Special Collections and Rare Books (SCRB) is home to a number of archives, journals, monographs, and other resources which chronicle the various areas of activism in British Columbia (B.C.) as well as in Canada and in France, mainly covering the 20th century. Activism covers a wide range of topics including: social movements, labor movements, environmentalism, feminism, civil and human rights, LGBTQ2+ movements, pacifism, and many others.

Learn more about SCRB's activist materials. Each entry below provides a brief description of the materials, links to archival finding aids, Library Catalogue records, SFU Digitized Collections, or links to resources outside of SFU Library.

Why are some materials "unprocessed"?

The work that archivists do in preparing materials for research use is called “processing.” This involves:

identifying and describing materials
making the materials discoverable by creating finding aids (like these pages), database records, and other tools
rehousing materials in archival-standard enclosures (like acid- and lignin-free boxes and file folders)

Because we want our users to know we have relevant holdings to their research, we list and selectively provide access to our unprocessed collections.

Interested in exploring an unprocessed collection? Contact us as early as possible so we can discuss details.

Archival collections

Mary Billy fonds

Extent: 95 cm of textual records and other materials
Archival finding aid: Msc-170

Mary Billy was a feminist, activist and writer. She created a publication titled, Facing the Horror: The Femicide, a list that contained names and synopses of incidents when women were murdered by men in Canada. Mary Billy also founded a journal of writings by women titled: Herspectives Magazine.

This fonds consists of material relating to Mary Billy’s life and work as a feminist and writer. The records include correspondence, notes, drafts, diaries, journals, clippings, photographs, research records and women’s activism records.

Harrison Brown fonds and Hilary Brown fonds

Extent: 2.21 m of textual records and other material (Hilary Brown) and 1.65 m of textual records and other material (Harrison Brown). Part of this collection has been digitized and can be browsed at Harrison Brown Collection.
Archival finding aids: MsC-57 and MsC-58

Harrison and Hilary Brown were life-long peace activists, journalists and authors. They were active in their local community and on the international stage.

Their records consist of correspondence with many other activists and journalists of the 1920s to 1980s, unpublished manuscripts, diaries, notebooks, and photographs.

Communist Party of Canada fonds

Extent: 13 cm of textual records
Archival finding aid: MsC-48

Founded in Ontario in 1921, the Communist Party of Canada is one of two federally registered Communist parties in Canada, the other being the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), an anti-revisionist Maoist party. Though without elected federal or provincial representation at present, the CPC is active in trade unions, the civic reform movement, and a number of social justice, anti-war and international solidarity groups and coalitions. The CPC underwent changes in 1991, but was unable to run 50 candidates in the 1993 election, the number required to maintain official party status. As a consequence, the CPC was deregistered by Elections Canada.

This fonds consists of material relating to the end of the Communist Party of Canada. It includes newspapers, correspondence, legal documents and ephemera. The records cover the years 1991-1992.

Doukhobor collection

Extent: 19 m of textual records and other material
Archival finding aid: MsC-121. Part of this collection has been digitized and can be browsed at Doukhobor Collection.

This extensive collection includes various archival material pertaining to the Doukhobor community in Canada from the time of their arrival in the late 19th-century until the early 21st-century. Doukhobors’ pacifist convictions put them in conflict with provincial and federal governments in Canada. Consequently, Doukhobor communities actively protested against government policies throughout much of the 20th-century. Some of these protests were violent and included acts of arson. Others involved nude protests and more peaceful demonstrations. The Sons of Freedom was one group within the larger Doukhobor community who participated in all forms of protests. Some community members were imprisoned because of their participation in protest activities. The records in this collection demonstrate how Doukhobor protest strategies were carried out from the inside of prisons as well as from the outside.

The records in this collection include correspondence, writings, administrative documents, declarations, petitions, photographs, and many other types of textual records. Some of the content in this collection is in Russian.

The Fisherman Publishing Society fonds

Extent: [ca. 45,000 photographs] ; complete run of The Fisherman newspaper
Archival finding aid: MsC-179 [unprocessed]. Part of this collection has been digitized and can be browsed at Fisherman Publishing Society Newspaper and Fisherman Publishing Society Photographs.

The Fisherman Publishing Society was formed in 1937 to publish The Fisherman, a bi-weekly newspaper. Sponsored by the Salmon Purse Seiners Union and the Pacific Coast Fishermen's Union, the newspaper documented industry events and encouraged unity among West Coast fishermen. Today, the newspaper continues publication under the United Fishermen and Allied Workers' Union (UFAWU).

