Viola Desmond’s Legacy
We will never know what future success Viola might have had in her beauty culture business had she not left Canada and moved to the United States. Although her beauty culture enterprise never expanded beyond the Maritimes, it lasted for almost two decades and Viola had a lasting influence on those who knew her, especially on the young women who attended Desmond School of Beauty Culture. She instilled in her graduates many of the same qualities of character and demeanour she herself possessed. In spite of the difficulties Black women had in finding work outside the domestic service industry during the post-war years, many of Viola’s graduates became professional hairdressers and a few even established successful beauty salons in Halifax and other parts of Canada. Although Viola’s graduates did not all become successful beauticians, they did achieve respectability and some measure of independence in their lives.
Rose Gannon, who graduated from Desmond School of Beauty Culture in 1944, continued to work as Viola’s assistant until the early 1950s. After she married and Viola left Halifax, Rose moved with her husband to Toronto. Like many of Viola’s graduates, Rose continued to practice hairdressing, but with the responsibilities of raising her children, she conducted her business from her home on a part-time basis. Rose was also involved in a wide range of community organizations in Toronto, including Meals-on-Wheels and a women’s social club, which she co-founded. She encouraged her six children to also get involved in community activities, as each child was enrolled in music programs and in a variety of social groups.1
Rachel Kane, also from the class of 1944, built a successful hairdressing business from word-of-mouth and, as her daughter, Debbie Quinn, states: “She expanded her base … to customers all over the region (Halifax, Amherst, Truro and Springhill), but … as her family grew, her customers would come to her home.” Rachel continued her business after she moved to Montreal and Debbie remembers her mother doing customers’ hair at home while she was growing up during the 1960s.2
Geraldine (States) Hunter, from the class of 1947, lived in Halifax until she died in 1994 at the age of sixty-eight. After she graduated from Desmond School of Beauty Culture, she became a self-described “professional hairdresser,” which she made into a successful career. Over the years, she built a loyal clientele and had the reputation of being one of the best hairdressers in the region.3
Bernadine (Hampden) Bishop, like several other graduates, operated her hairdressing business from her home. She lived on Creighton Street in the North End. She also took her business to her clients and was often seen by her neighbours leaving her home, carrying her signature beautician bag to service her customers. After she married, she moved to Cherrybrook, outside of Dartmouth, and opened a beauty salon in her basement. Bernadine’s daughter remembers her mother continued with her business but, over time, she reduced her hours of service and eventually closed her business to become more involved with church activities and to raise her children. Bernadine, however, never ceased practising her profession by doing her friends’ and relatives’ hair. After her children grew older, she was employed as a clerical worker with the Nova Scotia Light and Power Company.4
Not all of Viola’s graduates were able to support themselves as beauty culturists. Ruth Jackson and her sister Vivian, for example, both graduated from Desmond School of Beauty Culture in 1947 and they worked as beauticians for only a few years. Given the challenges facing Black women in finding work and maintaining their own businesses during post-war years, they both eventually were forced to give up the hairdressing profession. Ruth worked for a while in the domestic service industry until she eventually found employment in the Nova Scotia Public Works Department. Her sister Vivian moved to Kingston, Ontario and worked in a variety of jobs within the domestic service industry.5 Other graduates decided to pursue different careers for purely personal reasons. Viola’s oldest sister Helen, for example, moved to Montreal after she graduated in 1947 and trained in the service industry to become a professional cook. She was highly regarded in her profession and for a number of years she worked at several Montreal hotels and restaurants.6
Viola’s graduates experienced the traditional post-war contours of life, which offered only limited employment opportunities for women. Although the advantages of education gave some women a clearer path toward independence and the pursuit of professional careers, the majority of women who sought employment outside the home had fewer opportunities and had greater difficulties juggling family responsibilities with the demands of work. Black women faced the double burden of race and gender and their employment choices were generally limited to domestic service or clerical work. Viola’s graduates faced similar challenges of race and gender, however, being a beautician afforded Black women a level of respect and this, in turn, advanced the struggle for social acceptance and racial equality.
