Viola (Davis) Desmond

November 8, 1946

On this date, Viola Desmond, a successful beautician and businesswoman, was traveling 

from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Sydney to deliver orders of her beauty products. Her car 

developed a mechanical problem near New Glasgow and the garage mechanic advised 

her he would have to order a part and the car would be repaired the next morning. She 

decided to catch a movie at the Roseland Theatre

Viola is black, and a segregated theatre doesn’t allow blacks to sit down stairs, only in the 

balcony. She purchased a ticket, was given a balcony ticket and not realizing the theatre 

was segregated sat in the lower section. The usher told Viola that she had an upstairs 

ticket and was asked to move upstairs. Viola went to the ticket office and asked for a 

down stairs ticket, she was told “We don’t sell downstairs tickets to you people”. Viola 

returned to her seat. In spite of maintaining that she had offered to purchase the correct 

ticket and was doing no wrong, she was eventually physically and forcefully removed by 

the theatre manager and a policeman. (Viola stood 4ft. 11in. tall and weighed less than 

100 pounds). She was arrested, and after spending the night in jail was taken before a 

judge in the morning. (9 November)

Viola was convicted of defrauding the government of 1 cent. This was the difference in 

the Provincial Amusement tax of 2¢ on the upstairs tickets and 3¢ for lower floor. Viola 

was fined 20 dollars and 6 dollars court cost or 30 days in jail. She paid the $26.00 and 

returned back home to Halifax.  There was no mention made of race or the segregation 

of the theatre during her trial.

Viola’s injuries were examined by her family doctor, Dr. Waddell. She was advised by her 

father that she should appeal her conviction. The recently formed Nova Scotia Association 

for the Advancement of Colored People (N.S.A.A.C.P.) took up her case and a lawyer 

was hired. The appeal was denied by Supreme Court Justice M.B. Archibald and was 

then put before the full bench of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia.  The full court upheld 

Justice Archibald’s decision. The denial was due to the appeal process used and a late 

filing of the same. Again no mention was made during the appeal trials that the case was 

about racism. However, one of the justices, Justice W. L. Hall, did comment:

  

“One wonders if the manager of the theatre who laid the complaint was 

so zealous because of a bona fide belief that an attempt to defraud the 

Province of Nova Scotia of the sum of one cent, or was it a surreptitious 

endeavor to enforce a Jim Crow rule by misuse of a public statute”.

Her lawyer, F. W. Bissett did not bill for his work.

Black Canadian Curriculum – ETFO – 2014