The uprocessed records document a tumultuous period in one of British Columbia’s oldest industries, with a particular focus on workers and union activity.

Blair Henshaw HIV/AIDS philatelic collection

Extent: 24 cm of philatelic records and other material
Archival finding aid: MsC-64. Part of this collection has been digitized and can be browsed at Blair Henshaw HIV/AIDS Stamp Collection.

Blair Henshaw was a long-time philatelist (stamp collector) and began developing a collection of HIV/AIDS stamps after the world’s first AIDS stamp was released in 1988. In 1992, seven years after being diagnosed HIV positive, Henshaw began lobbying Canada Post and the Federal Government to produce a Canadian stamp featuring HIV/AIDS in order to raise awareness in Canada and abroad. His efforts were successful with the issuance on May 8, 1996 of Canada’s HIV/AIDS awareness stamp.

This collection consists of the HIV/AIDS-related stamps, philatelic materials, and ephemera Henshaw collected during his lifetime.

Robert Jackson fonds

Extent: 90 cm of textual records and other material
Archival finding aid: MsC-49

In the 1930s, Robert Jackson (1914-2000) helped organize men in Vancouver's government-run labour camps for the On to Ottawa Trek of 1935. He was a member of the Communist Party and of the Industrial Wood and Allied Workers of Canada until he supported a failed attempt to split that union in 1948. After serving in the Canadian Navy during WWII and working in wood mills in Vancouver, Jackson devoted much of his later life to educating younger Canadians about labour history. Jackson was a socialist and an advocate of workers' rights and he supported these causes until his death from cancer June 27, 2000.

The fonds consists primarily of records related to Robert Jackson's political interests and activities and includes original and reproduction documents from labour events in the 1930s, particularly the On to Ottawa trek.

Kiss and Tell fonds

Extent: 3,250 photographs and other material
Archival finding aid: MsC-165

Kiss & Tell is an artistic collective based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Members include Persimmon Blackbridge, Lizard Jones, and Susan Stewart. The group formed out of a larger meeting of feminists in 1984 who had gathered to discuss pornography, erotica, and sexual representation in art. The group created several performance art events, including the interactive photo exhibition that toured for several years titled “Drawing the Line." Photographs were designed to be provocative and show lesbian sexual practices as a means of challenging censorship and imposed societal barriers/norms. The collective's work frequently addresses issues of censorship and lesbian sexual politics.

The fonds consists of records created and accumulated by the Kiss and Tell collective over the course of the collective’s operations. Records include photographs, correspondence, exhibition specifications and guidelines, and promotional and press materials.

Betty Krawczyk fonds

Extent: 3.6 m of textual records and other material
Archival finding aid: MsC-148

Fonds consists of the personal records of Betty Krawczyk, an environmentalist and active community member in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland. Krawczyk’s interests included socialism, feminism, politics, and a dislike for racism and the state. Spanning from 1970 to 2013, the fonds documents Krawczyk’s court cases, time spent in prison and participation in local community activism groups.

The fonds predominantly contains correspondence and legal records associated with Krawczyk’s court cases and prison sentences. Other records include certificates, notes, flyers, flags, mission statements, newspaper clippings, envelopes, financial papers, and Krawczyk’s published materials.

Larissa Lai fonds

Extent: 2.68 m of textual material and other material
Archival finding aid: MsC-96

Larissa Lai was born in California but grew up in Newfoundland and lived in Vancouver. Lai has been involved in the arts scenes across Canada and has curated exhibitions and written many contributions to catalogues. She writes poetry, short stories, and novels as well as non-fiction essays and reviews. She has also been involved in various activist groups interested in women’s rights, immigrant rights, and other issues.

The fonds consists mainly of textual materials, including notes and drafts of Lai’s works, numerous calendars and datebooks, school materials, and material related to her activism and arts involvement. There are also a large number of photocopied reference materials on such subjects as the arts, gay and lesbian issues, racism and feminism, and Chinese culture. There are a small number of photographs and negatives, and a wide variety of audio-visual media such as cassette tapes, Hi8 cassettes, broadcast video cassettes, and various computer media.

