The Trial

Viola was charged of violation the provincial Theaters, Cinematographs and Amusements Act. The Act meant, "the statue contained no explicit provisions relation to racial segregation. A licencing statue to regulate the operations of the theaters and movie houses, the act encompassed such matters as safety inspections and the censorship of public performances. It also stipulated that patrons were to pay an amusement tax on any tickets purchased in provincial theaters. Pearson who entered a theater without paying such tax were in subject to summary conviction and a fine of 'not less than twenty nor more than two hundred dollars.' The statue authorized police officers to arrest violators without warrant, and to use 'reasonable diligence' in taking them before a stipendiary magistrate or just of the peace 'to be dealt with according to law' (230).

The ticket Viola purchased was for upstairs seats, 30 cents, 2 of those cents would go to taxes, since she refused to sit upstairs and did not purchase a main-floor seating ticket, she was 1 cent short for taxes. To total amount Viola than was charged was $26 and was ordered to spend one month in jail.

Viola was not aloud to speak during her trial, if she tried to speak she was not listened to and ignored. She was charged for taxation.

"No one admitted that the theater patrons were assigned seats on the basis of race. In an interview with the Toronto Daily Star several weeks alter, Harry MacNeil would insist that neither he nor the Odeon Theaters management had ever issued instructions that main-floor tickets were not to be sold to Blacks. It was simply a matter of seating preferences: 'it is customary for [colored persons] to sit together in the balcony,' MacNeil would assert. At the trial, no one even hinted that Viola Desmond was Black, that her accusers and her judge were white. On its face, the proceeding appears to be simply a prosecution for failure to pay provincial tax. In fact, if Viola Desmond had not taken any further action in this matter, the surviving trial records would have left no clue to the real significance of this case" (232).

Viola's prosecutor and judges refused to recollect that she was a black woman but abused her on the way to jail and was thrown into a jail cell with other prisoners who were male. Viola was dehumanized by the theater and the police officers. The neglect of her race is substantial, they charged Viola for not pay 1 cent of taxes. This could have evenly and quietly be resolved between the theater and Viola personally, but based on the racial knowledge that existed and still exists today, because she was a black woman there was a need to arrest and charge the innocent woman, who was simply unaware of the rules of the theater, and for the ignorance and racism of the theater's workers.

Backhouse, Constance. 1999. Colour-Coded, A Legal History of Racism in Canada, 1900-1950. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.