Canada Female Black Rights Activist to be Featured on Bill

Civil rights pioneer Viola Desmond will be the first Canadian woman to be featured on the ten dollar bill. I doubt most Canadians have ever heard of Viola, although she was featured on a stamp in 2012.  On November 8, 1946, she went to the  Roseland Theatre in Nova Scotia to see a movie. Black people could only sit in the balcony of the theatre but Viola sat in the downstairs section which was only for whites.

She was removed, taken to jail, and charged with defrauding the Province of a penny because she had not paid the 1 cent extra to sit downstairs. Viola appealed and her court case was the first known legal challenge against racial segregation brought forward by a black woman in Canada.

Read the full story at Black rights activist Viola Desmond to be 1st Canadian woman on $10 bill

Other stories and bios of Viola (Davis) Desmond:

How civil rights icon Viola Desmond helped change course of Canadian history

Heritage Minutes 

Heritage Designation for Black Cemetery

The Smith Cemetery on Banwell Road, which dates back to 1850, was designated a historical site in September by the Town of Tecumseh, Ontario. It will receive a provincial designation in a ceremony planned for the summer and will be renamed the Historic Banwell Road Black Cemetery.

One of those buried is James Ross. Ross was murdered at the age of 80 in July 1899. On 06 February 1900 his killer 30 year old Levi Stewart was hung for the crime in Sandwich, Ontario (currently part of Windsor). 

There are only 5 surviving headstones in the cemetery but more than 100 black Canadians are believed to be buried there.17 known burials can be viewed on Find-A-Grave

Continue reading at the CBC article Black cemetery in Tecumseh receiving heritage designation  

Caveat: the date of death given in the article on CBC for James Ross is incorrect. His death certificate clearly shows the year of death to be 1899.