Canada Honours Civil Rights Icon Viola Desmond by Putting Her On the $10 Bill

Today Viola Desmond will become the first black person ever and the first non-royal woman ever to appear on regularly circulating Canadian dollar bills.

In a ceremony to honour Desmond in Halifax today at 12:30 PM, Finance Minister Bill Morneau and Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz will reveal the $10 bill bearing her likeness.

Desmond was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1914. Throughout her life, she was a businesswoman and beautician who mentored young black women. Following an incident in which she faced an act of racial discrimination in November 1946, she became a civil rights icon.

“It’s a long-awaited sense of belonging for the African Canadian community,” Russell Grosse, executive director of the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia, told Global News. “The launch of the bill sends people of African descent the message that Canada is finally accepting us. We belong.”

On November 8, 1946, Desmond refused to accept it when a movie theatre clerk in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia would not allow her to purchase a ticket for a seating area customarily used solely by white people. Desmond was only allowed to purchase a ticket for a segregated section (on the balcony) but sat in the section she was prohibited from anyway, on the main floor. This resulted in the theatre manager calling the cops. They dragged out of the theatre—which left her injured—and threw her in jail overnight.

Desmond was charged with attempting to defraud the provincial government via not paying the one-cent amusement tax, the difference between ticket prices in the segregated areas of the theatre. However, Desmond had offered to pay the difference in price, which she made known when attempting to purchase the proper ticket at the theatre.

Desmond’s criminal conviction was brought to the Nova Scotia Supreme Court by her lawyer in hopes of having the conviction put aside. However, in 1947, the court ruled against Desmond. Her conviction stood. She ended up paying a $20 fine and $6 in court fees.

Desmond’s case is known for inspiring the civil rights movement in Nova Scotia, a province with a long history of injustice toward its black population, going back to the 1600s.

The incident involving Desmond at the theatre in Nova Scotia occurred almost a decade before American civil rights icon Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

Though she died in 1965, Desmond was pardoned in 2010, along with an apology and a public declaration by Premier Darrell Dexter, who described what happened to her as an injustice.