Why Edmonton Donna Coombs-Montrose

“Man, if you start me on Edmonton,” smiles Donna Coombs-Montrose. “I just love this place.” 

As the City of Edmonton’s first Black Historian Laureate, she gets to talk a lot about Edmonton—and the stories of the people who shaped the city. People like football star Johnny Bright, who won three Grey Cups with the Edmonton Elks. Or Hatti Melton, the owner of Hatti’s Harlem Chicken Inn, a restaurant where the Black community came together and flourished in the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s.

“History can be the living experience of how we have thrived in this space and what Edmonton has meant to us as people of colour,” says Coombs-Montrose. 

“I’m very passionate about talking about history because I want us to leave deposits for future generations to understand what sacrifices we made or what triumphs we had in building this city.”

Cariwest celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2024. Each year, the three-day event showcases the vibrancy and enduring legacy of Caribbean culture through music, performances and food. 

“Cariwest is a symbol of what a community of diaspora, a community of immigrants, have done with something,” she says. “Cariwest has been a vehicle for us for sharing with Edmontonians and Albertans, who we are, what our history has meant to us, what we have done with the space given to develop.” 

One of Coombs-Montrose’s primary projects is telling the stories of significant Edmontonians who have settled in the Jasper Place neighbourhood. Football star Johnny Bright was one of those early residents.

He moved from the U.S. to Canada in the 1950s after he was brutally injured in a racially fueled incident during a college football game in Oklahoma. Bright played for the Edmonton Elks between 1954 and 1964. He later became a school principal and influential Edmontonian, particularly for young Black athletes.