Beryl Dash: Black McGill student became Jackie Robinson of beauty queens

 Beryl Dash, aka Beryl Dickinson-Dash, 21, was an unknown McGill student when she found herself, on 18 February 1949, being cheered by 8,000 at the Montreal Forum as she was greeted by Montreal Mayor Camilien Houde. 

  Dash had been attending university and living with her parents and four siblings at 950 Laporte in St. Henri when someone in her circle noticed that she looked good in photos. She took up the suggestion to run for the crown as McGill University's Winter Carnival Queen.  

 Dash wasn't thinking so much about winning but aimed rather to represent the miniscule black population at the school, which represented about two percent as about 115 blacks were among the 8,000 students attending the school at the time.      

  Beryl's dad Marcus Dickinson-Dash (b. 1907) was a Trinidad-born railway porter and union leader whose job sometimes forced him to stay away from his family for up to three weeks at a time. Her mom Maisie (1908-2006) came to Montreal in 1937 from Trinidad and was long involved in various community groups. 

   A committee of male students nominated 25 candidates, which were then whittled down to the final four (one of whom was from Wagga Wagga, Australia) with Dash being the sole brown-skinned beauty in the group. 

 Students voted for the ultimate winner and, sure enough, Dash's beauty prevailed and she was elected McGill's Winter Carnival Queen for 1949, giving her the duties of overseeing the largest event of its kind in North America. 

 The Cinderella story of a gorgeous young black woman being elected queen in a school where she looked unlike the overwhelming majority of students was presented as uplifting news in newspapers across Canada and in such American cities as  Pittsburgh, Spokane, Minneapolis, San Bernardino, Kansas City and El Paso.

 Dash's triumph could be seen as a celebration, acclamation and validation of the then-small black population in Montreal, as had baseball player Jackie Robinson a couple of years earlier as well as the many black traveling performers delighting white audiences in Montreal nightclubs at the time. (Do you really need that paragraph? - Chimples) 

 After her crowning moment at the Forum, Dash spent her regal week being charming and gracious and handing out prizes, finishing the week at a grand ball at the McGill Gym attended by 5,000 students, which was scheduled to honour her on her 21st birthday.

Shreve

 The Ontario College of Arts, in Toronto, followed suit a few weeks later and crowned black student Artis Shreve as queen of their annual ball, an event which also made news a few weeks later.

 Dash and fellow-McGill student Dunbar Rapier engaged later in 1949 and she birthed twins a decade later, as reported in Jet Magazine, a publication aimed at the American black population.

 Dunbar and Dash moved to Scotland, then Edmonton and then Calgary where Dunbar worked as a child psychiatrist. Her parents remained in Montreal. 

 Dash's little sister Brenda was fined for participating in the Sir George Williams University riots of 1971, which aimed to shed light on unfair treatment meted out to Caribbean students. Fellow-participant Anne Cools apparently spent four months in jail for participating in the riot and was later named to the Canadian Senate. 

 At last look Beryl Dash was still alive and living in Las Vegas.