In 1951, in keeping with the image being built for foreign consumption, the Canadian government overhauled the Indian Act. Some of its most obnoxious provisions were repealed and a few others were added. This was also a year when both the Mi'kmaq and African Nova Scotian communities began to stir and make headway towards organizing an effective attack against racial bigotry in Nova Scotia. These efforts were encouraged by the displays of courage of heroic individuals spearheading the fight against racial segregation in the southern United States. From among them, such men as the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. provided inspirational role models for the two peoples in organizing their own strategies to achieve racial equality and justice.

However, given the entrenched racist attitudes within the province's White community, the two peoples of colour knew that the battle for racial equality in Nova Scotia and in Canada would not be easily won. This has proven to be true. Racism is a disease that is most easily weeded out generation by generation; some progress can be made with older generations, but it is among the young that real change is possible. Thus, I can foresee a time in the twenty-first century when we can declare that the fight for equality has mostly prevailed!

Perhaps the most momentous event that gave strength to the fight for equality by people of colour around the world was a rally in the United States in 1953 by oppressed people demanding change. On Aug. 28, 1963, 200,000 people participated in a peaceful civil rights rally in Washington, D.C., where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial. A quote:

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.”