VIOLA
LEARN THE STORY
ACT ONE
A PIONEER IS BORN
Viola Desmond was born in 1914 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. From an early age she dreamed of opening a beauty salon, but discovered that beauty schools in Nova Scotia did not accept black students. She persevered and trained in Montréal and the United States, then returned to run her own beauty school and salon as a successful entrepreneur in Nova Scotia.
ACT TWO
ROSELAND THEATRE
In 1946, what started as a business trip for Viola turned into an act of social justice. At the Roseland Theatre in Nova Scotia, Viola stood up to racial segregation refusing to give up her seat in the lower section of the theatre which was ‘reserved’ for whites only. Viola was forcibly removed and jailed, sparking the civil rights movement in Canada.
Wanda Robson (left) and her sister Viola Desmond (right) at the Hi-Hat Club, Boston, 1955.
ACT THREE
SISTER TO COURAGE
70 years later, through the acts of her sister Wanda Robson, and a supportive community, she’s been granted a posthumous pardon, commemorated on a Canadian stamp, and dons the face of the ten dollar bill.
