Black History Month spotlight: Tillie Johnson

When you think of the Hamilton Farmers’ Market your first thought may be that it’s a great place for foods from all over the world, but it wasn’t always like that. It took Tillie Johnson, from Jamaica to turn that place upside down.

Ethilda ‘Tillie’ Johnson changed the landscape of the market and Hamilton itself.

Tillie’s friend, Evelyn Myrie says, “she wanted to go to school. However, her father couldn’t afford it, and they gave her food to sell in the market, instead.” The market sold Caribbean and African groceries, the first store was on Concession Street. She eventually moved it to the Farmers’ Market downtown.

Myrie says, “one of the first Black person to open, one of the first, to open the space in the Hamilton market offering foods for mainly the immigrant population from the Americas, from Africa and the Caribbean.”

Tillie’s arrival expanded the Hamilton Farmers’ Markets taste palate to a whole other level. It was an experience that Shane Coleman, who runs Dilly’s Farmacy, the market’s oldest retailer, still remembers from his childhood.

“She was the first person selling imported. Back then it was all farmers just selling local produce, she was the first person to bring in like papayas and cassava. Most people didn’t know what a cassava was back then,” Coleman said.

What Coleman remembers most, however, isn’t the food, but Tillie’s unmatched generosity, “when I was a kid she’d give us cinnamon sticks. So we chew on them as well as helped my grandfather in the market and also sugar cane.”

For Tillie, her food didn’t just nourish your body, but your soul. “She was able to use her foods to engage people, to have conversation. She made you smile and made a tremendous amount of friends in this market. Everybody knew Tillie… she’s an icon, one of Hamilton’s icon, a fierce, feisty, outspoken, caring, giving woman,” Myrie said.

Not everyone embraced Johnson’s energy. She took the city to court after she says it stood pat on her complaints of racial abuse.

Despite her treatment, Johnson would continue to be her giving self at the market, eventually extending her generosity to the next generation by creating a scholarship for African Canadian students experiencing financial difficulties.

Tillie’s contributions led to an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from McMaster University and was inducted into Hamilton’s Gallery of Distinction in 2006. She died ten years later and in 2022 she was immortalized with a plaque at the entrance to the market, just steps away from where she made so many people smile.