Viola Desmond
By
John C Abercrombie
Today is day 12 of 31 and features a case of creative law enforcement and what one country does to correct an injustice.
Arrested in Canada for sitting on the main floor of a movie. Injured during the arrest, she was charged with tax evasion, because the difference in tax on the cost of a ticket was $0.01 (yes, one penny) and fined $26.00. Find what Canada did to correct the unlawful arrest.
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As we investigate people, places and incidents in Black History, we are often surprised. Surprised in part because so many of our ideas are based on stereotypes. In the case of people who have not been exposed to Black people, the stereotype is often influenced by what is “learned” from limited contact and the influences that are often portrayed on the radio, television, in movies and printed material.
In my youth, there were people in blackface putting on extreme examples of buffoonery that vilified an entire race of people with negative stereotypes making them look stupid, without courage, or ambition. This together with no examples of real Black people doing anything meaningful, meeting academic challenges or the development of brilliant ideas leaves many people both Black and White with an extremely distorted view of Blacks which is most unfortunate and long lasting with devastating consequences.
In the case of Viola Desmond, she is Canadian which we often never consider, even though run away slaves found freedom that they could not find in the United States. We have covered many other cases where Blacks have had a much better reception in other countries than the United States. It is ironic that Blacks had to go to other countries to find what immigrants came here to find, opportunity and dignity.
Viola Davis was born July 6, 1914 to James and Gwendolin Davis in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her mother was White and her Father Black. Her father worked as a stevedore before becoming a barber. The family was accepted by the Black community and the family was active in many community organizations.
Viola’s parents were hard working and she was no different. Viola taught for 2 years in the segregated schools before beginning a study at Field Beauty Culture School, one of the few such institutions in Canada that accepted Black students. She continued her training in Atlantic City, New Jersey and New York City before opening Vi’s Studio of Beauty Culture in Halifax.
Beauty parlors allowed shop owners the opportunity to achieve status and authority in the community and provided a financial opportunity that was rare for Blacks and for women.
Successful in business, Viola opened a beauty school, she also created a line of beauty products which were sold to salons owned by graduates of the beauty school. The school supported the growth and employment of young Black women, allowing them to own and operate their own businesses.
While racism was practiced in Canada, there were no written laws as there was in the US.
In 1946, Viola was on a trip delivering product to some of the shops her students were operating when her car broke down in New Glasgow. After finding that the car would not be ready until the next day, she obtained a hotel room and decided to attend a movie to pass the time.
She requested a ticket on the main floor, but was given one to the balcony, where non-White customers were normally placed. Not realizing that she had been given a ticket to the balcony, Viola walked into the main floor and was challenged by the ticket taker. Believing there had been a mistake, she returned to the ticket counter and was told by the cashier that she was not permitted to sale tickets to “you people”. Viola Desmond returned to the main floor.
Henry MacNeil told Desmond the theater had the right to “refuse admission to any objectionable person”. When she refused to leave, the police were called and Desmond was dragged out, injuring her hip and knee. She was arrested and taken to jail.
The police chief, Elmo Langille and the theater manager, MacNeil returned with a warrant for Desmond’s arrest and held her in a cell overnight.
Now get this! In the morning Desmond was hauled into court and charged with attempting to defraud the provincial government based on her alleged refusal to pay a one cent amusement tax. This represented the difference in the tax on the upstairs versus the downstairs ticket. The total cost of the upstairs ticket w as 20 cents and the downstairs ticket 30 cents. The difference in tax was 1 penny. Although she had requested the higher price ticket and when a problem arose attempted to do so again.
For this egregious violation of 1 cent, she was fined $26.00, with $6.00 of this going to MacNeil the manager of the theater. MacNeil had been listed in the court proceedings as prosecutor.
Desmond was not provided with legal representation or informed that she was entitled to have representation.
While the real offence was to violate the implicit rule that Blacks were relegated to the balcony in an interview with the Toronto Daily Star, MacNeil stated that there was no rule against it, but it was customary, common knowledge in New Glasgow that the theater was segregated. Remember Desmond was only there because her car had broken down.
The Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NSAACP) raised money for Desmond’s defense.
Given the nature of the case Desmond’s White lawyer, Frederick Bissett chose to sue based on her physical injuries that Desmond had been forcibly ejected which would entitle her to compensation on the grounds of assault, malicious prosecution and false imprisonment.
The case was considered by the Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Maynard Brown Archibald and dismissed as the 10-day deadline for filing an appeal to the original conviction had passed.
Because of the hard work on behalf of Desmond by civil rights organizations, segregation was legally ended in Nova Scotia in 1954.
After the ordeal, her marriage ended, and she moved to Montreal and later to New York City, where she died February 7. 1965.
Interesting story, but how did it result in her latest honor?
As you will recall, the family was always involved in community activities, educational pursuits and at the age of 73, Viola Desmond’s sister Wanda Robson was enrolled in a course on race relations at what is now Cape Breton University being taught by Graham Reynolds.