“The Legacy of Jon Gates” collection

Extent: [ca. 75 video recordings] ; 4 cm of textual records ; 5 photographs
Archival finding aid: Msc-203

Jon Gates was a Canadian-based activist committed to raising awareness of the AIDS crisis in sub-Saharan Africa. He was involved with the International Committee for AIDS and liaised with multiple international health organizations to promote equal access and treatment options. He is most well-known for a keynote speech delivered at the Canadian AIDS Society meeting in 1992 shortly before his death. It is this speech and other resources that were compiled by Villon Films to create “The Legacy of Jon Gates” in 1993, which is at the heart of this collection. The film chronicles the last two years of Jon’s life and his fight for recognition that people in the developing world deserve equal care to those in western capitalist countries.

The collection, donated by Peter Davis and Harvey McKinnon, consists of video recordings, photographs, interview transcripts, correspondence, and a project proposal.

Billy Little fonds

Extent: [ca. 70 cm of textual records and photographic material]
Archival finding aid: MsC-93 [unprocessed]

Billy Little, also known as Zonko, was born in New York City. He served in the U.S. Military from 1960-1963, then became an ardent anti-militarist. He studied poetry at State University Buffalo and was heavily influenced by the New American Poets. After moving to Vancouver, B.C., in 1971 he became a mainstay of the Vancouver poetry and bookselling scenes. He published many chapbooks, co-founded Press of the Black Flag Raised, co-founded R2B2 Books with Renee Rodin, and was an organizer and performer at many anti-war rallies in Vancouver in the 1970s.

The unprocessed fonds consists of correspondence, photographs and ephemera as well as published and unpublished manuscripts from several authors: Victoria Walker, Stephen Stepanchev, Lionel Kearns, George Stanley, Robert Creeley, Ed Dorn, Joan Kyger, Bill Corbett, Duncan McNaughton, Robin Blaser, and Michael Davidson.

Esther and Robin Mathews Mai ‘68 Paris poster collection

Extent: [over 200 posters]
Archival finding aid: MsC-127. Part of this collection has been digitized and can be browsed at Mai '68 Collection.

The collection is important as a source of documentary, artistic, and historical evidence of the student protests in France during May 1968. Each day during the uprising, members of the Atelier Populaire would meet to discuss the day’s events and coordinate a message for the following day via posters which served as a form of wall newspaper.

The Mai '68 poster collection consists of posters and handbills created largely by the Atelier Populaire.

Gordon E. McCaw Punk Rock Photograph collection

Extent: [ca. 750 photographs]
Archival finding aid: MsC-166 [unprocessed]. Part of this collection has been digitized and can be browsed at The "Last Pogo" Vancouver Punk Rock Photograph Collection.

Between 1979 and 1982, McCaw took a series of photographs documenting the thriving alt/punk scene in Vancouver. Many of the photographs also stand today as a record of the bands and venues (including the Smilin' Buddha) that characterized the DIY scene of punk in Vancouver. McCaw picked a selection of 42 photographs and exhibited them as Last Pogo at the Pitt International Galleries, 36 Powell Street, January 9-29, 1989.

Margaret A. Mitchell fonds

Extent: [ca. 2.3 m of textual records, photographic material, and moving images]
Archival finding aid: MsC-250 [unprocessed]

Margaret A. Mitchell was born in Ontario and trained as a social worker at McMaster University, the University of Toronto, and the University of British Columbia. During the 1970s she was employed as a community development worker with the Neighbourhood Services Association and was also active in a number of other organizations. From 1979 to 1993 Mitchell was the New Democratic Party MP for Vancouver East. She was the first politician to raise the issue of violence against women in the House of Commons, and the first MP to raise the issue of the Chinese Head Tax, in 1984.

The unprocessed fonds consists of scrapbooks of Mitchell's travels to Japan and Korea, reports she wrote with the Neighbourhood Services Association as a Community Development worker, speeches, mailings, newsletters, issues and case work files, correspondence, records related to her memoir, the Vancity Community Foundation's Margaret Mitchell Fund for Women, photographs of various events, and House of Commons debate transcripts.

Occupy Vancouver collection

Extent: 68 cm of textual records and other material
Archival finding aid: MsC-146

Occupy Vancouver was a collective of peaceful protests and demonstrations. It was part of Occupy Canada that was also part of the larger Occupy Together movement which first manifested in the financial district of New York City as Occupy Wall Street in March 2011. Occupy Wall Street had initially been organized to answer the call-to-action by the Vancouver-based, advertising-free, anti-consumerist organization Adbusters. Subsequently, the movement spread to over 900 cities around the world.

