Those who know me are probably aware of my longstanding historical interest in the radical Quebec nationalism of the 1960s. (I think typing that sentence alone will make me forever unmarriageable.) But even I had never heard about this plot in 1965:

Early this year, the Black Liberation Front, a hot-eyed batch of pro-Castro New York Negroes, got in touch with some Quebec separatists, an equally odd outfit fanatically dedicated to Quebec’s secession from Canada. The Black Liberation boys wanted some dynamite; the Canadians were willing to provide it. From their agreement sprang one of the most convoluted conspiracies since Guy Fawkes schemed in 1605 to blow up the English Parliament with 36 barrels of gunpowder.

First: Wow, Time really used to write like that? Second: Seriously, black nationalists and Quebecois, uniting to take it to The Man by blowing up the Statue of Liberty? I mean, whoa!

Although it may seem strange today, the pan-racial alliance didn’t seem as crazy at the time, as evinced by the title of the Quebec radicals’ Bible, White Niggers of America: The Precocious Autobiography of a Quebec Terrorist. Still, it seems so strange to modern ears to hear the language of anti-colonialism and anti-racism applied to French-speaking Canadians.

I wish I could find out what happened to the plotters. (How societies choose to reintegrate — or not reintegrate — radical elements is really interesting to me.) I have no idea what happened to Khaleel Sul-tarn Sayyed, Robert Steele Collier, or Walter Augustus Bowe, the three members of the Black Liberation Front.

(Bowe contributed this quotable bon mot: “We could knock the head and the arms off that damned old bitch.”)

But I do know what happened to Michelle Duclos, the Quebecker who Time labeled “a frowsy, six-foot blonde.” She went on to become a lower-echelon figure in the Quebec government, including serving as the province’s quasi-ambassador to Algeria.

I’m telling you: Someone needs to make a movie about the FLQ, the October Crisis, “Just watch me,” and all the other radical edges of Quebec nationalism back then — it’s crazy stuff.

27 June 2007

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