While Americans will have to wait until 2026 to have a woman of colour on currency, Canadians now have the new $10 bill with Viola Desmond on the Canadian note.
The new $10 bill is the first to feature a Canadian woman; Queen Elizabeth II is on the $20 bill. The bill is also the first vertical bill in the history of Canadian currency. The Canadian Museum of Human Rights in Winnipeg is on the back of the new bill.
Wanda Robson (above), younger sister of Desmond, was the first person to make a purchase with the bill.
On November 8, 1946, Viola Desmond bought a movie ticket after her car broke down in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. She wanted to sit in the main floor of the theatre, but the theatre would only sell Desmond a balcony ticket. Desmond sat on the main floor. She was forcibly removed from the theatre, arrested, and spent the night in jail.
Black people weren't allowed to sit in the main floor of the theatre. Desmond was charged with tax evasion over the 1¢ difference between the balcony vs. the main floor ticket.
Desmond was given a pardon in 2010. She passed away at the age of 50 in 1965.
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Robson said she would take the $10 bill and buy a book co-written by her and Cape Breton University professor Graham Reynolds about her sister. Robson would then give the book to her 12-year-old granddaughter.
Viola Desmond's story has been made into a Heritage Minute. Canadian actor Kandyse McClure portrayed Desmond in the Heritage Minute feature.
Canada's first vertical bill meets the first Canadian woman to grace a banknote. pic.twitter.com/K1mb40CM9a
— HuffPost Canada (@HuffPostCanada) November 20, 2018
I was thinking about Desmond when Cory Bowles was in Chicago for his film Black Cop. The discussion after the Q&A talked about the North End in Halifax and the history of discrimination against black people in Nova Scotia. I said out loud that those stories belonged on the big screen.
Just getting back from Canada, I may not end up with a $10 bill anytime soon. But I hope to hold on in my hands in the next few months. When I do, I'll think of Viola Desmond's courage and struggle in the fight for civil rights in Canada.
photo credit: Global News
video credit: YouTube/Historica Canada
Twitter capture: @HuffPostCanada
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