#BTBlackHistory – Trailblazing Brathwaite’s life of achievements

Leonard Austin Braithwaite was born in Canada to a Barbadian father and Jamaican mother in 1923. By the time of his death at the age of 88 in 2012, he had proven to be a trail blazer in many aspects of his life.

Braithwaite was the first Black elected to a Canadian parliament, to the powerful Law Society of Canada’s governing council, to the Etobicoke Board of Education and to the now dissolved municipality’s city council as an alderman.

Braithwaite grew up in the Kensington Market community at the height of the Great Depression era when life was extremely challenging for most Canadians, particularly Blacks. To support his family, he started selling newspapers in Grade 10 and by the time he graduated from high school, he had bought the newspaper selling rights and had seven employees.

The Ryerson Public School student and Harbord Collegiate Institute graduate served in Canada and in England with the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) during World War II.

Discharged on his return home and transferred to the RCAF Reserves in 1946, Braithwaite enrolled at the University of Toronto where he obtained a Bachelor of Commerce degree in 1950. That was quite a remarkable achievement at that time since very few Black men and even fewer Black women matriculated from high school.

That meant Blacks were very scarce on university campuses.

“I was warned that no Negro had ever gone through business school and that it would be pretty hard for one to be successful afterwards,” he told the Toronto Star in 1963. “But I figured someone had to be first, so I decided to work for a Bachelor of Commerce degree.”

Braithwaite also graduated from Harvard University with a Masters of Business Administration degree and from Osgoode Law School where he was a Gold Key Leadership recipient for all-round outstanding contribution to the student body and the school and president of the study body that year.

Prior to attending law school where he was elected class president in his first year in 1954, he was enrolled in General Cable Corporation’s executive training program in New Jersey and he was an instructor in the U of T Institute of Business Administration and a management systems analyst with Phillips Cable. With law school behind him, Braithwaite set up a small law practice in Etobicoke and was the Royal Gardens Ratepayers president when he was approached by residents in 1960 to run for Ward 4 school trustee.

Elected an alderman in the 1962 municipal elections, the Liberal Party candidate ushered in a new era in Canadian politics a year later when he won a provincial seat in Etobicoke and became the first Black elected to a Canadian parliament.

Braithwaite was instrumental in the revocation of a section of the Ontario Separate Schools act that had allowed for racial segregation in public schools when he asked the Legislature to “get rid of the old race law” during his maiden speech at Queen’s Park on February 4, 1964. His advocacy for gender equality also led to the admission of female legislative pages.

“He’s someone who raised the bar not only for persons of African descent, but many others,” noted Ontario’s Consumer Services Minister Margarett Best. “His lifelong activities helped to effect changes in the law.” He was victorious in two subsequent elections, serving as Opposition Party Critic for Labour and Community and Social Services before being defeated in 1975.

During his illustrious career, Braithwaite supported the young people in his community, sponsoring boys’ and girls’ sports teams known as “Braithwaite Legal Eagles” for 26 years.

Appointed to the Order of Canada in 1997 and the Order of Ontario seven years later, Braithwaite was the recipient of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal and U of T Black Alumni Association Lifetime Achievement Leadership, the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers Achievement, the Canadian National Griot Association Cornwall-Miller Founders, the African-Canadian Achievement, Tropicana Community Services Organisation Community Builder and the Harry Jerome Professional Excellence Awards. (Adapted)