Keeping the Faith with Viola

Did you know that there were a series of events in Halifax to celebrate the release of the new ten dollar bill featuring Viola Desmond? One of them was a worship service held by New Horizons Baptist Church, an historically African Nova Scotian church formerly known as the Cornwallis Street Baptist Church.I was glad to hear that this service took place. 

By now most of us are aware that Desmond’s stand against racial segregation in a New Glasgow theatre in 1946. Viola refused to leave an area of the theatre reserved for whites and ended up being arrested, jailed and fined. was a major event for the Canadian civil rights movement. Desmond's high-profile fight against racism generated so much publicity that Nova Scotia was forced to throw out its segregation laws in 1954. All this happened nine years before American Rosa Parks took action in the United States, making Viola Desmond not only a civil rights trailblazer in Canada, but throughout North America. 

 

What we seldom hear is that Viola's faith community was instrumental in overturning this injustice. When she returned to her home in Halifax she discussed what had unfolded with her husband, and his advice was to let it go. However, she then sought advice from the leaders of the Cornwallis Street Baptist Church where the Minister William Pearly Oliver and his wife Pearline encouraged her to take action. With their support, Desmond decided to fight the charge in court.

With the help of her church and the Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NSAACP), Desmond hired a lawyer, Frederick William Bissett, who represented her in the criminal trials and attempted, unsuccessfully, to file a lawsuit against the Roseland Theatre. During subsequent trials the government insisted on arguing that this was a case of tax evasion -- the one cent difference in the cost of the ticket.Bissett, who was white, refused to take payment for representing her. 




Eventually, 64 years later, on April 14, 2010, the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, Mayann Francis on the advice of Premier Darrell Dexter, invoked the Royal Prerogative and granted Desmond a posthumous free pardon, the first such to be granted in Canada.

I hope we never take for granted Viola Desmond's courageous challenge of racism in this country and that when we handle one of those tens we will remember the support of her congregation. Although she died young it really is wonderful that her sister, Wanda, was the first person in Canada to use the Viola Desmond bill.