The collection consists of records associated with the Occupy Vancouver movement covering the years 2011 and 2012. It comprises records related to Occupy Vancouver Committees (General Assembly, Volunteer Coordinating Committee, Info Tent), photographs of activists and objects (teddy bear, pins, flags). The collection includes records associated with the court case between the City of Vancouver and Sean O’Flynn-Magee, Jane Doe, John Doe, and other unknown persons.

Operation Solidarity fonds

Extent: [ca. 36 cm of textual records]
Archival finding aid: MsC-225 [unprocessed]

On July 7, 1983, the Social Credit government of British Columbia introduced a budget and legislation that would slash funding to social services, schools, and reduce the rights of workers and trade unions. As a response, union leaders and the B.C. Federation of Labour formed Operation Solidarity, a movement representing 400,000 workers with the common goal of stopping the cuts announced by the government and achieving a just society. A related organization, Solidarity Coalition, was formed by activists and community members opposing the restraint policies of the Social Credit government, and concerned that their wider concerns were not represented by union leaders in the coalition. Operation Solidarity ended in controversy, with many people disappointed with its lack of success.

The unprocessed fonds consists of records relating to the labour organizing activity of Art Kube and Operation Solidarity. These include meeting agendas, committee reports, newsletters, brochures and pamphlets, publications, correspondence, ephemera, AGM conference packages, and material documenting participation in the B.C. Native Land Claims conference in 1986 and the Canadian Labour Congress's presentation to the House of Commons Standing Committee on External Affairs & International Trade in 1987.

Bud Osborn fonds

Extent: [ca. 5.5 m of textual records and other material]
Archival finding aid: MsC-164 [unprocessed]

Bud Osborn was a poet, community organizer, and activist in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. He was a founding member of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) and advocated for the creation of a legal supervised injection site. His poetry commented on poverty, addiction, and homelessness in Vancouver, B.C.

The unprocessed fonds consists of records created and received by Bud Osborn during his life and work as an activist, poet and community organizer in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Records include legal documents, reports, manuscripts, photographs, correspondence, royalty statements, sound recordings, and research.

Pacific Tribune Photograph collection

Extent: [ca. 40,000 photographs]
Archival finding aid: MsC-160 [unprocessed]. Part of this collection has been digitized and can be browsed at Pacific Tribune Photograph Collection.

The Pacific Socialist Education Association’s Pacific Tribune photograph collection comprises over 40,000 35-mm images taken for the weekly Vancouver labour newspaper Pacific Tribune. The images cover a twenty-year period, from 1972 to 1992, one of the most active periods in British Columbia’s labour history.

Included in the unprocessed collection are images from some of the most tumultuous events involving British Columbia’s labour and social movements, including the province-wide campaign against insurance rate increases introduced by the new Social Credit government following the NDP defeat; the opposition to federal wage controls that culminated in a one-day national work stoppage in 1976; the historic Solidarity movement in 1983; and labour’s campaign—that also included a one-day work stoppage in 1987—against government legislation that severely curtailed labour’s right to organize unions and bargain collectively. The collection is also a rich source of images from other social movements, including rallies and campaigns for human rights and the internationally recognized Vancouver walks for peace during the mid-1980s.

Piers Island “Sons of Freedom” Doukhobor Imprisonment collection

Extent: 1.7 cm of textual records ; 30 photographs
Archival finding aid: MsC-147

This collection was created by Herbert Walters Cooper who was a warden of the B.C. Penitentiary during the time of Sons of Freedom’s imprisonment at Piers Island Penitentiary between 1932 and 1934. This collection consists of correspondence, memoranda, telegrams and other textual records, as well as 20 photographs.

The Sons of Freedom, a radical movement within the Doukhobor community, became infamous due to involvement in protest activities against the sale of land, education, citizenship, and registration of vital statistics. The Sons of Freedom protest included civil disobedience, disrobing in public, and arson. In 1932, six hundred Sons of Freedom members were convicted of public nudity and placed in a specially constructed prison on Piers Island. This collection documents the prison set up and problems encountered by the prisoners and the staff.

William Stafford collection

Extent: 1 cm of textual records
Archival finding aid: MsA-22

William Stafford was born in Hutchinson, Kansas in 1914, and was a writer and an activist. During the Second World War, Stafford was a conscientious objector and worked in the civilian public service camps—an experience he recorded in the prose memoir, Down My Heart (1947).

