Ernest Brown fonds – RETROactive

Editor’s note: Learn more about the history and heritage of Black Albertans from the Royal Alberta Museum.

Written by: Michael Gourlie, Government Records Archivist, Provincial Archives of Alberta

Since the 1960s, the Provincial Archives of Alberta (PAA) has acquired kilometres of records, millions of photographs and thousands of hours of audiovisual recordings about the lives and activities of Albertans. While Alberta’s Black community is underrepresented among these archival holdings, it faces a similar challenge to other groups. For every famous individual whose life is documented in detail in numerous sources, there are dozens of other individuals who remain nameless and forgotten until someone researches their stories.

Among the famous individuals found in the PAA’s holdings is John Dee (Johnny) Bright. Born in Indiana in 1930, he attended Drake University on a track and field scholarship, which led to a remarkable collegiate football career marked by several National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) records as well as a national profile. His senior year in 1951 was also notable when he was the target of a racially motivated assault on the playing field during a game with Oklahoma A&M University (now Oklahoma State University), an incident documented in a Pulitzer Prize winning series of photographs. While some on-field rules changed because of the incident, the opposing team and its university administration denied any wrongdoing for decades and only apologized for the incident in 2005.

File OS.1843: Johnny Bright, 1954. *(Frank Oliver Studios fonds, PR1992.0261/1096, OS.1843)*. Source: Provincial Archives of Alberta.

He graduated from Drake University in 1952 with a Bachelor of Science in Education, specializing in physical education. He was the first pick chosen by the Philadelphia Eagles in the 1952 draft, but fearing his treatment in the National Football League, he chose to emigrate to Canada and play for the Calgary Stampeders. He was traded to Edmonton in 1954, where he primarily played offense. Bright set several Canadian Football League (CFL) records, helped the team win the Grey Cup in 1954, 1955 and 1956, and was named Edmonton Athlete of the Year in 1959.

Editor’s note: In our continued recognition of Black History Month, the Provincial Archives of Alberta has shared a collection of portraits of Black Albertans from photographer Ernest Brown. The Ernest Brown fonds contain around 50,000 negatives and other materials, predominantly from the years 1880-1960.

One of the earliest professional photographers in Alberta, Ernest Brown moved to Edmonton from England in April 1904. In Edmonton, Brown went to work as an assistant to C.W. Mathers, the city’s first photographer. Three months later, Brown bought the rights to Mathers’ portrait studio and in 1905 the studio expanded into the Ernest Brown Company Ltd.

Little is known about the subjects in the photographs below. Likely, the only records kept from these photo sessions was the name of the person who booked and paid for the session.