Viola Desmond's Canada

Graham Reynolds is a professor emeritus and the Viola Desmond Chair in Social Justice at Cape Breton University.He is the author (with Wanda Robson) of Viola Desmond’s Canada: A History of Blacks and Racial Segregation in the Promised Land, winner of the 2017 Robbie Robertson Atlantic Book Award for Non-Fiction.George Elliott Clarke is an award-winning playwright and poet. He is currently serving as the Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate (January 2016).Wanda Robson is well known local community educator, author, and the youngest sister of the Canadian civil rights icon Viola Desmond. She is longtime resident of North Sydney, Nova Scotia, where she resides with her husband Joe. In 2004, at the age of 77, she fulfilled her lifelong dream of completing a university education when she received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Cape Breton University. Following graduation, Wanda began a campaign to raise public awareness about her sister Viola and the struggle for racial equality in Canada. In 2010, she published Sister to Courage: Stories from the World of Viola Desmond, Canada’s Rosa Parks. She has given numerous public and school presentations and has been interviewed many times by local and national media.

• : Foreword: Towards That Elusive Just Society (George Elliott Clarke): Introduction: Part I. A Narrative History: A Narrative of Race in Canadian History from Slavery to the Underground Railroad : The Many Faces of Jim Crow: Racial Segregation in Canada 1880–1960: My Early Memories of Race, My Sister Viola and My Journey of Self-Discovery (Wanda Robson) : Part II. A Documentary History: Marie Marguerite Rose: What Her Inventory of Material Possessions Tells Us About Slavery and Freedom in Eighteenth-Century New France: West Indian Immigration to Canada 1900–1920: What the Census Figures Don’t Tell Us : The Culture of Racism in Canada: Burning Crosses, Blackened-Faced Actors and Minstrel Shows: Pearleen Oliver: Pioneer in the Fight to End Racial Discrimination: Epilogue: Appendix: The Promised Land Project Symposium Round Table Discussion: References: Index

“Reynolds’ book is a significant and timely contribution to the burgeoning field of African Canadian history and social justice studies. I thank him for writing this book.”