Editors Note: Black History Month issue

The Queen’s Journal Vol. 149 Issue 21 is our inaugural Black History Month Issue. First proposed in Vol. 148, we’re so grateful to have worked on this Issue starting in November of last year.

Our goals for Issue 21 were to uplift Black student voices, celebrate achievements of Black student groups on-campus, and shed light on ongoing issues of anti-Black racism and discrimination at Queen’s and in Canadian universities as a whole.

Last year, we said we would only move forward with a Black History Month issue if Black contributors could be compensated for their work. We’re happy to say we were able to provide nine students with commissions with the support of the Alma Mater Society.

We’re eternally grateful to the Black student contributors whose work is featured on these pages. Their enthusiasm, patience, and hard work have made this one of our strongest publications of the year. Every article, illustration, and photograph has been crafted with love and passion. We hope you enjoy immersing yourself in these works as much as we have.

We’d also like to acknowledge this issue for what it is—a start.

Like all EDI work at The Journal and on Queen’s campus, our efforts to make space for Black voices are ongoing. We feel immensely privileged to be a part of that work and we do not take it lightly. It’s work we hope to continue in our last few months as EditorsinChief, and work we hope will be built upon in future volumes.

Lastly, we’d like to thank Clanny Mugabe, our Editorials Illustrator, for all her efforts these last few months. Clanny—it’s been such a pleasure to watch you write and illustrate, and we’re honoured we get to see that happen every week.

—Aysha Tabassum & Shelby Talbot, Editors in Chief

journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca