"For many Canadians, the first introduction to Viola Desmond will have been was seeing her portrait on the new $10 banknote. Those who are familiar with her life Others know that she was wrongfully arrested in 1946 for refusing to give up her seat in the racially segregated Roseland Theater in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. Her singular act of courage was a catalyst in the struggle for racial equality, which ultimately resulted in the passage of human rights legislation that officially ended the practice of racial segregation in Nova Scotia. Today, Viola Desmond has become a national civil rights icon, and a symbol of courage in the face of injustice. She is considered by many as Canada'a Rosa Parks. Viola Desmond: Her Life and Times looks beyond the theatre incident is the first authoritative biography of this remarkable woman. It provides new research and insights into her life, and it details not only her act of courage in resisting the practice of racial segregation but also her extraordinary achievement as a pioneer African Canadian businesswomen. In spite of the widespread racial barriers that existed in Canada during most of the twentieth century, Viola Desmond succeeded in becoming the preeminent Black beauty culturist in Canada. In the late 1930s, she established the first Black beauty studio in Halifax and in the 1940s, she created her own line of beauty products, which she marketed throughout Atlantic Canada. During this same period, she established the Desmond School of Beauty Culture, the first of its kind in Canada."--
Reviews with the most likes.
As glad as I am that there exists, in the world and in my library system, a biography of an accessible length about a Black woman, about her relation to Black activism, the history of racism in Canada (primarily Nova Scotia), and what it was to be an entrepreneur in the 40s and 50s, having learned while reading this book that both authors have previous published works involving the life of Viola Desmond, I can't help but think that an updated edition of each of their books including whichever bits of material were not available originally to be included would be better then the piecemeal, repetitive nature of this work.
I couldn't shake the repeated impression of redundant passages added to bulk up the word count, alongside the feeling that the historical context of Viola's times, and the subsequent history of racism and racial justice in Canada, and the United States, made up far more of the book than her life did.
I wish I had read other books cited here so I could confidently point readers in other directions.
There are facts and history here, but the overall experience is scattered and incomplete. A tragic part of this seems to be sections of Viola's life lost to time, which makes me more grateful that she is recognized as an important figure in Canadian history, now.
I do appreciate the epilogue underlining the reality of systemic racism as part of Canada's present, not just it's past, and the urgent need for a “full acknowledgement of the problem” in light of supremacist forces resurgence on both sides of the border and statistics emphasizing ongoing discrimination today.
