“Until all of us have made it, none of us have made it.”
~ Rosemary Brown, 1930-2003

Rosemary Wedderburn Brown was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1930. She came to Canada in 1951 to attend McGill University in Montréal.

As a student at McGill, and later as a masters student at the University of British Columbia, she faced pervasive discrimination both because she was a woman and also because she was black.

It was through this adversity that she found her purpose as a leader against racism and sexism. She helped to found the British Columbia Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (BCAACP) in 1956 to help advocate for housing, employment and human rights legislation.

In 1972, she became the first black woman elected to a provincial legislature in Canada, a post she occupied until 1986.

Because of women like Rosemary Brown, both women and men of all backgrounds walk an easier path today.