”
They include Dr. Barbara Hamilton-Hinch who is an Associate Professor at Dalhousie University and Auburn Drive High School Principal Karen Hudson who both supported Woods’ honourary doctorate nomination.
In 1987, Woods left the group to focus on a writing career. He formed a theatre company – Voices Black Theatre Ensemble – and began writing plays.
“These were stories of individuals and events I had learnt about in my travels across Nova Scotia that had been ignored by history,” he pointed out.
Trinidadian-born Dr. Clement Ligoure, Halifax’s first Black physician who treated hundreds of patients after the 1917 Halifax Explosion that claimed 1,782 lives, and renowned oil painter Edward Bannister who was one of the first Blacks to receive national recognition in his field are some of the Canadians of historical significance that Woods was the first to shine light on.
“All of these stories had a consistent theme of an individual or an event of significance that had been ignored by history and, by accident, had been brought to my attention,” he said. “Through my passion and commitment to creating excellent work, I was allowed to become a conduit for their public recognition to give them a second life. Each time I became successful lifting up a new hero experience, I again thought of my first year here at Dalhousie when I too discovered my second life.”
Woods published a book in 1990, ‘Creative Song’ that is a collection of poetry and paintings and several of his plays were broadcast nationally on CBC Radio in the last three decades. He also contributed to Joe Sealy’s award-winning ‘Africville Suite’ recording.
As the founder of the Black Artists Network of Nova Scotia and collaborating with the province’s only incorporated guild of Black quilters, he curated ‘The Secret Codes’ featuring quilts, some of which date back to the 1920s.
He also co-curated the 1998 exhibition, ‘In This Place: Black Art in Nova Scotia’, at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design’s Anna Leonowens Gallery.
Dr. Louise Spiteri, the first woman to chair Dalhousie’s Senate in nearly 30 years, introduced Woods to convocation.
“To call David Woods simply an artist is far too adductive,” she said. “We can unspool that term to specify his many merits of artistic creation, poetry, acting, directing, playwriting, painting and even quilting and that will still feel like an insufficient summary of his contributions. He is researcher, he is a community builder. He pictures possibility in all theatres of society and, through colour and collaboration, he conjures it into existence.”
Historian and multidisciplinary artist Dr. Afua Cooper sponsored Woods for the accolade.
Dr. Afua Cooper sponsored David Woods for the accolade (Photo contributed)
“David has created an outstanding legacy in poetry, visual art, playwriting, community development, historical research and mentorship,” noted the Principal Investigator of ‘A Black People’s History of Canada’. “He has changed the cultural and artistic landscape in Nova Scotia through his untiring efforts and unmatched generosity to centre the voices of African Nova Scotians in artistic practices and institutions. His work is stellar and it speaks for itself.”
Before she died last February, Wanda Robson – the youngest sister of Viola Desmond – wrote a letter of support for Woods.
In crediting him with bringing her sister’s story to the world, she said, ‘David’s mission is to never cease to portray his people to be treated with respect, dignity and equality’.”
Woods is the brother of creative consultant and multidisciplinary artist Anne-Marie Woods who founded Imani Enterprises.
“Too often we remember great leaders when they are gone,” she said. “David deserves this and more for his contributions to arts culture and Black history. He is the reason I am a creative person.”
