A black woman who refused to leave the whites-only section of a Canadian movie theatre in 1946 – nearly a decade before Rosa Parks’s act of defiance – has been honoured on the country’s newest $10 bill. Civil rights pioneer Viola Desmond was selected from the more than 26,000 submissions that rolled in after the Bank of Canada announced plans to put a Canadian woman on the country’s regularly circulating currency for the first time. It was a segregated space – floor seats were for white people while black people were relegated to the balcony. “Here I am, 64 years later – a black woman giving freedom to another black woman,” Francis later told Maclean’s Magazine. “I say thank you, thank you, thank you,” said Robson.

Source: The Guardian March 09, 2018 20:42 UTC