Bessie Lee (

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...

Lum; August 26, 1924 – December 22, 2016) was a

Chinese Canadian , native_name = , native_name_lang = , image = Chinese Canadian population by province.svg , image_caption = Chinese Canadians as percent of population by province / territory , pop = 1,715,7704.63% of the ...

community organizer and civic activist in Vancouver's Strathcona and

Chinatown A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...

neighbourhoods. She was a co-founder and long-time President of th
Strathcona Property Owners and Tenants Association
(SPOTA), which was instrumental in mobilizing several neighborhoods to work together to stop a freeway in the late 1960s that would have run through the heart of many of Vancouver's inner-city neighborhoods. Lee was also a founding member of the Britannia Community Centre and a board member of the Strathcona Community Centre. She won the BC Community Achievement Award in 2014.

Early life and education

Lee grew up in Vancouver's Chinatown in the 1930s. She attended

Lord Strathcona Elementary School The Vancouver School Board (VSB; officially School District 39 Vancouver) is a school district based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. A board of nine trustees normally manages this district that serves the city of Vancouver and the Uni ...

and Vancouver Normal School. Her family operated a fish and general store that served the Chinese bachelors living in

. From her mother, an herbalist, Lee learned how to prepare herbal tonics and medicinal preparations made from roots, leaves, bark and wild animal parts that the older men would bring in from the bush. Because her father died young, Lee quit school before graduation to help her widowed mother run the business. When she was 20 years of age, Bessie eloped with Henry James Lee. They had eight children.

Strathcona Property Owners and Tenants Association (SPOTA)

In 1968, out of necessity, Bessie Lee embarked on a lengthy career as a community organizer and civic activist. With her home threatened by expropriation and the bulldozer under Phase 3 of the City of Vancouver's Urban Renewal Project and with nowhere else to go, Lee decided to get involved. She was a co-founder of the SPOTA with fellow Vancouver civic activist

Mary Lee Chan Mary Lee Chan (Lee Wo Soon) (1915–2002) was a civic activist in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, who is noted for leading the opposition to the bulldozing of the Strathcona neighbourhood in the late 1960s. With her husband, Walter, and her d ...

in November/December 1968. SPOTA was a strong unified community voice against the freeway that was planned to through Strathcona as part of an "

urban renewal Urban renewal (also called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address urban decay in cities. Urban renewal involves the clearing out of blighte ...

" program. At the beginning of SPOTA, Lee initially served as the English Secretary eventually becoming its long-time President. Lee and SPOTA helped to halt the program as it would have destroyed the older neighborhoods of Vancouver. In 1968, Robert Andras, the federal minister in charge of housing for

Pierre Trudeau Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau ( , ; October 18, 1919 – September 28, 2000), also referred to by his initials PET, was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 15th prime minister of Canada The prime mini ...

's new Liberal government met with SPOTA. Andras' visit resulted in the halting of the City of Vancouver's existing redevelopment plan and an investment of $5 million in a pilot project. Itt engaged SPOTA in a planning process that involved each level of government and saw existing buildings, streets, and sidewalks in Strathcona rehabilitated and new parks and a community centre built. The pilot became a national program for preserving older, inner city neighborhoods. SPOTA received a Governor General's award for this project.

Advocacy work

Among her many achievements, Lee spearheaded the campaign to build affordable co-operative, infill housing for families and seniors on vacant lots. She worked to improve health and social services delivery to Strathcona families and elders. She helped to develop and manage integrated community recreation centers and parks in Strathcona and Grandview Woodland. Lee was a founding member of the Britannia Community Centre and the Strathcona Community Centre's elected Boards. The Strathcona Linear Park was a direct result of her determination that the City of Vancouver replace the original MacLean Park that was superseded by public housing towers. As a member of the Strathcona Rehabilitation Project steering committee she negotiated funding to build the Strathcona Linear Park and the Strathcona Community Centre. Working alongside others, Lee helped to pioneer innovative, culturally hybrid forms of community organizing such as ribbon cutting ceremonies, open houses and teas, walking tours and multi-venue Chinese banquets during municipal, provincial and federal elections to raise funds and to bring local issues to the forefront. In an interview in the book ''Opening Doors'', Lee said: "We have to remind the city that when they decide to change things in a community they must always consider the social planning of that community and the concerns of the people who live in it."

Awards

Lee won the BC Community Achievement Award in 2014.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Bessie 1924 births 2016 deaths People from Vancouver Canadian women activists Canadian people of Chinese descent