Viola’s influence, of course, reached far beyond her students and others who knew her and today she has become a widely recognized symbol of respect, independence and success—a truly modern woman and a ‘feminist,’ even before the term became popular during the women’s movement of the 1960s. She is perhaps even better known today as a symbol of courage in the struggle for equal rights. Her resistance to the practice of racial segregation at the Roseland Theatre in 1946 served as a catalyst in raising public awareness that eventually lead to the passage of human rights legislation in Nova Scotia. Her rise from historical obscurity to prominence helps shine a lasting light upon the long and difficult struggle not only for human rights legislation, but for the effort to improve the social and economic conditions of Black communities across Canada.
Canadian Human Rights Movements
The history of human rights movements in Canada has been obscured by the more dramatic struggles that were taking place in the United Stated and, as we noted earlier, because the very existence of racial segregation and other forms of racial discrimination were not generally enacted into law. The only major exceptions to this pattern of racial segregation were schools and the military. In simplest terms, it was difficult to mount a legal battle in order to pass legislation against something that didn’t legally exist in the first place. This paradox is reflected in Viola Desmond’s wrongful conviction, which was not based on her refusal to give up her seat because she sat in a “white only” section of the theatre, but on defrauding the province of one cent in amusement tax. Unlike the United States, there was no specific law in Nova Scotia, or anywhere in Canada, that enforced racial segregation in public places. In Canada, as well, there was no nationally organized effort among Blacks to fight against racial discrimination and, for this reason, the struggle for racial equality developed provincially in a piecemeal manner.
In the larger historical context, the provincially-based human rights movements in Canada are closely connected to the events of World War II and its aftermath, especially the horrors of the Holocaust which involved the systematic persecution and murder of over 10 million people. Following the Armistice, the world’s attention turned to the Nurnberg Trials, which bore witness to Nazi war crimes and punished many of those who committed those crimes. When the United Nations passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, it established, for the first time in human history, international standards of humanity. The Nuremburg Trials and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights had the effect of raising international awareness and compelling governments to recognize, in the words of the preamble to the Declaration, “the inherent dignity and … the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family.”7
In post-war Canada, there was gradual acceptance of these principles and as early as 1947, a year before the Declaration, the Saskatchewan government, under the leadership of Tommy Douglas, passed the first comprehensive Saskatchewan Bill of Rights Act.8 Although the Act lacked legal enforcement, it was the first legislation in Canada prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of race, religion, ethnicity and national origin. In Nova Scotia, like most other provinces, human rights legislation developed much more slowly over the post-war era, culminating in the passage of the Human Rights Act of 1963 and the creation of the Human Rights Commission in 1967.9 By the 1970s, according to historian Dominique Clement, a distinctly Canadian culture of human rights emerged—one that would eventually transform nearly every aspect of Canadian society.10
For many Blacks in Canada and the United States, World War II brought to light the contradiction between the continuing existence of intolerance and racism at home and the fight to end these evils in Nazi Germany. This helped motivate a new generation of activists who individually and collectively sought to combat racism and improve the economic and social conditions within Black communities. As mentioned earlier, during the war, Reverend William Oliver and a group of Black businessmen were refused service in a Halifax restaurant. This incident angered his young wife Pearleen and helped induce her to begin a concerted public and private campaign to address the persistence of racial discrimination in Nova Scotia and in Canada. She gave a number of public talks during the early 1940s and, as she noted later in her life, she was the first Black speaker to cross the colour barrier that existed in Halifax hotels in order to address local white businessmen.11
Reverend William Oliver served for twenty-five years (1937–1962) as the minister of Cornwallis Street Baptist Church in Halifax (now New Horizons Baptist Church). In 1945, Oliver was appointed to serve part-time with the Adult Education Division of the Department of Education, which gave him a unique opportunity to work with the government to improve the educational opportunities of Black adults in the province, as well as assist to develop human rights legislation. That same year, Reverend Oliver, his wife Pearleen, and seven other prominent Black leaders founded the Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (nsaacp), which was modelled after the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (naacp) founded in 1909 in the United Sates.12 The Association’s goal was to improve education, employment, housing and human relations in Black communities. It also promoted human rights legislation and, according to historian Bridglal Pachai, it helped inaugurate a new era in the politics of change in Nova Scotia.13
