Rosemary Brown migrated from Jamaica to Canada when she was 19 years old to study at McGill University.

Brown's commemorative stamp is one of two to be issued by Canada Post for Black History Month in February.

Brown, who died at age 72 in 2003, was the first black woman elected to public office in Canada when she won a seat in the British Columbia legislature for the New Democratic Party in 1972.

Racism Canadian-style

In her 1989 autobiography, Being Brown: A Very Public Life, Brown said she encountered "racism Canadian-style - polite, denied and accepted".

Her experience in Canada was not what she expected. She could not find anyone at McGill to share accommodations with just because she was black. Brown had to be in a room by herself.

"Despite the fact that that particular form of racial discrimination worked in my favour economically, it made me angry, and my anger was compounded by my frustration," she wrote.

However, Brown refused to be pigeonholed because of her colour.

She obtained her bachelor of arts degree in 1955 and worked at the Montreal Children's Hospital before leaving to live with her husband in Vancouver.