Heritage Mississauga invites you to join us for our new webinar series Black Heritage Matters.

Through this educational webinar series, we are bringing the voices of speakers who have the lived-experience and expertise to speak to the heritage of Black Canadians and to view history in its entirety and focus on the contributions made to date, and to the future of Canada by Black Canadians.

We are pleased to welcome Lezlie Harper who will be presenting "Why Black History is Important" in our first webinar of the series. Lezlie will be discussing historical markers in the Niagara Region, the historic sites of the Underground Railroad, the iconic Harriet Tubman, and the importance of education and understanding of Black history in Canada.

Lezlie Harper is the owner of Niagara Bound Tours, a tour company that specializes in Black history tours since 2004. As well as doing tours in Niagara, she also organizes tours to other destinations as well. She is a descendant of Freedom Seekers that came to Fort Erie in 1851. So as well as Black history stories, she also shares personal and family stories as well.

As well as running her own tours, she also sits on various boards and committees promoting Black history. At the present time she is on the Underground Railroad Consortium of New York State, the Ontario Black History Society, the International Harriet Tubman Trail Committee and the John Brown Lives Festival Committee. To balance things out, she is the vice president on the Riverbrink Art Museum board in Niagara on the Lake.

We would like to thank the Community Foundation of Mississauga and the City of Mississauga for their support to help us bring this important series to Mississauga.