Black History Month: Barbara Howard

Barbara Howard received a Queen’s Jubilee Medal last week at Burnaby City Hall.

Barbara turns 93 this year, and in the last couple of years she’s been festooned with a slew of honours including induction into both the Burnaby and the BC Sports Hall of Fame and a “Freedom of the Municipality” award from Belcarra Council, where she owns a cottage.

While the recognition is appreciated, it’s also more than 70 years overdue, and in the meantime Barbara has quietly lived her remarkable life until she was unearthed in time for the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games.

At 17, Barbara was one of the fastest female sprinters in the world. A student at Britannia High School, she competed at the 1938 British Empire Games in Sydney, Australia—the first black female athlete to represent Canada in international competition. It was the first time she’d been away from home, and in those days it took a month to sail Down Under.

Even so, Barbara brought home Silver and Bronze medals in relay events and came sixth in the 100-yard dash. She also became a bit of a celebrity in Australia, where black athletes were rare.

But the girl was devastated. She felt she’d let her country down.

“I went to Australia thinking I was supposed to get a Gold medal and I was so disappointed in myself,” she said.

Then the war came and dashed her dreams of competing on the Olympic stage. Instead she stayed home, studied teaching at the Vancouver Normal School and became the first black teacher hired by the Vancouver School Board, where she taught Grades 3 to 8 physical education classes, including eight years at Strathcona.

The Howard family lived at 10^th and Nanaimo in Grandview, and fortunately never experienced the racism that plagued Harry and Valerie Jerome in North Vancouver.

“I was brought up British,” she says. “There were English, and Irish and Scotch and one black family and we were all poor, but it was a close knit community.”

Barbara’s running ability exploded in Grade 6 at the nearby Laura Secord Elementary.

“When the principal rang the bell, I’d start running from home and I’d run, run, run,” she says. “In those days one of the teacher’s played the piano in the hall, and we’d march into Colonel Bogey March. Grade 1 would be first, then Grade 2, Grade 3, Grade 4, and I’m still running, then Grade 5 and I’m getting there at the end of the line. I was never late.”

Barbara has lived in North Burnaby since 1956. She never married and tells me it was because she was always “running too fast.”

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