Viola Desmond
| Viola Desmond | |
|---|---|
Viola Desmond
|
|
| Born |
Viola Irene Davis July 6, 1914 Halifax, Nova Scotia |
| Died | February 7, 1965 (aged 50) New York City, New York |
| Nationality | Canada |
| Education | Bloomfield High School |
| Occupation | Business owner and beautician |
| Spouse(s) | Jack Desmond |
Viola Irene Desmond (July 6, 1914 – February 7, 1965) was a Canadian Black Nova Scotian businesswoman who challenged racial segregation at a film theatre in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia in 1946. She refused to leave a whites-only area of the Roseland Theatre and was convicted of a minor tax violation for the one-cent tax difference between her paid and used seat. Desmond's case is one of the most publicized incidents of racial discrimination in Canadian history and helped start the modern civil rights movement in Canada.
In 2010, Desmond was granted a posthumous pardon, the first to be granted in Canada. The government of Nova Scotia also apologized for prosecuting her for tax evasion, and acknowledged she was rightfully resisting racial discrimination. In 2016, the Bank of Canada announced that Desmond will be the first Canadian woman to be featured on the front of a banknote. She is slated to appear on the $10 bill in 2018.
Viola Desmond (née Davis) was born on July 6, 1914, one of ten children of James Albert and Gwendolin Irene (née Johnson) Davis. Viola grew up with parents who were active in the black community in Halifax, despite the fact that her mother was white and her father black, unusual for the time.
Growing up, Desmond noted the absence of professional hair- and skin-care products for black women, and set her sights on addressing the need. Being of African descent, Viola Desmond was not allowed to train to become a beautician in Halifax, so she left and received beautician training in Montreal, Atlantic City, and one of Madame C.J. Walker's beauty schools in New York. Upon finishing her training, Viola Desmond returned to Halifax to start her own hair salon. Her clients included Portia White and a young Gwen Jenkins, later the first black nurse in Nova Scotia.
In addition to the salon, Desmond set up The Desmond School of Beauty Culture so that black women would not have to travel as far as she did to receive proper training. Catering to women from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Quebec, the school operated using a vertical integration framework. Students were provided with the skills required to open their own businesses and provide jobs for other black women within their communities. Each year as many as fifteen women graduated from the school, all of whom had been denied admission to whites-only training schools. Desmond also started her own line of beauty products, Vi's Beauty Products which she marketed and sold herself.
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