Viola Desmond 723KB Sep 26 2014 02:20:30 PM

Viola Desmond Our Own Civil Rights Activist

Taking a Stance in Nova Scotia Almost 10 years before Rosa Parks step onto a bus in Montgomery and refused to give up her seat, ultimately igniting the Civil Rights Movement, Viola Desmond was dragged out of a movie theater and later arrested in New Glasgow because she refused to sit in the balcony section of the theatre that was designated for Blacks.

Viola Desmond

The Case of Viola Desmond November 8, 1946 On this day, Viola Desmond, a successful Halifax beautician and businesswoman, decided to catch a movie at the Roseland Theatre in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. Viola is black, and the segregated theatre doesn't allow Blacks to sit in the downstairs seats, only in the balcony. She will be given a balcony ticket but will sit downstairs in spite of the "no-Blacks" rule. She will be arrested for allegedly defrauding the government of the 1 percent amusement tax on the higher-priced downstairs seats. She will be thrown in jail for 12 hours and eventually fined $20 and sentenced to 30 days in prison. Her appeal will succeed on a technicality. The recently formed Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NSAACP) will help raise the money to pay the fine and bring the "Jim Crow" law to public attention. Viola's efforts will not be in vain. The publicity that her case brings will help put an end to this kind of discrimination.

Jim Crow Laws From the 1880s into the 1960s, many States and Provinces (kinda) enforced segregation through "Jim Crow" laws (so called after a black character in minstrel shows – comedy show). Many places imposed legal punishments on people for consorting with members of another race. The most common types of laws forbade intermarriage and ordered business owners and public institutions to keep their black and white clientele separated. Canada did not officially have Jim Crow laws but: “if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck…”

Success Together, with Dr. Carrie Best, founder of NS’s first Black newspaper, and Pearleen Oliver, co-founder of the Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, they lobbied the Government of NS

and after a vigorous campaign, the government repealed its discriminatory policies in 1954 (more than a year before Rosa Parks and the bus Boycott).

The Case Today…

2010 Nova Scotia has apologized and granted a pardon to Viola Desmond, a black

woman who was convicted for sitting in a whites-only section of a movie theatre in

1946. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nova-scotia/story/2010/04/15/ns-desmond-apologydexter.html

"Today is meant to right a 65-year-old wrong“ Said by Justice Minister Ross Landry

The free pardon for Desmond, who died in 1965, was signed by Lt.-Gov. Francis — the first black person to serve as the Queen's representative in the province. "It is only on rare occasions — with the clarity of hindsight and benefit of careful thought and measured reason — that a society comes together to undo the wrongs of the past," Francis said. This is the first time such a pardon for the innocent and wrongly convicted has been posthumously awarded in Canada, according to the province.

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Clara Halfpenny on Viola Desmond http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk9Odkfhuw

Reading • Pages 183 - 189 • Do questions 1-3