February is Black History Month and a Collingwood woman has long been promoting the contribution of people of African descent to Midwestern Ontario.
Carolynn Wilson and her sister Sylvia have owned and operated the Sheffield Park Black History Museum in Clarksburg since 1990. Wilson's family has been in Grey County since the early 1800's. Her family and other Black settlers were here even before most white European colonists arrived.
"And when they started surveying the area there were Black people already in the area settled and when they were trying to put roads in and surveyed property and lots for new people coming in from Scotland and Ireland we were already here," says Wilson.
Wilson says the Black Lives Matter movement has raised awareness of the contribution of Black people to midwestern Ontario with marches in town and cities throughout the area.
Wilson says they should be recognized now and remembered for the past.
"The importance of Black history is that we were here, we are Canadian history and we'd like to be part of that whole scenario."