Hugh Burnett

Hugh Burnett was born on 14 July 1918 on a farm outside Dresden, Ontario, the son of Robert and Myrtle (née Carter) Burnett. The town, in southwestern Ontario, had been home to Black families since the days of the Underground Railroad and the Dawn Settlement, and Burnett grew up there, working as a carpenter.

Despite its history, Dresden in the years after the Second World War practised segregation. Black residents were refused service in restaurants and other public businesses, a reality that Burnett and others set out to change.

Burnett became a leader and organiser of the National Unity Association (NUA), a coalition of Black community members that pressed for equal rights in Dresden. The NUA campaigned to change the law, pushing for legislation that would make discrimination in public services illegal, and its members tested Dresden's restaurants and lodged formal complaints.

The campaign succeeded in drawing national attention. Burnett was instrumental in the push that led first to the Fair Employment Practices Act of 1951, and then to the Fair Accommodation Practices Act, which the Frost government introduced in 1954. The Act, which became law in June 1954, forbade discrimination in public services and housing on the basis of race, religion and other grounds. When he and others were refused service again, they used the new law to lodge formal complaints, and the issue continued to attract national publicity throughout 1954.

In a 1954 news documentary, Burnett was both pragmatic and hopeful about what the legislation could achieve. He continued to work for civil rights for the rest of his life and died in London, Ontario, on 29 September 1991, aged 73. The Dresden story is remembered as a landmark in the history of the fight against segregation in Canada.