A Life of Resistance

Dudley Laws

When community activist and justice advocate Dudley Laws migrated to Toronto from England in 1965, he brought with him a decade of experience combatting racism and discrimination against people of African descent, as well as in community organizing, having helped launch the Brixton Neighbourhood Association.

Born in St. Thomas, Jamaica, Laws migrated to England in 1955 to further his education. While there, he attended Kensington College and was employed as a welder in London while also engaged in community organizing.

In 1965, Laws migrated to Toronto where he worked as a welder and taxi driver and became active with organizations including the Jamaican Canadian Association and the Marcus Garvey-founded Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), where he later became president in 1972.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Laws became known as a critic of the then Metropolitan Toronto Police Force after several young Black men were shot by police officers. He was forthright is his advocacy against injustice and police brutality and levelled allegations of racist practices against the police. In 1988, he co-founded the Black Action Defense Committee (BADC) following the police shooting of Lester Donaldson and the outcry of the Black community. The activism of BADC contributed to the creation of Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU) in 1990 to provide civilian oversight of law enforcement in the province.

A founding member of Black Inmates and Friends Assembly, Laws also served as the executive director of BADC, co-founded the Immican Youth for Skilled Organization, Committee for Due Process, Albert Johnson Committee, Lester Donaldson Committee, Black Youth Community Action Project, and the Michael Wade Lawson Committee.

The leader of many social protest marches across Toronto, Laws was also a prominent advocate for immigrants and refugees and worked as an immigration consultant in the 1990s.

Laws died on March 24, 2011, after a long battle with kidney disease. In 2016, a documentary about Laws’ activism, Dudley Speaks for Me, premiered at Ryerson University (now Toronto Metropolitan University).