Changemaker: Reverend Blair Dixon

On St. Andrew’s Saint Day 2021, I reflected on how much has changed in my life since my ordination as priest nine years ago. November 30th is a special day shared between myself and my father. This past St. Andrew’s Day would have been my father’s 58th anniversary of ordination to the priesthood. On that day, I reflected on who would have been my father’s models and mentors. When he was a young boy, his family were long term members of St. Silas Anglican Church, country parish in St. James, Barbados. Who were the faces of priests that he saw which helped him to see himself as a priest?  I ask this question because when my father was growing up, the parish priests who he encountered were all sent over from England. I remember my father telling me that he was in one of the first group of ‘native’ seminarians graduating from Codrington College and ordained priests to serve in Barbados.  

As a young girl, hearing her call, the faces of priest I saw were all men. Like my father, I didn’t see any faces like mine looking back at me from the altar. Yet here I am. There has to be more to the call to the ordination, which goes beyond literally seeing ourselves in the faces of the deacons and priests looking back at us. However, when we see faces like our own and receive mentoring from those who share similar heritage and background, it helps strengthen our faith and conviction to pursue our Call.  

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Reflecting on these questions fueled my interest in finding out more the history of Blacks in our church. I wanted to learn more of the history of people of colour who rose to positions of leadership as the ordained in the Anglican church of Canada. This history is quite recent, dating back to the late 1950s and 1960s. Through my inquiring I learned that the Diocese of Ottawa was the first to grant the privileges of ordination to the first Canadian born black, the Rev. Blair Dixon.   

This February, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to speak with the Rev. Dixon and hear his story. He clarified that although he was the first Canadian born black to be ordained in the Anglican Church of Canada, there were two other Black priests ordained a few years before him: the Rev. Lawton Binns and the Rev. Fitzroy Richards.  Both these priests had immigrated to Canada from Jamaica and served in mission work up North.

Some might say the Rev. Blair Dixon came from simple beginnings; however, after hearing his story it became evident that he was raised in a culturally rich and complex family.  

Dixon was born in Saint John, New Brunswick in 1936, growing up in a family of 11 children.  He grew up in a working class community, his mother worked as a chamber maid and his father as a labourer.  

Dixon is a direct descendant of American slaves. His father was born in 1885 on board a ship traveling to Canada, as his paternal grandmother and other kinfolk followed the route of the underground railroad in their struggle to leave behind the vestiges of slavery in Louisiana and find freedom in Halifax. Many who came before them did not survive, dying on the journey, so the family considers the fact that Dixon’s father survived his birth and lived to reach freedom in Halifax a miracle.  

Dixon said his mother, born into a family of nine children in 1905 in Saint John, was a woman of strong Christian faith and conviction. Although a devoted church-goer of the Baptist denomination, his mother insisted that all her children be baptised and confirmed in the Anglican Church, resulting in his faith formation being influenced by both the Anglican tradition and his mother’s commitment to the Baptist church. “As a youngster in Saint John, I spent much time worshipping with my mother in the Baptist coloured church while also attending the Anglican Mission Church with my siblings,” he said. 

Dixon explained that the Mission Church “was founded for the coloured and Indians” because “blacks weren’t welcome to attend the general Anglican churches.” 

 It was in this parish that Dixon first encountered an order of nuns whose service was to “provide ministry to those in prison, coloureds, and Indians.” It was these nuns who prepared him and his siblings for baptism and confirmation. Dixon was nostalgic about his experiences in the Mission Church. It was in this parish where he learned the joy of Anglo-Catholic church liturgy, serving as an altar boy and singing in the male choir from Grades 3 through 12. 

Dixon shared that he was very interested in doing youth work with the YMCA; however, building a career as a black person in Canadian society during the 1940s and 50s was very challenging.

Right after high school, Dixon joined the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) in 1954, serving in administration for five years. Feeling a call to ministry, he left the RCAF to accept an invitation to go to Acadia University (a Baptist seminary) to play basketball in 1959. While at Acadia he received a commission with the RCAF reserve and served as a chaplain. 

Desiring to pursue ordination, Dixon requested an interview with the Bishop of Fredericton, Harry O’Neil, to discuss sponsorship as a postulant, but Bishop O’Neil informed him that he would not accept him because “there is no place for a coloured priest in the Diocese of Fredericton.”

After two years at Acadia, an Ottawa friend and fellow chaplain arranged an appointment for Dixon to meet with Bishop Ernest Reed of the Diocese of Ottawa. 