As Reynolds told the case of Viola Desmond, Robson spoke out that that was her sister. With the help of Reynolds, Robson began an effort to tell her sister’s story, which included a book about Viola Desmond’s experience. The book is “Sister to Courage, published in 2010.
April 15, 2010, Viola Desmond was granted a free pardon by Nova Scotia Lieutenant-Governor Mayann Francis at a ceremony in Halifax.
The pardon was accompanied by a public declaration and apology from Premier Darrell Dexter and recognized that Desmond’s conviction was a miscarriage of justice and the acknowledgement that charges never should have been filed.
At the formal ceremony, Percy Paris, Minister of African Nova Scotian Affairs and Economic and Rural Development stated, “With this pardon, we are acknowledging the wrongdoing of the past,” and “we are reinforcing our stance that discrimination and hate will not be tolerated.”
A Viola Desmond Chair in Social Justice was established at Cape Breton University in 2010 and in 2012, Canada Post issued a postage stamp bearing her image. A Heritage Minute relating to Desmond’s story was released during Black History Month in 2016.
Desmond was inducted to Canada’s Walk of Fame under the Philanthropy & Humanities category in 2017.
January 2018, she was named a National Historic Person by the Canadian government.
November 19, 2018, the $10 bill featuring Viola Desmond was released. The bill was unique in several aspects. It was Canada’s first Vertical banknote and features a map of the North End of Halifax where Desmond lived and worked. Also, on the bill is an excerpt from the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: “Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefits of he law without discrimination.” The Canadian Museum of Human Rights is featured on the back of this bill.
February 2019, the Royal Canadian Mint announced the release of its first Black History Month coin, a pure silver coin featuring an engraved portrait of Viola Desmond.
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Continue scrolling down for more amazing information, videos, books and value items. Videos, Books and other value offers Viola Desmond unveiled as new face of Canadian $10 Bill
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Sister to Courage by Wanda Robson
Written by her Sister Wanda
In Sister to Courage, Wanda takes us inside the world she shared with Viola and ten other brothers and sisters. Through touching and often hilarious stories, she traces the roots of courage and ambition, god fun and dignity, of the household that produced Viola Desmond.
Tough and compassionate, Viola shines through beyond the moment she was carried out of Roseland movie theatre for refusing to sit I the blacks-only section. Viola emerges as a defender of family and a successful entrepreneur whose momentum was blocked by racism.
With honesty and wit, Wanda Robson Tells her own brave story, giving new life to two remarkable women and the family the lov
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Featuring Wanda Robson and Mayann Francis, Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, Canida
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Viola Desmond Won’t Be Budged
In 1946, Viola Desmond bought a movie ticket at the Roseland Theatre in Nova Scotia. After settling into a main floor seat, an usher came by and told her to move, because her ticket was only good for the balcony. She offered to pay the difference in price but was refused: “You people have to sit in the upstairs section.” Viola refused to move. She was hauled off to jail, but her actions gave strength and inspiration to Canada’s black community. Vibrant illustrations and oral-style prose tell Viola’s story with sympathy and historical accuracy.
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Viola Desmond Community Talks: Episode 1
This video includes the role of Mayann Francis, the first Black female Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, Canada. Delmore “Buddy” Daye Learning Institute presents a series of community talks. These talks carry on Viola’s legacy of entrepreneurship, education and social action, inspiring the leadership that lives within all of us. Produced by the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia.
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Viola Desmonds Canada: A History of Blacks and Racial Segregation in the Promised Land •
In 1946, Viola Desmond was wrongfully arrested for sitting in a whites-only section of a movie theatre in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. In 2010, the Nova Scotia Government recognized this gross miscarriage of justice and posthumously granted her a free pardon.
Most Canadians are aware of Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat on a racially segregated bus in Alabama, but Viola Desmond’s act of resistance occurred nine years earlier. However, many Canadians are still unaware of Desmond’s story or that racial segregation existed throughout many parts of Canada during most of the twentieth century. On the subject of race, Canadians seem to exhibit a form of collective amnesia.
Viola Desmond’s Canada is a groundbreaking book that provides a concise overview of the narrative of the Black experience in Canada. Reynolds traces this narrative from slavery under French and British rule in the eighteenth century to the practice of racial segregation and the fight for racial equality in the twentieth century. Included are personal recollections by Wanda Robson, Viola Desmond’s youngest sister, together with important but previously unpublished documents and other primary sources in the history of Blacks in Canada
by Fernwood Books Ltd
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Heritage moment – viola desmond
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Viola Desmond: Her Life and Times •
by Roseway Publishing Many Canadians know that Viola Desmond is the first Black, non-royal woman to be featured on Canadian currency. But fewer know the details of Viola Desmond’s life and legacy. In 1946, Desmond was arrested for refusing to give up her seat in a whites-only section of a movie theatre in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. Her singular act of courage was a catalyst in the struggle for racial equality that eventually ended segregation in Nova Scotia.
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