Canada Post honors activist and newspaper publisher Mary Ann Shadd

By David Hartwig

Canada Post honors Mary Ann Shadd, the first black woman to publish a newspaper in North America and the second black woman to attend law school in the United States, on a stamp issued Jan. 29.

“An abolitionist, educator, newspaper publisher and lawyer, Shadd broke boundaries throughout her life as she fought for the rights of Black people and women,” Canada Post said in a press release.

Canada Post offers the nondenominated permanent domestic letter-rate (92¢) stamp in booklets of six.

The design features a depiction of the only known photograph of Shadd and a reproduction of the masthead of Shadd’s newspaper, the Provincial Freeman. According to Canada Post, the black-eyed Susan flowers in the background “represent resilience, encouragement, justice and motivation.”

Shadd was born in Wilmington, Del., in 1823. By early adulthood, she had established herself as a teacher, writer and activist. She was invited to teach in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, in 1851 and later helped found a racially integrated school there.

Shadd also founded a weekly anti-slavery newspaper called the Provincial Freeman in 1853 and became the first Black woman in North America, and the first woman in Canada, to publish and edit a newspaper.

Although Shadd initially kept her name off the paper’s masthead to avoid alienating readers accustomed to male editors, she revealed her identity in 1854.

In 1863, Shadd moved back to the United States, where she became the second black woman in the country to obtain a law degree. She became a lawyer and suffragist.

In 2021, a post office in Wilmington, Del., was named the Mary Ann Shadd Cary Post Office. The post office is located at 500 Delaware Ave., Suite 1, Wilmington, DE 19801-9998.

The Mary Ann Shadd stamp is the latest in Canada’s long-running Black Heritage Month series, which began in 2009.

One of the two Black Heritage Month stamps issued in 2009 honors Shadd’s father, Abraham Doras Shadd, who became …

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