By the mid-1950s, the winds of change were clearly in the air. By this time, Viola had left Canada and was living in New York City, but those leaders in the Black community who had rallied behind her continued the fight for racial equality and human rights in the country. In 1954, the legislation that allowed racially segregated public schools in Nova Scotia was unceremoniously repealed by the provincial legislature. Although de facto racially segregated schools continued in some Black communities in the province, the legislative action was an important step in addressing the deeply rooted practice of racial segregation. In 1959, the Nova Scotia government under the leadership of Robert Stanfield passed the Fair Accommodations Act, which was modelled after similar legislation that was passed into law in Ontario four years earlier. The Act prohibited discrimination in public places, including hotels, restaurants and theatres on the basis of race, religion, ethnic origin and nationality.14
In 1962, Premier Stanfield announced the creation of a special Inter-Departmental Committee on Human Rights. The committee was chaired by the minister of public welfare, W.S. Kennedy Jones, and was made up of other cabinet ministers and deputy ministers, including the premier, who served as the minister of education. Reverend Oliver also attended the meetings because of his leadership within the Black community and his appointment to the Adult Education Division of the Department of Education. The committee surveyed the social and economic conditions of Black communities within the province and it set about consolidating existing anti-discrimination legislation into a single all-encompassing Human Rights Act. The Act was passed into law the following year and its language and scope was strikingly similar to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It “affirmed the principle that every person is free and equal in dignity and rights, without regard to race, religion, religious creed, colour or ethnic or national origin.”15 In 1967, the government established the Human Rights Commission with the mandate of enforcing, on a case-by-case basis, the principles of non-discrimination laid out in the Human Rights Act in relation to areas of employment, pay, housing and advertising.16
In his address commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Human Rights Commission in 1992, Robert Stanfield stated that he always had a very special relationship with Nova Scotia’s Black community. He shared his memories about growing up in Truro, Nova Scotia, and the friendships he had with his Black classmates in high school. In advocating for human rights legislation, Stanfield stressed that although his proposed legislation “was to have jurisdiction in a broad area of human rights, the primary motive in its establishment was to increase actively the opportunities of Black Nova Scotians.”17 His effort to push the human rights legislation through the cabinet and the government bureaucracy was not, however, without difficulty and, according to Fred R. MacKinnon, deputy minister of public welfare, the success and timing of the legislation was largely the result of Stanfield’s leadership. “In meeting after meeting it was he who prodded, goaded and encouraged all public servants and his fellow cabinet ministers to get moving and take definitive action. Without him, human rights legislation might not have been introduced for at least another decade.”18
Stanfield’s commitment to human rights and his desire to push for speedy enactment of legislation was in direct response to the increased racial tensions of the period. As an astute politician and observer of current events, he responded to what he perceived as a threat posed by radical and potentially violent activists. He believed the passage of human rights legislation was not only the right thing to do, but it would also lessen racial tensions.
The Dynamics of Change: The 1960s, 1970s and Beyond
Human rights legislation had no immediate effect on improving the lives of Black Nova Scotians. Black women during this period, for example, continued to experience limited employment opportunities and like Viola’s graduates, they carried the double burden of being Black and being a woman.
The post-war era was a difficult period for Black communities. Beginning in the 1950s, Halifax’s North End underwent a process economic and social decline. The buildings and infrastructure deteriorated and, according to historian Paul Erickson, “streets and railways became dilapidated, and old houses were carved up into ramshackle apartments and rooms, destroying their architectural integrity and making parts of the North End look like a refugee-swollen city in Europe.”19 Under the promise of urban renewal, the city hired the services of Gordon Stephenson, a professor of town and regional planning at the University of Toronto. Stephenson proposed a large-scale urban development plan for modernizing the North End, which involved tearing down older “slum” buildings and replacing them with new multi-storey apartments, office buildings, shopping centres and new urban parking lots. The plan also required many North End streets to be redesigned to increase the flow of traffic to the Halifax downtown core.
