Militant Mothers of Raymur (Black Strathcona)

In 1970 the Raymur Housing Project was built to house low-income families. The children from Raymur went to Seymour Elementary School, two blocks to the east. A set of train tracks runs between them.

To get to school, the children had to cross the tracks and dodge trains. A group of mothers from Raymur, including Carolyn Jerome, asked the city and the rail company to build a pedestrian overpass. They got no response. They wrote letters, signed petitions, made speeches to City Hall. Still no response.

So January 6, 1971, the mothers turned militant. Carolyn Jerome and a group of 25 other mothers from Raymur decided to shut down the railroad. They went to the tracks, and they stood in the path of the oncoming trains, and they refused to move.

The mothers occupied the tracks two more times until finally the standoff went to court. In the end, the courts ruled in favour of Carolyn and the mothers. And that new school year, the overpass was built linking the Raymur Housing Project and Seymour Elementary School.