Shernett Martin on dismantling anti-Black racism in Vaughan.

Shernett Martin, executive director of ANCHOR in Vaughan, reflects on decades of grassroots activism that helped shape an anti-Black racism strategy at the York Region District School Board and led a campaign to rename a Vaughan high school.

Shernett Martin has been active in equity and inclusion since high school and is featured in Metroland’s Black History Month spotlight. As a student she formed a student alliance and wrote a play addressing racism, Islamophobia, antisemitism and homophobia; the play later received provincial support and toured schools in the Greater Toronto Area. She is now executive director of ANCHOR, a Vaughan-based coalition formed in 2003 to support marginalized youth and counter hate and anti-Black racism. Martin says the work has produced changes in York but has been gradual and demanding. Key facts: - Martin began her activism in high school by forming a student alliance and writing a play about multiple forms of discrimination that was later supported by the Ontario government and toured GTA schools. - She is the executive director of ANCHOR (African Canadian National Coalition against Hate, Oppression and Racism), a grassroots organization in Vaughan founded in 2003. - Martin immigrated from Jamaica to Canada at age five and has received recognition including the Order of Vaughan and a feature in Jean Augustine’s "100 Accomplished Black Canadian Women." - She led a major anti-racism effort at the York Region District School Board that contributed to the creation of an anti-Black racism strategy. - Martin also led the campaign to rename a Vaughan high school that had been named after an enslaver. - ANCHOR has asked Vaughan council members for a permanent physical space for 22 years and Martin says the group has been let down several times; she also describes the sustained work as personally taxing. Summary: Martin’s grassroots advocacy has helped prompt policy and symbolic changes in the York community, while she characterizes progress as gradual and hard-won. ANCHOR remains active in supporting marginalized youth and continues to press for a permanent space in Vaughan. Undetermined at this time.