Dewson House, 2025.  

Plaque Text

This house was a thriving hub of Black feminism and racialized LGBTQ+ activism. In 1983, writer Makeda Silvera and her daughters moved here with visual artist Stephanie Martin. They turned 101 Dewson Street into Dewson House, a hotbed of activity and organizing.

A collective home for queer activists, including several lesbian mothers in the 1980s and 1990s, Dewson House nurtured many important queer groups and organizations. The pioneering activist group Zami was formed around the Dewson House kitchen table by Debbie Douglas, Deryck Glodon, Makeda Silvera, and Douglas Stewart. It confronted homophobia in Black Caribbean communities and racism in LGBTQ+ communities, building solidarity between these groups and reshaping the Black queer landscape in Canada.

Canada’s first publishing house by and for Black women and women of colour was based here from 1985 to 2001. Sister Vision Press brought trailblazing work to light and transformed women’s publishing in Canada. Fundraisers, book launches, and other events here fostered connections, support, and inspiration for racialized writers of fiction, poetry, non-fiction, children’s literature, and plays.

Dewson House was a place of creative activism and refuge. The people, collectives, and events rooted here have ties to the Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention, Blackness Yes!, Blockorama, Black Women’s Collective, Lesbians of Colour, and many more organizations that supported the life, work, and legacies of Toronto’s Black, racialized, Indigenous, and 2SLGBTQIA+ communities.