Sister to courage, woman of strength

With the death of Wanda Eloise Davis Robson on Feb. 6, a candle went out whose unwavering light will be hard to rival.

The 95-year-old activist was passionate and persistent — a firebrand who dedicated much of her life to sharing her sister’s story, but in doing so created a legacy of her own.

Born in Halifax in 1926, Robson grew up the youngest of 11 children, one of whom was a sister older by 12 years, Viola Desmond.

Desmond is known across Canada as the woman who defied segregation rules in a New Glasgow, N.S. movie theatre in 1946.

When she refused to move out of the whites-only section, she was convicted of a tax offence and fined $26.

As The Toronto Star reported, in 2000 Robson was taking a university course in race relations and was asked to recount Desmond’s story.

“It just became my mission,” she said, of what became her platform for trying to make the world a better place.

Robson went on to speak to school children about her sister and wrote several books about Desmond’s life — including “Sister to Courage: Stories from the World of Viola Desmond, Canada’s Rosa Parks,” in 2010.

With support from others, like civil rights activist and journalism pioneer Carrie Best — founder of The Clarion, the first Nova Scotian newspaper owned by Black Canadians — Robson took Desmond’s story to the world.

Desmond died in 1965, but thanks to her sister’s tenacity, she was posthumously pardoned and went on to become the first Canadian woman to have her image appear on Canadian currency when she appeared on the $10 bill in 2018.

It was one of the happiest moments of Robson’s life.

“A woman — a Black woman — is on the $10 bill,” she said. “The Queen is in good company.”

And so were we, during Robson’s lifetime.

She impressed many when — having been unable to continue her university studies as a single mother in the 1940s — she enrolled at Cape Breton University and earned a bachelor of arts degree at the age of 77.

Passionate about teaching as well as learning, she took great pride in the interest the children she spoke to had in learning about their history.

“Young Black children, they seem to be interested in not only themselves, but in making the world a better place,” she once said.

They surely had a good role model in Wanda Robson.

Short in stature, with twinkling eyes and a wide smile, she was a giant in her ability to speak about injustice in a way that inspired others to want to do better.

In insuring Viola Desmond’s story is never forgotten, she has achieved a remarkable feat of her own.

Robson was to have been invested into the Order of Nova Scotia before her death, but the pandemic delayed the ceremony until this spring. Like all the honours she received, it is truly well deserved.