Posted: Apr 30, 2021 3:26 PM AT | Last Updated: April 30
Wanda Robson, sister of Viola Desmond, holds a $10 bank note featuring Desmond during a press conference in Halifax in 2018. A new school in Ontario will bear Desmond s name.(Darren Calabrese/The Canadian Press)
A new school being built in Ontario will honour Nova Scotia s civil rights icon Viola Desmond.
The Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board announced the new school will welcome 682 elementary students this fall.
Desmond, a businesswoman and beautician, was jailed in 1946 for sitting in the whites-only section of a New Glasgow, N.S., movie theatre.
The theatre s policy forced Black people to sit upstairs in a balcony.
Varishini Deochand shown on a Zoom call
Photo Credit: CBC
Ontario teenager Varishini Deochand wrote to Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil with a special request in the name of Viola Desmond.
Deochand, a grade 11 student from Vaughan, Ont., asked the province of Nova Scotia to symbolically reimburse court costs charged to Desmond when she was convicted in 1946.
Desmond was dragged out of New Glasgow, N.S. movie theatre for sitting in a whites-only seat. She was charged on Nov. 9, 1946 with, “attempting to defraud the provincial government based on her alleged refusal to pay a one-cent amusement tax.”
Desmond was ordered to pay court costs of $26, approximately in today’s dollars.
La Nouvelle-Écosse rembourse symboliquement l'amende de 26 $ de Viola Desmond acadienouvelle.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from acadienouvelle.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
A high-school student from Ontario wrote Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil, asking that the family of Viola Desmond be reimbursed for the fine and court fees levied against the Halifax civil rights activist back in 1946.