“During my interview with Bishop Reed, I was delighted by his comment that he was interested to see what the Diocese of Ottawa would do with a coloured priest,” Dixon recalled. “With a prayer and a gentle smile, he accepted me as a postulant with the instruction that I leave the Baptist seminary at Acadia and enroll at King’s University in Halifax, which I did in 1961.”

Many of us have experienced doors closed in our faces when pursuing our career goals.  These are painful experiences. It is even more upsetting for persons of colour when the obstacles which close the doors to opportunity are directly wrapped up in the colour of our skin. I asked Rev. Dixon what helped him to overcome these obstacles and pushed him to keep pursing his dream and fulfill his Call to the priesthood. He said many people influenced him and served as allies for him, including the nuns who encouraged him in childhood, “white teachers who encouraged me to be the best that I could be,” and his mother who helped shape his convictions. 

It was at King’s that he met fellow seminarian Peter Coffin, later Bishop of Ottawa from 1999 to 2007. Bishop Coffin remembers Dixon as being “a committed, understated and well-respected leader who connected with people in the community. Even in his early days Dixon demonstrated solid leadership abilities to fight against unjust systems,” he said.  While at King’s (1961-66), Dixon was active in the civil rights movement in Halifax and worked closely with Rev. William Oliver, the preeminent black Baptist preacher of Nova Scotia, to address the unjust housing issues in Africville. The theme of social justice together with a strong emphasis on youth continued throughout all the years of his ordained ministry.     

Ordained deacon in 1965, Dixon served in a student placement at St. Mark’s church in Halifax while completing the final year of his theological studies. In 1966, after graduation, he was ordained priest and assigned as curate for All Saints, Westboro in Ottawa. Westboro was a very different community in the 1960s. In his blog about Ottawa history The Kitchissippi Museum, Dave Allston described Westboro of the 1960s and 70s as “a ‘functional’, industrial neighbourhood…. A lot of people referred to it as ‘used car alley.”  Many of the residents were working class and small business owners. Dixon fondly remembered his work with the rector, the Rev. Jeep Green. All Saints was a “huge social justice” parish, linking conservatives with liberals, making a difference in the lives of the people in Westboro, he said. Dixon served in this parish for two and a half years, assisting in the effort to create a team ministry between five parishes in the area.  

Dixon’s second parish was also in the Diocese of Ottawa; he served as rector of the rural parish of Vankleek Hill from 1970 – 1972.  He said he was the next rector to follow Bishop John Chapman’s father.  

Throughout these years in the Diocese of Ottawa, his work included building a youth ministry and serving a year as chaplain and four years as camp director for Camp Pontiac, a diocesan youth camp in Quyon.  

Dixon’s ministry next led to a move to Michigan in 1972, where he accepted a dual clergy ministry position in Detroit. Civil rights activist Bishop Richard S. M. Emrich had requested two Black priests to build an integrated parish by bringing together the predominantly white parish of St. Joseph’s with the smaller all black parish of St. Matthew. Dixon was immediately named chair of the Mayor’s Committee on Poverty Medical Program, and throughout his time in Detroit, he was active in rebuilding the community, which had been decimated by the Detroit riots of 1967. A year later, he became the rector of the nearby Grace Episcopal Church, one of the few structures remaining in the area destroyed during the riots. During Dixon’s time at Grace, he worked with ABC Detroit to develop and deliver a children’s TV program which focused on diversity—including race, gender, age, and faith orientation.  

Continuing his focus on youth ministry, in 1977 Dixon moved back to Canada to accept the position of church camp director for the Diocese of Huron, and, three years later, he also became rector of Christ Church London. While in London, Dixon served as a supervisor for theology students at Huron College seminary. 

Conversations with Bishop Eric Bays of the Diocese of Qu’Appelle led to one more move in 1991—this time to Saskatchewan to become the incumbent for St. Matthew, Regina, where he served 18 years. Continuing in mission for social justice ministry, Dixon took on a leadership role for a strong social justice minded parish as well as serving almost two decades as chaplain for the Regina Police Service and part-time chaplain for the RCMP.  

Dixon retired from full time ministry in 2008 at age 72, but his ministry continued as he and his wife Karen served missions in Malawi for a year. He worked with the Malawi police to provide training for the chaplains and further develop their chaplaincy program. Together he and Karen worked to promote financial literacy and alleviate poverty for police members and their families through the launch of a SACCO (credit union) for the national police service. credit union is one of the largest in Malawi. 

Today, Dixon is fully retired, and he and Karen live in Regina. But do priests really retire?  For this priest, Rev. Dixon provided me with inspiration that against all odds, you can accomplish your dream as an ordained person, being all that you can be, sharing your gifts, serving in God’s church. 

Thank you, Rev. Dixon, for your gifts.