Viola Desmond is the historical figure honoured on the new Canadian ten dollar bill, which went into circulation today.
Her sister, Wanda Robson 91, was at the ceremony in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and got to spend the first banknote.
Viola Desmond’s banknote: the first in Canada to be printed with vertical images, it features a map of Halifax’s North End on the face, and the Canadian Museum of Human Rights on the back ( Bank of Canada-Flikr)
Viola Desmond was the Nova Scotia woman who became one of Canada’s human rights pioneers.
Celebrate Viola!
In 1946, after paying her admission into a movie theatre in New Glasgow, she refused to sit in the balcony, and instead sat in the whites-only section on the main floor.
Arrested and jailed overnight, she was convicted of a minor tax violation for the one-cent tax difference between the upstairs seat and the seat she used.
Her case is now one of the most well-known incidents of racial discrimination and was, at the time, a catalyst for the modern civil rights movement in Canada.
Viola Desmond died at the age of 50 in 1965. She was posthumously pardoned in 2010.
“Isn’t that wonderful to think that people that don’t know what happened, and what Viola did; the ones that don’t know will be educated by this ten dollar bill.” her youngest sister Wanda said.
Robson is delighted with the honour, and it’s being celebrated by the entire community of North Halifax.
As the CBC’s Sherri Borden Colley discovered, everyone is out to celebrate Viola!
ListenAnd it is all the result of a campaign started in 2013.
Merna Forster, the historian and author of, 100 Canadian Heroines: Famous and Forgotten Faces, was the woman behind the on-line petition to have the Bank of Canada commit to including women on our currency.
The site was at, womenonbanknotes.ca.
Merna Forster, leader of the national campaign to get Canadian women on bank notes, and Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz (Justin Tang photo).
And that’s where more than 73,000 people registered their support, including some very high profile names such as Canadian writer, Margaret Atwood.
Merna Forster was successful when the Bank of Canada requested Canadians participate in an online survey suggesting women to be featured on the bank note.
Of the 461 Canadian women’s names submitted, Viola Desmond was chosen.
Meanwhile, Carolyn A. Wilkins, the Senior Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada, is the first woman whose signature is featured on our banknotes.
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