Desmond $10 bill unveiled
Viola Desmond’s trailblazing act of defiance — overlooked for decades by most Canadians — was honoured Thursday in a Halifax ceremony that cemented her new status as a civil rights icon.
A new $10 bill featuring Desmond was unveiled by Finance Minister Bill Morneau and Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz.
The purple polymer bill — the first vertically oriented bank note issued in Canada — includes a portrait of Desmond and a historic map of north end Halifax on one side and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg on the other.
“It was long past time for a bank note to feature an iconic Canadian woman,’’ Poloz told the large crowd that had gathered at the Halifax Central Library on International Women’s Day despite a blustery snowstorm and flickering power.
Morneau said the deck was “doubly stacked’’ against Desmond because of her gender and the colour of her skin. He said she stood up for what she believed in and helped make the country a better place. Desmond becomes the first black person — and the first non-royal woman — on a regularly circulating Canadian bank note.
“It’s a long-awaited sense of belonging
for the African Canadian community,’’ said Russell Grosse, executive director of the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia. “The launch of the bill sends people of African descent the message that Canada is finally accepting us. We belong.’’
The bill marks a growing recognition of Desmond’s refusal to leave the whitesonly section of a Nova Scotia movie theatre on Nov. 8, 1946 — nearly a decade before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Alabama — and the seminal role it played in Canada’s civil rights movement.