Reverend George W. Slater Jr., a Black Christian Socialist Vision for a Rustic City Community in 1920s’ Alberta

Rev. George W. Slater Jr. arrived in Alberta from the United States in 1921 to minister to the Black community there and develop a local African Methodist Episcopal church. Before his arrival in Edmonton, he was a committed and active Christian socialist who believed the so-called race problem could be arrived at through a social class analysis. Yet, when he emerged in Alberta, there seemed to be little mention of his past socialist belief in his most public writing in Our Negro Citizens (ONCs) columns that he wrote for the local newspapers. Instead, he seemingly aligned himself, in a similar way to a number of Black community members, to Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association. Yet, in a recently unearthed historical document titled the “Rustic City” (RC), a different aspect of Rev. George W. Slater Jr. can be seen. His ethics of Jesus in economic action no longer constrained a bold plan for a new RC community based on a cooperative model that clearly indicated that he had not fully abandoned his earlier socialist belief. While there is no definitive declaration from Rev. George W. Slater Jr. as to his political position while in Alberta, by reading his two pieces of writings (ONCs and RC) in relation to each other, Black community experiences can be re-inscribed into his RC document. Examining his documents allow for a deeper understanding of Rev. George W. Slater Jr.’s complex intersectional philosophy of Christian socialism.