Retired Fire is my first audio documentary, made in Halifax in March 2012. Dick Miller, retired documentary editor for CBC’s The Current, provided Scotch and guidance, but mainly guidance.

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I am fascinated by the history of Halifax and Nova Scotia. Especially the history which hasn’t been honoured with statues and schools and parks and museums. So I spent some time with one of the leaders of Nova Scotia’s civil rights movement, Burnley “Rocky” Jones.

A shot from the film “Encounter at Kwacha House” — Rocky Jones is on the right

Rocky is best known as the man who brought Stokely Carmichael (later known as Kwame Ture) and other members of the Black Panthers to Halifax in 1968.

But while the RCMP was following him around and tapping his phone — looking for signs that he was riling up the “otherwise docile coloured population” of Nova Scotia — he was busy setting up an ambitious oral history project.

Here’s my doc, Retired Fire.

The music:

• Mavis Staples’ Eyes on the Prize
• Oscar Peterson’s Hymn to Freedom
• Peter Parcek’s cover of Blind Lemon Jefferson’s See That My Grave is Kept Clean

Thanks for listening.