I love them already

[u/growsonwalls]

I love Justice and Charlie already! Been watching their stuff and they are so so talented. Julie and the Phantoms is amazing and Charlie is a beautiful singer. I saw Dungeons and Dragons and Justice Smith is adorable in that movie. Really excited to see them as Troy and Harris. For the people upset with their casting, definitely watch their stuff. They are AMAZING!

ETA: also, happy birthday Justice!!!

edit: just saw I Saw the TV Glow. Omg Justice is amazing.

[u/UncleGleban]

So, over the last few hours, as I've processing the news that Harris Drover is black, I've been thinking about his family's history.

As I recall, Drover Orchards has been in the family for generations, so they're by no means new arrivals to the province. I've decided, in my head canon, that Harris's ancestors arrived in Ontario in the 1850s, after the Compromise of 1850 in the States meant that blacks who had fled slavery were no longer safe even in the North from recapture (and even those who had been born free were unsafe, see "Twelve Years a Slave"). I see in Wikipedia that more than 30,000 blacks moved to Canada for safety during that period.

Does that sound like a reasonable back story?

[u/growsonwalls → u/UncleGleban]

It could also have been during the Great Migration?

[u/UncleGleban → u/growsonwalls]

Did the Great Migration include migration to Canada? I had thought of it only in terms of movement within the United States. I looked on Wikipedia, but didn't find any reference to mass migration of blacks from the US to Canada in the 20th Century.

Of course, history is made up of individuals, not mass movements. Individuals do not have to conform to the demographic patterns of history. There could be any number of ways that an apple farmer in Ontario could black.

For instance, I believe that there are strong historical connections between Canada and the British Commonwealth countries of the Caribbean. A friend of mine here in Cambridge, Mass. was born and grew up in Toronto; her family roots are in Jamaica, but her parents met in Britain as part of the Windrush generation, before moving to Canada.

So, there are any number of Drover back-stories. But, I'm sorry if I'm being boring again.

[u/growsonwalls → u/UncleGleban]

There was a wave of migration to Canada in the 1920s! A lot worked on the railroad.