Once-in-a-Lifetime Wisdom comes to Laurier

By Douglas Clarke

A small but engaged crowd sat in rapt attention at this year’s Nelson Mandela Lecture presented by Dr. Yvonne Shorter-Brown, an author, public lecturer, and retired public school teacher who has championed social justice and the recognition of the under-spoken truths of colonial history. Her talk on the evening of October 30, 2025, was sponsored by Wilfrid Laurier University’s Tshepo Institute for the study of Contemporary Africa, with support from Laurier’s Faculty of Arts and the Department of Religion and Culture. The director of the Tshepo Institute, Dr. Karen Cyrus of the Department of Music Music, co-hosted the event with Dr. Carol Duncan of the Department of Religion and Culture. They welcomed the guest-speaker and nearly two dozen students, scholars, and community members to Laurier’s Senate and Board Chambers to hear Dr. Brown’s talk. 

Dr. Yvonne Shorter-Brown held everyone’s attention as she discussed her life, the legacy of colonialism, racism, sexism in Jamaica. Some were surely left contemplating lingering parallels in Canada, where Dr. Shorter-Brown has lived since 1969. Drawing on her book Dead Woman Pickney (WLU Press, 2022), Dr. Brown told moving stories of growing up in a Jamaica, between the 1940s and the 1960s, and the changes the country had undergone after gaining independence in 1962. Jamaica’s colonial regimes made education difficult, as “indigenous” knowledge of Afro-Caribbean peoples was always judged through the lens of the British system. Further, many colonial authorities wielded power that often led to physical (and emotional) confrontations. The subject matter of the lecture was difficult, but also attention-grabbing and provocative, as the audience was left to consider the remnant effects colonialism, and how long people in the Afro-Caribbean diaspora and beyond will continue to feel their lingering aftermath.

Dr. Brown was candid about the struggles she had faced growing up in a system of oppression and how she long desired to bring to light both that system and those struggles. Now semi-retired after a career in teacher education, Dr. Brown travels and speaks to audiences about the legacy of colonialism in the contemporary world. That reality includes everything from mega-corporations, current politics, and financial institutions that continue to benefit from money gained through slaveholding, to theories in education that maintain ties to colonial thinking. Nothing was off the table during her lecture.

Although most of the talk was delivered in English, Dr. Brown captured the audience when she codeswitched to Jamaican Patois to deliver some wise-but-charmingly-humorous words. For example, she noted that her talk at Laurier “made her glad-bag bust,” meaning that there was so much goodwill, joy, and learning in the room that we all felt like we could burst!

Generations of wisdom entered the Senate and Board Chamber, enriching all who attended the Mandela Lecture. Dr. Brown brought her inimitable soft-spoken-yet-authoritative style and grace to the talk, which lasted about 90 minutes. She followed with a 30-minute Q&A session in which she offered detailed answers to questions posed by the audience. More than charitable with her time, Dr. Brown even posed for pictures with many former students and community members after the event wound down.

Dr. Yvonne Shorter-Brown’s talk forms part of a series of events organized as part of both WLU’s year-long celebration of “100 Years of Arts” and the “50-plus” anniversary of the Department of Religion and Culture. Those who established latter department had, incidentally, proposed it as a founding department, focused on secular and social-scientific examination of religion and culture, to distinguish it from the more proselytory approaches that had dominated at Waterloo Lutheran University, prior to its re-organization as Wilfrid Laurier University in 1973. Dr. Brown’s historical reminiscences and political activism fits clearly within the long-time mission of the Department of Religion and Culture as well as that of the Tshepo Institute for the Study of Contemporary Africa.

If you are interested in hearing more from Dr. Brown or are interested in the topic, reach out to the Tshepo Institute or the Department of Religion and Culture.