| Joseph Drummond | |
| Birth Name: | Joseph Stewart Drummond |
| Birth Date: | 7 April 1926 |
| Birth Place: | Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada |
| Death Place: | Saint John, New Brunswick |
| Occupation: | Activist |
| Movement: | Civil rights |
Joseph Stewart Drummond (April 7, 1926 – January 13, 1975) was a Canadian activist from Saint John, New Brunswick. He joined the NAACP and the civil rights movement in the United States and later in his home province.
Drummond was a key figure of the NBAACP, New Brunswick's branch of the NAACP. In 1964, he led a sit-in at a Saint John barbershop to protest against barbers refusing to serve Black people. He also served as a member of the New Brunswick Human Rights Commission and as the National Black Coalition of Canada's vice-chairman. Drummond also ran for the Parliament of Canada for the New Democratic Party during the 1972 federal election.
Joseph Stewart Drummond was born on April 7, 1926 in Saint John, New Brunswick, to John Drummond and Agnes Stewart.[1] While serving in the Royal Canadian Navy, he gained an interest in civil rights and joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) while in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1941.[2] In 1957, he started participating in activism; he was no longer a member of the Navy soon afterwards. In 1961, Drummond became a field worker in the NAACP's New York City headquarters and joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference two years later.[2]
Drummond also joined the NAACP in Saint John.[2] On May 12, 1964,[3] [4] while serving as the vice-president of the New Brunswick Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NBAACP),[5] he led a sit-in with two other NBAACP members at a barbershop in Saint John's Haymarket Square to protest the owner's refusal to serve Black men.[4] [6] The owner, Tom Arbing, had proclaimed that he had "never cut a colored person's hair in 55 years."[3] [7] When interviewed by the Telegraph-Journal, Drummond stated that "few barbers in Saint John are abiding by the New Brunswick Fair Accommodations Act," adding that "it is a terrible thing in a democracy when you send a child to a barbershop and he returns and asks why he was refused a haircut." He also spoke about discrimination beyond barbershops in the city,[3] as well as about difficulties Black people faced in relation to accessing suitable housing and employment.[8] The sit-in was covered nationally; the New Brunswick Human Rights Commission was established in its aftermath.[9]
Drummond served as the National Black Coalition in Canada's vice-chairman. He was also a member of the New Brunswick Human Rights Commission,[2] however he resigned around 1971, citing his "frustration of trying to do a job and unable to get it done."[10] Drummond was also briefly involved in politics, running as the New Democratic Party candidate for the federal Saint John—Lancaster riding during the 1972 federal election;[2] he labelled himself as "an amateur politician" and had a focus on the "forgotten electorate," such as people who lived on welfare.[11] He lost to the incumbent Thomas Miller Bell, a Progressive Conservative.[12]
Drummond died on January 13, 1975 in Saint John, at the age of 48. His funeral was held three days later. In 2021, a mural containing two portraits of Drummond and Lena O'Ree, another civil rights activist in the city, was displayed in Saint John's north end neighbourhood.[13]