Networking Heritage highlights Hollingsworth’s tap-dancing career, family photos exhibit and connections between municipalities

Garvia Bailey, Joey Hollingsworth and Zahra McDoom at the Networking Heritage panel discussion on June 20.

The Networking Heritage panel discussion, part of the Black History Project Series at the Stratford-Perth Museum, connected stories of London, Stratford and beyond together.

The Stratford-Perth Museum held the Networking Heritage event, the third in the Black History project on June 20. Curator and CBC broadcaster Garvia Bailey hosted a panel discussion with Canadian tap-dancing icon Joey Hollingsworth and Museum London TD curator of Collections Zahra McDoom, who curated the Black Lives Lived Here London Family Photos exhibit. The Black Lives Lived Here exhibit, which ran from 2025 up until April 2026, featured more than 50 family photos from the 1910s to the 1960s of African Canadians with a connection to London, Ont., including photos of Hollingsworth’s parents.

“It felt very comforting to be here and just being able to link all of Joey's personal life story to lived history and also museums and archives and keeping the story going, so it was fantastic,” said McDoom.

“To have such esteemed guests here, one of the parts of what we're doing at the museum is knocking down those silos so that folks like Zahra can speak with folks here and we can all help each other to get these stories like that of Joey out into the world,” Bailey said.

During the panel discussion. Hollingsworth talked about his career highlights and memories, including dancing on Mr. Rogers and Mr. Dressup’s shows, dancing at clubs where he was invited to turn the venue from segregated to integrated, and visiting his aunt, uncle and cousins every Sunday in their Stratford home.

The event also talked about close connections such as how the Dawn of Tomorrow Black press newspaper connected freedom seekers from Windsor to Brantford to Owen Sound and how the renowned tap dancer Joey is related to Stratford pioneering architect Anthony Hollingsworth.

"All these stories are connected, you know? We're all connected in that way,” Bailey said. “I mean, the story that we talked about Anthony Hollingsworth having such a huge part in being a city builder here in Stratford being an entrepreneur here in Stratford, it’s all connected. How wonderful is that that we're not as far apart as one might think?”

The Stratford-Perth Museum is working towards a permanent Black History Project exhibition to be launched in either late 2026 or in 2027.

“It's really important to keep building on our stories as a community and to fill in those gaps and I think the Black community especially has had a lot of gaps in their stories, huge gaps, and so to be able to be a part of in any way filling in those some of those gaps so that we have a complete or starting to create a complete story of who we are as a community, I think that's important,” Bailey said. “I'm really, really, super excited about what the next year, what the next two years, the next three years pushing forward looks like." 

Anyone looking to contribute to the Black History Project Series can send an email to yourstory@stratfordperthmuseum.ca.