Dalmar Abuzeid, who portrayed Danny Van Zandt for six seasons on the long-running teen drama Degrassi, is making television history.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Abuzeid has joined the second season of the Netflix series Anne With an E in what will be the first black character in any reiteration of Anne of Green Gables. Abuzeid will portray Sebastian Lacroix, an Afro-Caribbean manual laborer who hails from Trinidad. Sebastian arrives in the series’ fictional setting of Avonlea and is introduced as a friend of Gilbert Blythe, the love interest of Anne Shirley, played by Amybeth McNulty.

For those unfamiliar, the Netflix series is based on the tale of Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery’s 1908 novel chronicling an orphaned redhead in rural Prince Edward Island that has seen several earlier adaptations, including movies, TV shows and even a theme park. Throughout these reincarnations of Montgomery’s tale, there hasn’t been any black character to inhabit the world of Anne Shirley until now.

“It’s incredible the way I’m being introduced into a story that already has this history and this audience, and that means so much because I get to be part of that story with the new perspective of an Afro-Caribbean in the world of Anne,” Abuzeid told The Hollywood Reporter.

The second season of Anne with an E will premiere on Netflix Friday, July 6.

Dalmar Abuzeid

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