Starting Monday, Canadian civil rights icon Viola Desmond will be the new face of the $10 bill.
A panel of experts chose Desmond for the honour. The group included Queen’s professor Johnathan Rose and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Barbara Crow, according to a statement released by the University on Monday.
“A currency is a public expression of national identity so it’s only appropriate that citizens should have an important role in deciding who should be on it,” Rose said in a statement.
According to the statement, both Rose and Crow said the bill’s introduction is a “turning point in Canada’s narrative.”
Recognized for her 1946 stand against racial segregation in Nova Scotia, Desmond will be the first Canadian-born woman to be featured on a Canadian bank note. That year, she was famously arrested after refusing to leave a whites-only section in a movie theatre. The incident became the focal point of one of the highest-profile civil rights cases in Canadian history.
“What I think is incredible about the choice is that all of us can stand up to injustice, and [Desmond] did. Every single Canadian can stand up,” Crow said.
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