Reverend George W. Slater Jr., a Black Christian Socialist Vision for a Rustic City Community in 1920s' Alberta.

This article focuses on Reverend George W. Slater Jr.'s complex role as a Black Christian socialist and community leader in Alberta during the 1920s, highlighting his dual contributions through his newspaper columns "Our Negro Citizens" (ONCs) and his cooperative community proposal titled "Rustic City" (RC). While Slater's public writings in ONCs aligned more with Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association and emphasized Black entrepreneurship and self-determination, his RC plan revealed his enduring commitment to socialist collectivism, advocating for cooperative ownership and community organization beyond race-based frameworks. The Rustic City proposal, published in the Journal of the Town Planning Institute of Canada, presented a radical vision for sustainable rural communities based on collective economic principles, though it was met with skepticism and racialized erasure by contemporary planners. Together, these documents provide insight into Slater's intersectional philosophy that combined Christian ethics, socialism, and Black community uplift within the broader socio-political context of racist immigration policies and colonial land dispossession in early twentieth-century Canada.