1934 Season in the News

About the Articles

As you read these articles about the Chatham Coloured All-Stars’ 1934 championship season, keep in mind that newspapers often reflect biases and values found in the wider society. In some of the newspaper articles, you may see various stereotypes and terms about African-Canadians and other groups in the coverage. For example, reporters would refer to grown African-Canadian men as “boys” or would do plays-on-words with “coloured,” a term commonly used to describe black people in that period (and was of course used by the team itself in their name). See if you can notice these instances of racial bias and stereotypes. Also, take a look at Dan Kelly’s paper on the history of the Chatham Coloured All-Stars, available on this site, which talks about the way the newspapers covered this African-Canadian team.

A note on Jack Calder: one of the columnists who regularly wrote about the All-Stars in the Chatham Daily News later lost his life in World War II. After he left the Chatham Daily News, he worked as a sports reporter for the wire service Canadian Press. When war broke out, he joined the Royal Air Force, serving as a navigator. He died in 1944 when his aircraft was hit, and he was buried in Germany.