First Black RCMP officer from Cape Breton remembered nearly 4 decades after his death

Jonathan Skeete is remembered as the first Black RCMP officer from Cape Breton, and so much more.

It has been nearly 40 years since he passed away, but Const. Jonathan Skeete’s memory still looms large in his home community of Whitney Pier, N.S.

“He was my big brother, and he was someone I always looked up to,” said Jonathan’s younger brother, Darcy Skeete, from his home in Dartmouth, N.S., on Wednesday.

In 1981, Jonathan graduated as an RCMP officer.

With his first posting in Saskatchewan, he became the first Black person from Cape Breton to wear the red serge.

Darcy says his brother’s career began at a time when it could be difficult for people of colour to advance in certain fields and recalls the magnitude of the moment.

“Not that we were oppressed, but there was this stigma that if you’re Black you’re only going to amount to certain arenas in life,” he said.

“Growing up in Whitney Pier on Tupper Street, Jonathan was always a community mentor, coach,” added Darren Desmond, Jonathan’s childhood friend.

Desmond is manager of student services at the Nova Scotia Community College Sydney Waterfront Campus, where a charcoal sketch of Jonathan is on the wall in the school’s community room.

He said the future Mountie was like a big brother to younger people, like himself, in Whitney Pier.

“Way ahead of his time,” Desmond said. “You hear these buzzwords that are out there now around community development, I mean Jonathan was doing community development before it was titled ‘community development.’”

Jonathan is also remembered for his involvement in athletics, including at Dalhousie University in Halifax, where he excelled in intramural sports, and through an annual run in his home community of Whitney Pier.

“They do it every summer, I think it’s in August, the Jonathan Skeete Fun Run,” said Paul MacDougall, a Cape Breton sports history writer.

Jonathan died of cancer in 1987 at the young age of 34, but MacDougall said he packed a lot of achievements into his years.

“Jonathan did so much more than many other people would ever accomplish in the shorter time he had, and we still remember him for that,” said MacDougall.

Darcy says his brother’s legacy can be summed up simply.

“Someone who inspired us to be the best that we can be,” he said. “To try hard, to work hard, to be a better person.”

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