*The Canadian government announced that civil rights activist Viola Desmond will become the first woman of color to appear on the country’s banknotes.
Desmond, who challenged racial segregation at a film theatre in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia in 1946, will be the new face of Canada’s $10 bill. As her story goes, on Nov. 8, 1946, she took a seat downstairs at a New Glasgow movie theater, unaware of the policy prohibiting blacks from doing so. People of color were to watch from the balcony.
When an usher informed her that her ticket was for the balcony, Viola attempted to trade it in for a lower level seat, but the racist cashier refused her on account of her race. That’s when Desmond returned to her “whites only” seat and refused to leave.
She was forcibly removed from the theater, put in jail and charged with attempting to defraud the provincial government by not paying the one-cent difference for the seat. Refinery29.com notes how she was provided with no attorney or legal representation and fined $26. Desmond filed a civil suit to appeal the charges, but it never made it to court.
Sadly, she passed away in 1965 at the age of 50. A year before she died, her case led to the abolition of segregation laws in Nova Scotia.
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Seventy years later, Viola Desmond is making history yet again by becoming the first Canadian woman of color to appear on a Canadian banknote.
“Desmond’s perseverance, and the attention generated by her case, paved the way for a broader movement to recognize the importance of human rights in Canada,” the Bank of Canada wrote.
In 2010, Desmond was granted a pardon posthumously by Nova Scotia’s then-lieutenant governor, Mayann Francis. She was also issued a formal apology by the provincial government, Jet magazine reports.
“It’s been a long time to right a wrong, but you have to say something for justice; really it works sometimes,” Desmond’s younger sister, Wanda Robson, told Canadian Broadcasting Corp. News years ago. “The wheels of justice grind slowly.”
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