This presentation is concerned with the formation and evolution of national and imperial identity among the Black Baptist community in Nova Scotia in the latter half of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth. What is quickly apparent when reading the association minutes is that much of the national and imperial identity expressed in the Black Baptist community mirrored that of much of their White neighbours. Yet there were critical differences, for the evolution of Black Baptist discourse was shaped as well by history, race, and religion, factors that together forged a unique perspective on matters of national identity. And that unique perspective was marked most notably by a pressing and urgent motivation for faithful citizenship, a type of motivation well known by those whose ethnicity or religion did not fit within the dominant cultural narrative. What is also apparent in the minutes is a fusion of patriotism, social reform, and race consciousness distinctly forged by religious convictions. It is virtually impossible to pull those aspects apart, for they are intertwined and mutually supportive.
What this research also demonstrates is that within the Black Baptist community there was an appreciation for the relative safety and opportunity provided in Canada when contrasted with the horrors of American slavery, and that gratefulness nurtured a sense of loyalty to the nation and empire. Their religious convictions also compelled them to engage in evangelism and social reforms to shape their vision of a Christian Canada. Yet there was a pragmatic and strategic element to their loyalty, something born out of the optimism of the age as well as the need to demonstrate the abilities of the Black community in order to silence naysayers and doubters of their worth as equal citizens, something coined the “politics of respectability.” While today the expression “respectability politics” is sometimes used pejoratively against any minority community (ethnic, religious, or other) that seems to be denying/downplaying its own identity or compromising its own values for the sake of acceptance (or assimilation) by the dominant group, it is not being used pejoratively in this case. For a people at the end of the nineteenth century who had faced such profound adversity such a strategy seemed then to be the only and wisest way forward. Of course, this is not to say that there was neither a static nor monochrome view of nation and empire in the Black community (it is often best to speak in the plural of Black communities).