Viola Desmond

In 1946, Viola Desmond, a black Canadian, purchased a movie ticket for a segregated movie theatre in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. She elected to sit not in the balcony section reserved for black but in the lower section reserved for whites. She was removed from the theatre, charged (of all things, failure to not pay a one cent tax on the ticket! How Canadian!) and fined (she fought the court costs).


Now, a great wrong has been righted. Miss Desmond has been officially pardoned.

The government of Nova Scotia apologized and granted a special pardon Thursday to the late Viola Desmond, a black woman jailed in 1946 for sitting in a whites-only section of a segregated movie theatre. Premier Darrell Dexter said he is sorry to Desmond's family and all black Nova Scotians for the racism she was subjected to in an incident he called unjust.

Desmond, then 32, was on her way to Sydney, N.S., on Nov. 8, 1946, to sell imported beauty products when her car broke down.

She went to the Roseland Theatre in New Glasgow, N.S., while it was being repaired. But she was forcibly removed from the theatre by police, jailed and fined.

"The arrest, detainment and conviction of Viola Desmond is an example in our history where the law was used to perpetrate racism and racial segregation," Dexter said.

What strikes me as touching about this special pardon is that it was deserved. In the case of Miss Desmond, a working Canadian was brusquely and unfairly treated because of the colour of her skin. It is a true case of human dignity triumphing over unfairness, very much unlike the mind-numbingly political correctness that pockmarks the social landscape of today.