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[Silexx]

You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie0xWYRSX7Y&list=PL1848FF9428CA9A4A&index=1

For those unfamiliar with the Heritage minutes:

Heritage Minutes, formerly known as Historica Minutes: History by the Minute, is a series of sixty-second short films, each illustrating an important moment in Canadian history. The Minutes integrate Canadian history, folklore and myths into dramatic storylines.

Viola's story is not well-known even in Canada. But her story is eerily similar to Rosa Parks (even though it happened before):

Viola Desmond joined her husband Jack Desmond in a combined barbershop and hairdressing salon, a beauty parlour on Gottingen Street. While on a business trip to sell her beauty products, Viola went to New Glasgow in 1946. While driving through New Glasgow on November 8, 1946, Viola Desmond's car broke down and she was told that she would have to wait a day before the parts to fix it became available. To pass the time while waiting, she went to see a movie at the Roseland Film Theatre. She bought a ticket, asking for a seat on the main floor. As she took a seat on the main floor, she was told by the manager that she did not have the ticket for that seat. She returned to the ticket booth, where she was informed that it was against their policy to give a main floor seat ticket to a black person. Desmond returned to the main floor and refused to sit in the balcony designated exclusively for blacks in the segregated Roseland Theatre. She was forcibly removed from the theatre and injured in the process, and arrested. She was kept in jail overnight, and was never informed about her right to legal advice, a lawyer, or bail.[9] Desmond was fined CA$20 (equivalent to $271 in 2016)[10] and court costs of $6. She paid the fine and returned to Halifax.

During subsequent trials the government insisted on arguing that this was a case of tax evasion. Retail sales tax was calculated based on the price of the theatre ticket. Since the theatre would only agree to sell Desmond a cheaper balcony ticket, but she had insisted upon sitting in the more expensive main floor seat, she was one cent short on tax; tax evasion was the reason for her being removed from the theatre, jailed overnight, tried without counsel, convicted and fined.

Bissett's decision to opt for a judicial review rather than appeal the original conviction proved disastrous. Further, Desmond's lawyer tried to appeal the decision on the basis of her being wrongfully accused of tax evasion – not on the basis of racial discrimination.[12] When dismissing the case, Justice William Lorimer Hall said:
“ Had the matter reached the court by some other method than certiorari there might have been an opportunity to right the wrong done this unfortunate woman. One wonders if the manager of the theatre who laid the complaint was so zealous because of a bona fide belief that there had been an attempt to defraud the province of Nova Scotia of the sum of one cent, or was it a surreptitious endeavour to enforce a Jim Crow rule by misuse of a public statute. ”
— Justice William Lorimer Hall, when dismissing Desmond's application.

Upon losing the case, Bissett refused to bill Desmond and his fees were donated back to William Pearly Oliver's Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Coloured People.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_Desmond

So to clarify: Viola Desmond was charged with tax evasion for failure to pay a tax that she was not allowed to pay for in the first place (due to the colour of her skin). I guess you can say she is also Canada's Wesley Snipes.

 

[Cesare Borgia]

Viola Desmond Theory.

Good news.

 

[Shaanyboi]

Thanks for sharing.

 

[WrenchNinja]

I didn't know they still made heritage minute ads. I was listening to cbc radio the other day and these 20 something dudes were goofing on how ridiculous some of them were, like the Canadian flag one and the invention of basketball one.

 

[hobozero]

New Glasgow is my home town, and I went to that theater all the time in the 80's and 90's. My dad would always tell me that when he was a kid in the 50's the balcony area of the Roseland was referred to as "n*gger heaven". Viola was definitely not the first person of color ejected from the floor area, and I'm glad she's being recognized for her courage.

Thanks for sharing the link. Glad the CBC is shining a light on examples like this.