Rosa Parks and Cape Breton University History Professor Graham Reynolds

Canada: Who really knew there was this type of racism in Canada Desmond was arrested and charged with breaking the law in 1946, according to Toronto Star. Her pardon came decades after her death in 1965. She was essentially the Rosa Parks of Canada, a black woman who refused to leave her seat in a white section of a theatre in Nova Scotia, just as Parks refused to give up her seat in the white section of a bus in Montgomery, Ala. Cape Breton University history professor Graham Reynolds writes about her in Viola Desmond Canada: A History of Blacks and Racial Segregation in the Promised Land. Our conversation has been edited for length. The book includes stories shared with the author by Wanda Robson, Desmond sister. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.