ACO NextGen Award

The ACO NextGen Award recognizes an individual early in their career for outstanding contributions to the field of heritage, and a clear commitment to conservation work, advocacy, heritage craft, and/or community engagement.

This year’s award goes to Willow Key. Congratulations! With students and young professionals like Willow, the future looks bright for heritage in Ontario.

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Willow Key is a Masters student in the History Department at the University of Windsor. Her research project, “We Were Here: Recovering the Stories of the McDougall Street Corridor,” examines the Black history of the central Windsor neighbourhood prior to the post World War II housing boom, displacing many of the residents.

For this oral history project, she has sought out former members of the community to gather their stories and the stories handed down to them, as well as laid out the little-known history of the area. Key has collaborated with community partners to get the story out, conducted area walking tours, liaised with local media, and with community partners such as the Leddy Library and the Essex County Black Historical Society has built a walking tour website that guides users through the area highlighting the history. In the wake of her research, the Essex County Black Historical Society engaged artists to paint three murals which depict former McDougall Street Residents and historical figures important in the Black community in order to bring broader exposure to the history of the area and the remaining architecture.

Willow Key has launched a living project which not only brings the history of the Black community in Windsor to life but which will serve to protect the remaining historical buildings in this area.

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