The Trailblazing Life of Viola Desmond: A Civil Rights Icon

The growing number of publications about Viola Desmond and her times bring the story of a now recognizable figure to children and adults alike. One of the earliest books for very young readers is Viola Desmond Won’t Be Budged! by Jody Nyasha Warner and Richard Rudnicki (www.cmreviews.ca/cm/vol17/no1/violadesmondwontbebudged.html). It focuses almost exclusively upon the Roseland Theatre incident and subsequent court cases. Another picture book, Meet Viola Desmond (www.cmreviews.ca/cm/vol24/no39/meetvioladesmond.html) by Elizabeth MacLeod and Mike Deas, is a more fulsome biography that includes recent developments that are tributes to Desmond’s human and civil rights activism. With The Trailblazing Life of Viola Desmond: A Civil Rights Icon, Kehoe, with Robson and Charles, crafts a magnificent life story of Desmond in chapter book format for older elementary and middle school readers. In this telling, informed with the late Wanda Robson’s memories of her admired sister Viola, Kehoe writes what will be the go-to biography for this age level for a long time to come.

The introduction sets the context for racial segregation in both Canada and the United States that eventually sparked the civil rights movement in the USA. The extent of racial discrimination in Canada soon becomes clear as the book proceeds in a chronological fashion with several side bars describing historic examples of segregation and discrimination in Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia. Barred from attending teacher’s college in Truro, Nova Scotia, because of her race, Viola became a teacher at segregated schools and saved her earnings to pursue another dream, that of attending the Field Beauty Culture School in Montreal. The year was 1936, and Viola Davis was 22 years of age when she moved to Montreal. While studying, she married Jack Desmond, the first registered Black barber in Halifax and an entrepreneur. Back in Halifax the following year, Viola opened her first business venture, Vi’s Studio of Beauty Culture. She continued learning about beauty culture for Black women and introduced her own line of beauty products. Perhaps it was because she had no children of her own that Viola devoted so much energy supporting and training other women. In 1944, she established the Desmond School of Beauty Culture and began training other young Black women to become hairdressers and aestheticians. When she was roughed up, arrested and jailed in New Glasgow in November 1946 for sitting in the whites only section of the Roseland Theatre, the charges skirted the real reason for the incident and instead asserted that she had failed to pay the extra ten cents to sit downstairs and importantly the one cent tax due, despite the fact that the theatre would not sell her a ticket for the downstairs seats. Viola considered not paying the fine and spending 30 days in jail, but she felt responsible for her students and wanted to return home as soon as possible. Viola’s motherliness is also apparent in Wanda’s memories when Viola and their mother both attended Parents’ Day and confronted Wanda’s prejudiced second grade teacher.

Back in Halifax, Viola was encouraged by fellow Black citizens to appeal her conviction. Civil rights activist and journalist Carrie Best printed the account of Desmond’s treatment on the first page of her newspaper, the Clarion, and encouraged readers to support the Viola Desmond Court Fund. Ultimately the appeal failed. Desmond’s husband did not support Viola as he feared that an appeal would “only stir up more trouble.” Even Wanda initially was embarrassed by the publicity about the case. In one of the pages captioned “Notes from Wanda”, Wanda is quoted saying:

At the time I didn’t understand how what happened to Viola was connected to the larger struggle for social justice and equal rights. Of course I felt concerned for my sister, but I hated how much attention the case was getting. The only thing I could think about was that she had been to jail and that this somehow had let the family down.

In later years, Wanda understood the bigger picture and became her sister’s largest promoter, working for years to bring her story to the attention of the Canadian public.

Viola continued to operate Vi’s Studio of Beauty Culture until 1955, by which time the market for her beauty products had been taken over by larger corporations. She had separated from her husband the previous year and took her entrepreneurial drive in a new direction. Moving to Montreal and then New York, she studied at business colleges and became an entertainment agent. She died suddenly in her Harlem apartment in February 1965 at the age of 50.

The book concludes with a chapter entitled “Viola’s Legacy” that records changes in provincial and federal laws to outlaw discrimination based on race. The premier of Nova Scotia apologized to Viola’s family and the Black community of Nova Scotia in 2010. She was granted a free pardon, the first Canadian to receive a pardon posthumously. In March 2018, a $10 bill was unveiled featuring a portrait of Viola Desmond on the front.

The book includes a very brief timeline that includes more posthumous recognitions of Desmond’s historic importance, such as the issue of a commemorative stamp in 2012, induction into Canada’s Walk of Fame, and her declaration as a National Historic Person. A two-page glossary defines terms highlighted in the text in bold. Resources noted include print and online sources. The final volume will have an index.

All public libraries and middle schools will want to add this biography to their collections. More than a biography of a social justice activist, it exposes the context of racial discrimination in Nova Scotia and Canada, and it highlights the entrepreneurial success of a trailblazing Black woman and her rich legacy.