The fonds consists of correspondence, handwritten poems, a newspaper clipping, and an essay written by William Stafford. Photographs of manuscript pages are also included.

Valhalla Wilderness Society fonds

Extent: 11.5 m of textual records and other material
Archival finding aid: MsC-126

Valhalla Wilderness Society (VWS) was founded in 1975, in New Denver, British Columbia; it achieved park status for what is now Valhalla Provincial Park in 1983. VWS went on to successfully spearhead campaigns for the Khutzeymateen Grizzly Bear Sanctuary, Goat Range Provincial Park, and the Spirit Bear Conservancies on Princess Royal Island. VWS also played one of the key roles in the protection of South Moresby National Park Reserve. Its Endangered Wilderness Map of 1988 helped to spark the movement to double B.C.’s park system to 12% of the province. Valhalla has led park campaigns for over 560,000 hectares of now protected land.

The fonds consists of material created, received and used by Colleen McCrory during her work as founder of the Valhalla Wilderness Society and as a member of the B.C. Environmental Network, Taiga Resource Network, the Boreal Forest Network, and Canada's Future Forest Alliance. It includes material relating to the activities and accomplishments of these groups in general, as well as records pertaining to environmental movements and activities at the provincial, national and international level, and a significant amount of material relating to indigenous peoples' roles in these movements.

Vancouver Punk Rock collection

Extent: [ca. 600 posters], 100 audio recordings, and other material
Archival finding aid: MsC-109 [unprocessed]. Part of this collection has been digitized and can be browsed at Vancouver Punk Rock Collection.

The punk movement in Vancouver promoted various social and political causes, such as the environment, women’s rights and opposition to racism. This unprocessed collection is comprised of approximately 600 posters, 100 CDs/LPs/45s, photographs, periodicals, various pieces of ephemera, and a genealogy of the punk bands which provide a glimpse into the vibrant Vancouver punk scene.

Veterans Against Nuclear Arms (VANA) fonds

Extent: [ca. 2.4 m of textual records and other material]
Archival finding aid: MsC-256 [unprocessed]

The unprocessed fonds contains the records of the Vancouver branch of the Veterans Against Nuclear Arms group, dating mainly from the early 1980s to the 2000s. It includes minutes, correspondence, moving images, subject files, clippings, financial records, photographs, newsletters, and other material relating to the activities of the organization and irts parent body.

Manuscript collections

Vancouver Post Office occupation 1938 archive

Library call number: FC 3826.99 V36 1978

Manuscript collection of primary sources in a format of leaflets, newspaper clippings, booklets and photographs relating to Vancouver Post Office occupation in 1938 otherwise known as Post Office riot or Vancouver’s “Bloody Sunday”.

Vancouver political radical ephemera and broadsides archive

Library call number: FC 3825.9 R34 V36 1946

Manuscript collection of various primary sources in a format of leaflets, broadsides and booklets relating to radical activism in Vancouver between the years 1904 and 1946. The materials included in this collection pertain to Labor-Progressive Party, Citizen’s League of British Columbia, Socialist Party of Canada, United Nationalists of Canada, Facisti of Canada, White Canada Crusade and Young Citizens League.

Strike archive 1957: International Brotherhood of Pulp, Sulphite and Paper Mill Workers

Library call number: FC 3827.9 L32 S87 1959

Manuscript collection of various primary sources in a format of leaflets, letters and newspaper clippings relating to the labor dispute of the International Brotherhood of Pulp, Sulphite and Paper Mill Workers. The materials included in this archive date between the years 1957 and 1959.

Books and other published material

You can also search the Library Catalogue for SCRB's monographs and journals that focus on activism. Try these subject headings, which will lead you to resources in Special Collections. Try your own search, or expand to include all of the library’s collections.

Newspapers and journals

Activism in British Columbia

Angles
Gay community newspaper published by the Newspaper Committee for the Vancouver Gay Community Centre Society.

B.C. Newsletter
Monthly British Columbia newsletter from the Progressive Workers Movement, a Vancouver-based, communist labour movement founded by union activist Jack Scott.

British Columbia’s Blackout
Magazine focused on anarchism published between 1978 and 1984.

The Energy File
Vancouver publication focusing on energy resources and the environment from 1977 to 1980.