Stephenson’s plan was completed in 1957 and the city implemented nearly all of its recommendations. By 1962, according to Erickson, “most of the area around Jacob Street had been razed and its residents relocated to Mulgrave Park. On the site rose Scotia Square, a complex of concrete office, commercial, and residential high rises begun in 1966 and completed ten years later.” The public reaction to this new development was mixed “with some Haligonians praising it as a wave of the future and others criticizing it for unwisely obliterating the past. One predicted consequence was that Scotia Square attracted business from the vicinity and hastened the decline of Gottingen Street.”20
Halifax’s urban development had a disruptive and prolonged negative impact on Black neighbourhoods in the North End. Yet, as bad as things were for this community, they were far worse for the residents of Africville.
Many white Haligonians considered Africville as “a national blot on the city of Halifax”—a slum community made up of “transients and squatters.”21 In spite of government neglect and a lack of services, the community had survived for over 150 years but, as part of Halifax’s urban development strategy, the city council was determined to have it removed. Beginning in 1964, Africville properties were expropriated and destroyed, building-by-building, until the last remaining home was demolished in January 1970. A central portion of the former Black community, site of the Seaview United Baptist Church, was turned into a dog park, which was scenically located beneath the newly constructed McKay Bridge, linking Halifax and Dartmouth.
Government policies, whether by racist design, unintended consequences or neglect, had the effect of heightening racial anxieties and worsening the social and economic conditions within Nova Scotia Black communities. Speaking before the New Brunswick Human Rights Commission in 1968, H.A.J. “Gus” Wedderburn, president of the nsaacp and member of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, described the general condition of Blacks in the Maritimes as “depressed” (his italics). He likened their communities to “impoverished ghetto[s] with dilapidated housing, unpaved roads and only minimal public services….” The children in these ghetto communities, he said, “usually attend segregated schools, are potential school dropouts, while the adults, because they lack education and training, remain unemployed or underemployed for a greater part of the year.”22 Reverend William Oliver provided a similar picture of the Black communities in Nova Scotia in a survey he conducted four years earlier for the Adult Education Division of the Nova Scotia Department of Education. Oliver found that among the 1,300 Black residents of Halifax, thirteen were attending high school and only two had obtained university degrees. In North Preston, which had a Black population of 1,800, Oliver found the majority of males had no educational qualifications and they worked in unskilled seasonal labour, while most of the women in the community did domestic work. He concluded that the level of education directly influenced employment opportunities.23 Oliver’s survey reflected Stanfield’s later observation that without the existence of employment opportunities, there was little incentive for Blacks to stay in school in order to complete high school, trades school or obtain a university education.
For Blacks in Nova Scotia and in the rest of Canada, the 1960s was a period of ongoing tension between the promise and anticipation of a more just society and the stark realities of race relations. It was also a time like few others in modern history when the convergence of domestic and world events shaped cultural and political movements in both the United States and Canada. In addition to racial conflicts that led to urban race riots that broke out in Watts, Los Angeles, Detroit and in other major cities in the United States, the reaction to the Vietnam War took on a radical and even revolutionary posture that erupted into violence in 1968 during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. This was only one of a series of violent incidents that culminated in the Kent State shooting on May 4, 1970, when the Ohio National Guard opened fire on a group of anti-war demonstrators, killing four unarmed students and wounding nine others. In college and university campuses across the United States, the anti-war movement served as a catalyst that helped bring together draft-age students with radical elements of the civil rights movement, which included the women’s movement, Black Power and Red Power. A new generation of young grassroots Black leaders had become increasingly disillusioned with the strategy of non-violence under the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. One of the most influential and best-known among this new generation of Black leaders was Trinidadian-American Stokely Carmichael, chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (sncc) and a leader of the Black Panther Party.
Carmichael joined sncc as a freshman at Howard University in 1960 and a year later he travelled south on the Freedom Rides, which was an organized non-violent protest against the practice of racial segregation on inter-state highways. Carmichael was arrested in Mississippi for entering a “whites only” segregated bathroom and spent forty-nine days in jail. His arrest only strengthened his resolve as a civil rights activist, which eventually led him to split with Martin Luther King, Jr. and his more moderate non-violent strategy for achieving racial integration. He was also a staunch anti-war advocate and before he broke with King, he managed to persuade him to adopt a similar anti-war stance.24
Carmichael eventually allied himself with other Black militants like Huey Newton, Eldridge Cleaver and Bobby Seale, and became famous for his call for “Black Power.” In 1969, he left sncc and became the head of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California, a community-based self-help organization that advocated the use of armed force in their own self-defense.25
The anti-war and civil rights movements in the United States had a significant influence on Canada. This is particularly evident with the younger generation of civil rights activists who came of age during the 1960s. One of the most prominent among these young leaders was Burnley “Rocky” Jones, who grew up in Truro, Nova Scotia. At sixteen years old, Jones joined the army and after serving three years, he moved to Toronto in 1960 and worked as a truck driver.
