Given the racial atmosphere in Canada, it should not be surprising that, during the First World War, very few persons of African descent were accepted for military service, White soldiers refused to serve with them and there was a desire for segregated units, although no White officer wanted to give such a command. In 1916, confronted by the possibility of recruiting African Canadians, Major-General W.G. Gwatkin, Chief of General Staff, claimed that '[t]he civilized negro is vain and imitative [...] he is not impelled to enlist by a high sense of duty; in the trenches he is not likely to make a good fighter; and the average white man will not associate with him on terms of equality', therefore, there was 'no place for a black battalion' (Winks, 2000, p. 317). Instead, the No. 2 (Negro) Construction Battalion, with White officers, was authorized in July 1916. In France, African Canadians laboured on behalf of a nation that promptly forgot their contribution and, in some instances, greeted them with hostility. With these racial attitudes in place, perhaps it was not surprising that in the 1920s, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Ontario witnessed the rise and popularity of the Ku Klux Klan; although its public visibility declined, the Klan's sentiments would remain in place among many Canadians (Henson, 1977). This was the context in which immigrants from the Caribbean, mainly of African descent, arrived.  
During the nineteenth century, small numbers of Caribbean men were recruited to work on the ships that plied many of the country's harbours. In the early twentieth century, according to Agnes Calliste, some Caribbean men were recruited to work in the steel mills in Nova Scotia where, '[d]espite their skills,