Leftwords
Independent Socialist newspaper based in B.C.'s Lower Mainland, originally published by the Vancouver Socialist Organising Committee (SOC).

Materials for Thought
British Columbia newsletter focused on socialism, Marxism, labor unions and the working class movement, published by the Vancouver branch of the League for Socialist Education.

Pedestal
Canada’s first feminist periodical, published by the Vancouver Women’s Caucus, a women’s liberation group. It was in publication from 1969 to 1975.

SFU Digitized Newspapers
SFU Library has digitized over 950,000 pages of Canadian newspapers, including the newspapers of cultural and activist groups.

Solidarity Times
Weekly newspaper published in Vancouver during the Solidarity crisis of 1983 and ublished articles on a wide range of social issues from a left-wing perspective. It was financed by Operation Solidarity and the B.C. Teachers’ Federation.

Western Voice
British Columbia newspaper published by the Marxist-Leninist Western Voice Collective in 1976.

Activism outside of British Columbia

Berkeley Tribe
The Berkeley Tribe was a radical counterculture underground newspaper published in Berkeley, California from 1969 to 1972.

Christopher Street
This gay-oriented magazine was published in New York by Charles Ortleb. It was known for both serious discussion of issues within the gay community and satirical elements of anti-gay criticism.

Countdown
Short-lived, "subterranean" multimedia magazine of essays, information, poetry, photographs,and articles articles on The Black Panthers, the Vietnam War, underground comics, and the anti-Police state.

Crescent
An activist newspaper which took strong political stances and reached out to non-Pakistani Muslims and other groups with similar concerns. The run of The Crescent presented here, 1973 to 1981, includes the years of the Pakistani community’s growth and establishment in Canada, and these forces are reflected in its pages.

Dissent
Independent quarterly magazine, publishing long-form, leftist political and cultural criticism since 1954.

Friends of the Earth
Journal covering topics of social justice, sustainable development and environmental protection published in the 1990s and the 2000s.

Gay Relationship: Gay Community Pamphlets
Pamphlets produced by Hop Brook, a separatist gay male commune founded on land near New Salem, Massachussetts in the early-mid 1970s.

Global Tapestry Journal
Activist magazine published by Dave Cunliffe's BB Books press focused on anarchism, anti-racism, animal rights, and radical pacifism.

Green Flag
Literary journal focused on poetry, ecology, and radical politics, published by City Lights Books in San Fransisco in the 1960s.

Grok
Later known as the Pittsburgh Fair Witness, Grok was a radical underground newspaper published in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1970 to 1973. It focused on the New Left and antiwar political activism, the Women's Liberation movement, ecology, drugs, and the occult.

Guerrilla
Cultural review magazine published by Detroit-based cultural radicals, Allen Van Newkirk, John Sinclair and Gary Grimshaw as “a monthly newspaper of contemporary kulchur.”

New Freewoman: An Individualist Review
Monthly London women's rights and literary magazine edited by Dora Marsden and owned by Harriet Shaw Weaver in 1913.

No Apologies
Gay literary magazine, published by Bryan Monte from 1983 to 1985.

Open City
Weekly underground newspaper published in Los Angeles by avant-garde journalist John Bryan from May 6, 1967 to April 1969. It was noted for its coverage of radical politics, rock music, psychedelic culture and the "Notes of a Dirty Old Man" column by Charles Bukowski.

Peace News
Pacifist magazine originally published to serve the peace movement in the United Kingdom. From 1936 to 1961 it was the official paper of the Peace Pledge Union (PPU).

Pink Ink
Monthly national publication for lesbians and gay men published between July 1983 and January 1984.

Satyrday
Underground newspaper edited by Gerard Melling, documenting the hippie scene in the Yorkville area of Toronto in the late 1960s.

Video

Little Sister’s vs. Big Brother / Homeboys Productions presents a film by Aeryln [sic] Weissman
The story of a high stakes legal drama and a small bookstore's fight for respect, written and directed by Aerlyn Weissman and produced by Weissman and Cari Green. Weissman captured the key moments in the Little Sister's battle against censorship court decisions, book seizures, moments of personal courage, and shocking violence inflicted on Vancouver's gay community. Sparked by the Little Sister's battle against censorship, a diverse group of writers, along with free speech advocates speak out in defense of the right of all Canadians to read and view what they choose.

Activism research guide: Special Collections and Rare Books

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