The 15th annual Toronto History Lecture will be held online via Zoom on Tuesday, August 4, at 7:30 pm EDT. We hope you will join us!

The event is free to attend, but you must register. (It will be recorded, so if your schedule or time zone doesn’t accommodate 7:30, you can time-shift.)

This year’s Toronto History Lecture tells the story of the Home Service Association, a Black community organization in Toronto whose roots trace back to 1918, emerging from wartime efforts to support Black servicemen. The organization relocated multiple times across the city after its early building was condemned, continually adapting its programs to meet community needs. By the mid-twentieth century, it operated from Bathurst Street as a vibrant community hub, offering cultural programming, a cooperative grocery store, and a library.

This little-known history offers a compelling, human-scale account of how communities in Toronto built spaces of belonging, support, and collective life.

Our 2026 speaker, the dynamic Dr. Melanie Knight, is Professor of Sociology and Black Studies at Toronto Metropolitan University. Her research examines Black community organizing, social movements, and histories of collective life in Canada, with a focus on archives and under-documented histories.

The Toronto History Lecture is free to attend but please register in advance for your Zoom link.