Christie Pits

"On a warm summer's night in 1933, in a bustling urban city, a group of bigots brandishing a homemade swastika flag went to a public park to antagonize a group of predominantly Jewish and Italian immigrants. Violence erupted. 10,000 people filled the streets. A brawl of improvised weapons and bare fists crowded the night. The city was Toronto. A gritty ride through Toronto's immigrant neighbourhoods, Christie Pits tells the incredible true history of when young Jewish and Italian immigrants squared off against Nazi-inspired thugs on the streets of Toronto. Each chapter follows a young person in the lead up to the riot-- exploring the complexities and nuances of their day-to-day lives in a decade where prejudice and discrimination were endemic. The art and narrative behind the 10,000-person race riot is informed through archival research and first-hand interviews, lending historical depth to a previously untold story of resistance against hatred. It was then, and is now, the largest single eruption of ethnic violence in Post-Confederation Canadian history. In the aftermath of the physicality, Mayor William James Stewart declared his intention to prosecute the display of the swastika, one of the nation's first anti-hate speech policies, albeit an embryonic one."--