2013
Albert Jackson Lane
A laneway off Harbord Street, in the Harbord Village neighbourhood he walked for decades, was officially named Albert Jackson Lane, turning his daily route to work into a permanent place on the map.
The Story
A life carried north
Nine chapters, from a Delaware slave cabin to a Toronto laneway that carries his name. Scroll to follow the route.
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Born in bondage
Chapter I
Born into slavery in Delaware
Albert Jackson was born on the second of November, 1857, in Milford, Delaware, the youngest child of Ann Maria Jackson. He was born into slavery. Freedom was not a birthright he was given. It was one his mother would risk everything to seize.
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The road north
Chapter II
Ann Maria and the Underground Railroad
After two of her sons were seized and sold, and her husband died of grief, Ann Maria Jackson made her choice. With help from the Underground Railroad, she fled the United States with seven children. In 1858 they reached Toronto. Albert, still a toddler, arrived in a country where he could be free.
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Chapter III
A Toronto childhood in St. John's Ward
The family settled in St. John's Ward, the downtown neighbourhood that welcomed so many who had come north before the American Civil War. There Albert grew up and was educated, an ordinary Toronto boy in an extraordinary community of people who had walked out of slavery into a new life.
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The appointment
Chapter IV
Appointed a letter carrier
On May 12, 1882, Albert Jackson was appointed a letter carrier for the Toronto Post Office. It was a respected civil service position, and one almost never given to a man of colour in nineteenth century Canada. The mailbag was his. For a moment.
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Chapter V
The refusal
His white colleagues refused to train him. Rather than teach a Black man his route, the other carriers turned their backs, and Jackson's supervisor pushed him into an indoor job as a hall porter instead. The appointment he had earned was quietly being taken away.
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Chapter VI
Toronto's Black community stood up
The community would not let it stand. They organized a public meeting, formed a committee to advocate for him, and took the fight into the newspapers. A heated debate over one man's job ran across the city's press. Toronto was being asked what kind of city it wanted to be.
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Chapter VII
Reinstated to his route
With an election near and Black voters watching, Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald lent his support. The pressure worked. On June 2, 1882, Albert Jackson began his training. He would walk his route after all, the first Black letter carrier in Toronto.
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The long route
Chapter VIII
Thirty-six years on the route
In 1883 Albert married Henrietta Elizabeth Jones, and together they raised four sons. Day after day, year after year, he carried the mail through Harbord Village and the Annex. In 1914 he bought a house at 213 Brunswick Avenue, a few streets from his route; his family would hold it until 1970. He served the Toronto Post Office for thirty-six years, until his death on the fourteenth of January, 1918. He is buried in the Toronto Necropolis.
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Not forgotten
Chapter IX
A name the city still carries
More than a century on, Toronto remembers. A Heritage Toronto plaque marks the ground where he collected his mail. A downtown laneway now bears his name. And in 2019 his face travelled the country on a Canada Post stamp. The man they tried to keep off the streets is written into them.
See how he is remembered
