Akua Benjamin

Akua Benjamin is a Canadian scholar and social worker at Toronto Metropolitan University. She is notable for defining the term anti-Black racism.

Career Benjamin was born in Trinidad, and migrated to Canada in 1969.

She began teaching at Toronto Metropolitan University, then called Ryerson University, in 1988.

She co-founded the Anti-Black Racism Network, which raised awareness of racial profiling.

In 2025, Benjamin was depicted in a Toronto Transit Commission bus with artwork by Shannia Lewis.

She is the namesake of the Akua Benjamin Legacy Project, which was established in 2016 by the Toronto Metropolitan University. The people depicted were Rosie Douglas, Dudley Laws, Charles Roach, Marlene Green, and wife and husband duo Gwen and Lenny Johnson.