In 1965, Jones had a chance encounter with a group of white protesters outside the American Consulate who were demonstrating for Black voter rights in Alabama. The demonstration was organized by the Friends of sncc and it consisted of an eclectic gathering of Canadian new left activists, including members of the Student Union for Peace Action (supa). As the only Black person present, Jones immediately drew the attention of the protesters as well as the media. When a reporter put a microphone in front of his face, Jones offered words of support for the demonstrators and made the comment that “we’ve got a similar situation today in Nova Scotia.” Recalling this incident in his autobiography, Jones said the next day a “big spread” appeared in the Toronto Star in which he was referred to as “Canada’s Own Stokely Carmichael.”26 From this moment on, Jones became a popular spokesperson for civil rights and Black activism in Canada. He quickly turned his attention to the plight of Blacks in Nova Scotia and with funding from supa he organized the Nova Scotia Nonviolent Action Project, which was commonly known as the Nova Scotia Project, or simply, the Project.27
Drawing on the organizational philosophy of supa, the Project was built around the idea of “participatory democracy.”28 Jones and other young Black leaders who supported the Project believed some of the problems facing their community were the direct result of government policies and the control the government had in deciding which institutions and programs should be funded. They believed meaningful change could only come about through grassroots activism in which people take control of their own communities. Initially, the Project addressed some of the immediate consequences of North End urban development in the areas of housing and recreation. It helped organize a Tenant’s Association to fight for fair rents and decent housing conditions. It also turned a vacant lot into a safe neighbourhood playground, which they called the Tot Lot. These were relatively small projects, but as Jones later wrote, they “acted as a springboard” to “allow us to talk about larger things and mobilize the community on different issues.”29
The Project successfully advanced the idea that Black residents of the North End did not have to wait for solutions to be imposed by government or other outside agencies, but they could take control over their own lives and determine their own destiny. As Jones would later state, this proved to be a “revolutionary philosophy” with a very simple motto: “Let the people decide. Let the people control.”30 Jones also believed in education as means of achieving self-liberation and community action. In 1967, he and his wife Joan established Kwacha House, a place where young North End Blacks could meet and discuss freely matters of personal and community concern. Discussions would frequently focus on strategies for combatting racial discrimination. These discussions are vividly captured in a short National Film Board documentary entitled Encounter at Kwacha House.31
Given the events and political climate of the 1960s, it is no surprise the RCMP became suspicious of Jones, especially in light of his publicly espoused support for Black Power and sncc. They assumed Kwacha House was a training centre for Black militants—a school for turning inner-city Black youth into violent revolutionaries. In response to this perceived threat, they set up surveillance on Jones and other participants of Kwacha House. Halifax politicians were also suspicious of Kwacha House and, according to Jones, “to undercut our influence, in order to destroy us, the government set up organizations or funded certain people in opposition to what we were doing at Kwacha.”32 As a result of this opposition together with lack of funding, Kwacha House was forced to close its doors in 1969. By this time, however, grassroots activism had established an even stronger footing in the North End. Delmore William “Buddy” Daye, a well-known boxer and former super featherweight champion of Canada, became a community activist during this period and collaborated with Jones and others on a number of grassroots initiatives. He worked with youth in the North End on a government-funded neighbourhood centre and perhaps, above all, he served as a positive role model for Black youth in the community. Jones had great affection for Daye, but the two had major ideological disagreements. Daye was not as radical as Jones and he had no objection to seeking government funds for community projects. Despite their differences, Jones felt Daye “was more a voice of the people than anyone can imagine.”33 With Jones’ encouragement, Daye became involved in provincial politics and, in 1967, he ran as a provincial ndp candidate for Halifax-Needham. Although he lost the election, he continued his involvement in politics and remained a devoted community activist. In 1990, Daye became the first African-Nova Scotian sergeant-at-arms in the provincial legislature, a position he held until he died of cancer in 1995.
