caption death_date death_place birth_place image_size nationality name birth_date spouse image article_title education birth_name occupation
viola desmond 07 february 1965 new york , new york halifax , nova scotia 200px canada viola desmond 06 july 1914 jack desmond viola desmond.jpg viola desmond
 bloomfield high school viola irene davis beautician
viola desmond

viola irene desmond -lrb- july 6 , 1914 -- february 7 , 1965 -rrb- was a black nova scotian business woman who challenged racial segregation at a film theatre in new glasgow , nova scotia in 1946 .
she refused to leave a whites-only area of the roseland theatre and was unjustly convicted of a minor tax violation used to enforce segregation .
desmond 's case is one of the most publicized incidents of racial discrimination in canadian history and helped start the modern civil rights in canada .
desmond acted nine years before the famed incident by civil-rights activist rosa parks , with whom desmond is often compared .
desmond was granted a posthumous pardon , the first to be granted in canada .
the government of nova scotia also apologized for convicting her for tax evasion and acknowledged she was rightfully resisting racial discrimination .
