A Matter of Belonging - Gloria Ann Wesley

Author Gloria Ann Wesley will provide an historical overview of the No. 2 Construction Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, also known as the Black Battalion. Created on July 5, 1916, during the First World War, it was a segregated non-combatant unit, the first and only all-Black battalion-sized formation in Canadian military history.

Gloria will share a reading from her latest book, Shovels Not Rifles, a historical young adult fiction set in the First World War. Her novel features a young African Nova Scotian in the No. 2 Construction Battalion who faces racism and discrimination from his fellow Canadians.