Presented in partnership with Atlantis Conference 2025: Revolution and Resurgence: Celebrating Feminist Publishing
Commissioned by the Nova Scotia Women’s History Society
Collection of Mount Saint Vincent University, Gift of the Nova Scotia Women’s History Society
These paintings, by African Nova Scotian artist Letitia Fraser, were commissioned by the Nova Scotia Women’s History Society for a public history installation created in collaboration with the Truro African Nova Scotian community, unveiled on May 23, 2025, at Truro’s Reparations Park.
The Truro installation honours four generations of trailblazing African Nova Scotian women, whose contributions to teaching and leadership in education span over a century. It includes Fraser’s portraits of educators Martha Eleanor Jones, Willena Beatrice (Corbin Gabriel) Jones, Donna Lee Byard Sealey, and Ann Michelle (Shelley) MacLean, as well as Bruce Wood’s portrait of Vera (Halfkenney) Clyke, the long-standing organist of Truro’s Zion United Baptist Church. They are from “the Marsh,” “the Hill,” and “the Island,” all three traditional Black communities in Truro. For generations African Nova Scotians only had access to poorly funded segregated schools, and racism in education harmed Black students socially, politically, and economically—through their leadership and advocacy work, these women fought to make Nova Scotia’s education system more equitable. Their contributions have had a lasting impact—not only on their students and community members, but on the lives of future generations of Black students in Truro and throughout Nova Scotia.
The Nova Scotia Women’s History Society has generously donated Letitia Fraser’s four portraits and theme motif painting to Mount Saint Vincent University. We are grateful to have Letitia’s work, which speaks so beautifully to the indelible contributions of African Nova Scotian women on the province’s history, in our holdings.
The Nova Scotia Women’s History Society (NSWHS) researches and makes known the untold stories of the contributions of women in Nova Scotia. Founded in 2013, the NSWHS has organized conferences, speaker series, lectures, events, a monument, and written materials pertaining to women’s history in Nova Scotia.
Letitia Fraser is an interdisciplinary artist whose work centres on her experience as an African Nova Scotian woman growing up in the province’s Black communities of North Preston and Beechville. Descending from a long line of artists, Fraser’s creative instincts were nurtured early in life. Through a combination of painting and textiles, she unearths previously untold narratives and pays homage to her community’s history of quilting.
Recent exhibitions include Family Patterns with Darcie Bernhardt at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (2022), Every Chain at the Chester Art Gallery, Halifax (2022), Letitia Fraser at MSVU Art Gallery, Halifax (2019), and Mommy’s Patches: Traditions & Superstitions at the Anna Leonowens Gallery, Halifax (2019). Fraser graduated with a BFA from NSCAD University in 2019 and is the recipient of numerous awards including the 2018 Nova Scotia Talent Trust RBC Emerging Artist Award. In 2022, she was longlisted for the 2022 Sobey Art Award. Her work is included in several private and public collections including the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Scotiabank, the Canada Council and the Wedge Collection. In the summer of 2025, Fraser was an Artist-in-Residence Fellow with the Slavery North Initiative at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
