“Panthers or Thieves”: Racialized Knowledge and the Regulatory of Africville by Jennifer J. Nelson focuses on the stereotypical and one-sided approach that most research studies have addressed and publications on Africville in the first half of the 20th century. The black community of Africville was considered a poor, racialized slum; key factors, ultimately, for its end. The city of Halifax considered it their “dumping ground” where all social services were lacking, social conditions worsened, and a history of poverty would be indicative of how the region would be defined in the years before its destruction (Nelson 121-122). It became known to mean many things in the mainstream community and to outsiders generally: a slum; a depot for the company's waste; a place of danger, degeneration, lawlessness; a social problem; an object of pity, a place of attempted social reform and rescue; a place of daring escape and transgression (133). The decision to eliminate the long-standing community was reflected in academic studies and planning reports commissioned by the city as a means to t...