Women in the Workforce was Another Goal for Viola

Viola was determined and strongly believed that all women should have equal opportunity to the work force and not just in the domestic work force but to be a part of the work force where men primarily took part in or were in charge. Viola was not satisfied completely from her studio so she went on to open the Desmond School of Beauty Culture. All Black females were allowed to come and learn, from all over Canada.

“Viola Desmond’s long-range plans were to work with the women who graduated from her school to establish a franchise operation, setting up beauty parlors for people of colour across Canada. Her former students recall that she kept the shop immaculately; that all the beauticians, including Viola, wore uniforms and regulation stockings; and their appearance was rigorously inspected each day. Viola Desmond personified respectability to her students, who always called her ‘Mrs. Desmond’ and were struck by the ‘way that she carried herself’ and her ‘strength of character’” (Backhouse 1999, 240-243).

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

Vi's Studio of Beauty Culture Attracted Celebrities

Portia White:

Famous Self Portrait of Portia White

A Canadian Operatic Contrallo. Portia was born in Turo Nova Scotia on June 24^th 1911.  Her was an  opera, classical and gospel singer. Portia was declared, “a person of national historic significance” according to the Government of Canada. She was celebrated for her Canadian Achievements.

Portia was attracted to Viola’s talent and her successful business so much that she made private appointments on Sundays for Viola to do her hair. Viola impacted Portia’s life as a successful black women and encouraged Viola to continue to grow and achieve more.

Below is one of many videos of Portia’s Gospels.

Return From School & White Privilege

Viola moved back from the United States in 1937 with her diploma’s and her new techniques in hair styling. She opened a beauty parlor called, Vi’s Studio of Beauty Culture on Gottinngen street in Halifax. Her husband, John Gordon Desmond had his own barber shop right next to Viola’s on Gottinngen Street. Viola reached out to all female client, she took up many services including, shampooing, press and curl, hair-straightening, chignons, hairpieces and wigs. Viola specifically wanted to reach out to many Black women in the area because to find a hairdresser that has been trained to cut and style certain kinds of hair were a big struggle.

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh helps to acknowledge the ideas of white privilege and how it is a struggle to live in a society where such privilege happens to a race other than your own. Viola Desmond wanted to create a knapsack of her own to allow many Black women to feel privileged.

Examples of White Privilege in a knapsack (McIntosh 1989):

1.       I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed
2.       I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trail
3.       I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can cut my hair
4.       I can be sure that I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me
5.       I can choose blemish color or bandages in “flesh” color and have them more or less match my skin

Viola’s teachings and abuse from white individuals caused her to become stronger, and more determined than ever to reach out to the black population of Halifax. “She branched out into chemistry and learned how to manufacture many specialized Black beauty powders and creams, which she marketed under the label ‘Vi’s Beauty Products’. She added facials and ultra-violet-ray hair treatments to her line of services” (Backhouse 1999, 240). Viola continued to update her expertise by traveling to New York every other year to gain more knowledge and learn about the latest style trends. The White Privilege angered Viola and she became determined to reach out to the non-privileged black women.

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

McIntosh, Peggy. 1989. White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. Peace and Freedom, 49. 

Viola's Entrepreneurial Goal

“Modern fashion trends for women, first heralded by the introduction of the ‘bobbed’ haircut in the 1920s, created an explosion of adventurous career opportunities for ‘beauticians’, who earned their livelihood by advising women on hair care and cosmetics. Beauty parlors offered steady and socially respectable opportunities to many entrepreneurial women across Canada and the United States” (Backhouse 1999, 234).

The Bobbed Hairstyle

Many Black women were of benefit in this genre of employment as women are able to cater to a “multi-racial clientele with particular expertise in hair design and skin care for Black women” (234). This became Viola’s entrepreneurial goal. But there was one main problem, all the training facilities available for individuals to become beauticians in Halifax restricted Black women. She then moved to Montreal where she was accepted into the Field Beauty Culture School in 1936. Her hard work  and teachings inspired Viola to more from Montreal to New York where she took more schooling to learn about wigs and different techniques in styling. 

In 1940 she received a diploma from Apex College of Beauty Culture and Hairdressing. 

Interracial Marriage Ideology

“Viola’s parents married in 1908, creating what was perceived to be a mixed-race family within a culture that rarely welcomed interracial marriage. It was the formalized recognition of such inions that created such unease within a society by an apparently mixed-race family often came home to roost on the children born to James and Gwendolin Davis. Viola self-identified both as ‘mixed-race’ and as ‘coloured’, the later being a term of preference during the 1930s and 1940s” (234).

This primitive ideology still continues to persist. Many racial discrimination and prejudicial acts are made on people of mixed-race individuals. The mental framework that exists, white people must reproduce with other white people and coloured people must reproduce with other black people is still largely a societal practice that continues today. Whether that be due to continued racists judgments, preferred skin colour, or lack of credentials, the judgment and discrimination is still there. This ideology had put struggle on Viola, when she was younger as she was tormented for having a white mother and black father. This confused Viola as she had to choose what race she belonged to. Mixed-race is a term that constitutes two different races in which have reproduced together. The ideology that people still turn their noses up at couples who are of two distinctive races is very problematic to our society. Ideologies need to change in order for this primitive ideology to be excused.  

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

Does Race Change?

“Viola’s mother, Gwendolin Irene Davis, was the daughter of a Baptist minister who had come to Halifax from New Haven, Connecticut. Gwendolin Davis’s mother, Susan Smith, was born in Connecticut and identified herself as white. Gwendolin’s father, Henry Walter Johnson, was ‘seven-eighths white’ and although he is described as being ‘of mixed race’, Gwendolin Davis seems to have been generally regarded as white” (233).

Phenotypical traits do not constitute someone to be a particular race. People have and do change their races for many reasons. “Every social formation is created by and creates discourses that function as the “truth”, being regimes of truth”. The way we define and produce who and how we categorize people as a certain race is based on a social discourse, and this social discourse comes from what we know about the world and how we see the world. The way Viola’s mother perceives her race has been based on the rules and practices that had constrained and opened up the ideas of her race and what race she constitutes herself. The discourse that taught Viola’s mother that she was white helped produce an understanding that race is not specifically designated through skin colour, but through many other traits, including, dress, socio-economic status, where you live or grew up, cultural values, etc. With that saying, anyone can change their race based on those examples. Racial knowledge is the “production of social knowledge about the racialized Other, then, establishes a library or archive of information, a set of guiding ideas and principles about Otherness” (Foucault 150). 

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

CBC's Viola Desmond Day

Viola Desmond Day, CBC News

Dartmouth High School Students Lobby for Viola Desmond Day

High School Students Lobby  

Visit this website to witness students in Dartmouth and their school project to keep Viola Desmond's story alive. Her actions in life still live on today.

Apology in 2010?

"On behalf of the Nova Scotia government, I sincerely apologize to Mrs. Viola Desmond’s family and to all African Nova Scotians for the racial discrimination she was subjected to by the justice system . . . We recognize today that the act for which Viola Desmond was arrested, was an act of courage, not an offence." -- Darrell Dexter, Premier of Nova Scotia, April 15, 2010