Grassroots activism was a powerful force for change during the 1960s and 1970s. The presence of Black militants like Jones opened a prolonged debate over various strategies for addressing racism and improving the lives of Black Nova Scotians. It is clear the threat posed by the more confrontational approach of Black Power advocates like Jones forced the government to take more concerted action on various initiatives that benefitted Black communities.34 This is evidenced from the appearance in Halifax of Stokely Carmichael, followed later with the arrival of other members of the Black Panther Party. They had come to Canada to attend a congress of Black writers in Montreal. Jones attended the same event and invited them to visit Halifax. Shortly after they arrived in the North End, one of the Black Panthers was driving Jones’ car and was pulled over by the police for a “routine” traffic violation. This led to a search of the vehicle and the discovery of three rifles and a handgun. The man was immediately arrested and since the guns were found in Jones’ car, he was later apprehended by the police and taken into custody for illegal possession of a firearm. Although the charges were later dropped, the man driving Jones’ car was not so lucky. He was fined $1,500 and deported back to the United States. This incident and the continued presence of members of the Black Panther Party in Halifax increased the perceived threat of confrontation and violence, which created widespread anxiety and concerns throughout the province.35
On November 30, 1968 members of the Black community held an historic meeting at Cornwallis Street Baptist Church, which attracted over 400 members from Black communities across the province. The meeting brought together leaders who represented all segments of the community, including the church, businesses, community organizations and various ideological points of view. The most influential speakers at the meeting were moderates Reverend William Oliver and Buddy Daye, and the more militant Rocky Jones and Rosie Douglas of the Black Panther Party in the United States.36
The meeting addressed the need for creating a broad-based advocacy and resource organization to serve all Black communities in the province. Using the example of the United Front that was formed in Washington, D.C., the decision was made to call the new organization the Black United Front (buf).37 An interim committee was established to set up a permanent organizational structure and to explore various sources of funding. In August 1969, the federal government announced its financial support for the buf and in January 1970, it was incorporated under the society’s Act. The buf was headed by an executive director and governed by a provincial council made up of elected representatives from each of the Black communities in Nova Scotia.38
Over its twenty-seven-year history, the buf helped politically and economically empower Black communities in Nova Scotia. It also promoted Black history and culture and, over the years, it sponsored numerous programs aimed at improving housing, education and employment opportunities. Although it was not without its critics, the buf has had a lasting influence on the Black community in Nova Scotia and it is testimony to the leadership and the grassroots activism during the 1960s and 1970s.
Since the establishment of the buf in 1970, there has been an ongoing partnership between the government and Black communities in Nova Scotia. This relationship is evident in the establishment, in 2004, of the Office of African Nova Scotian Affairs, whose mission is to “assist, support and enhance the provincial government’s delivery of services to African Nova Scotians, and be a partner in developing innovative solutions that lead to self-reliance and sustainable development for African Nova Scotians and their communities.”39 This partnership is also evident in the area of education under the African Services Division of the Nova Scotia Department of Education and in partially government-funded community organizations such as the Delmore “Buddy” Daye Learning Institute, (dbdli), which provides educational resources and opportunities together with leadership and mentoring programs for learners of African descent. The dbdli was established under its current organizational structure in 2012, and in keeping with the leadership example of its namesake Buddy Daye, it is governed by a twelve-member volunteer board and maintains a grassroots approach to conducting research and resolving problems that confront Black learners and educators in Nova Scotia and in Canada.40
The rise of grassroots activism during the 1960s and 1970s inspired a social and political dialogue, which ultimately shaped the culture of rights in Nova Scotia. A similar process took place in other provinces during this period and by the late 1970s, a rights revolution emerged across Canada. This revolution quickly encompassed not only the protection against discrimination in relation to race, religion and ethnic origin, but included women’s and aboriginal rights, children’s rights, prisoner’s rights, as well as the environmental movement. In 1977, the federal government passed the Canadian Human Rights Act, which put into law a uniform, nation-wide system of human rights. The act was the most comprehensive one of its kind in the world.41