Les Bélangers, Montreal’s first Haitian street gang, wasn’t the criminal enterprise it was painted as by Quebec police and a willing media in Canada in the 1980s. At first, it wasn’t even a gang; it was a group of friends who fought back against the racist violence that their community was routinely subjected to in city parks and schools, on the metro and in downtown bars. We are joined by the leader of Les Bélangers, Maxime Aurélien, and by Ted Rutland, professor at Concordia University in Montreal; they are together the authors of Out to Defend Ourselves: A History of Montreal’s First Haitian Street Gang.
Episode: 035 Montreal’s first Haitian street gang
Date: 5 September 2023 | Length: 39:57
Briefing Notes
Aurélien and Rutland. Out To Defend Ourselves: A History of Montreal’s First Haitian Street Gang. (Fernwood Press 2023)
Aurélien et Rutland. Il fallait se défendre: L’histoire du premier gang de rue haitien à Montréal . (Mémoire d’encrier 2023)
