The Canada Atlas

Learn / People who shaped Canada

Viola Desmond

Businesswoman and civil rights figure · 1914-1965

Viola Desmond
Unknown author · Public domain

Refused to leave the whites-only floor of a Nova Scotia cinema nine years before Rosa Parks.

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Life story

  1. July 6, 1914 · Halifax
    Born in Halifax
  2. 1940 · Halifax
    Opened a beauty studio and a training school for Black women barred from other schools
  3. November 8, 1946 · New Glasgow, Nova Scotia
    Arrested at the Roseland Theatre in New Glasgow for sitting downstairs
  4. 1947 · Halifax
    Lost her appeal; convicted of defrauding the province of one cent in amusement tax
  5. February 7, 1965 · New York
    Died in New York
  6. April 15, 2010 · Halifax
    Granted a posthumous free pardon, the first in Canadian history

Sources