Celebrate Black History Month by leaning about two little known activists in the fight for civil rights in Canada and the United States.

Most people know of Rosa Parks but do they know about Viola Desmond? Viola was born in Halifax and in 1946 she refused to sit in the balcony designed for blacks in a theatre and after she sat in the whites only area she was removed and arrested. Viola was found guilty of not paying the one cent difference in tax between the two sections but decided to fight the charge. During the trial no one mentioned the segregated seating policy but focused only on tax evasion. Efforts to have the conviction overturned at higher levels of court failed. After the trial Viola moved to Montreal and died in 1965. She was granted a posthumous pardon in 2010.  Viola’s protest happened nine years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in a segregated bus in the United States.

You might know of Paul Robeson as an actor in films such as Show Boat but did you know that he was also an early campaigner for civil rights in the United States? Yes, before there was Martin Luther King Junior there was Paul Robeson. The struggles against fascism in the 1930s in both Germany and Spain helped turn Paul into a political activist. In the early 1940s he called upon Americans to demand that Congress pass civil rights legislation. He also asked President Truman to enact legislation to end lynching. Unfortunately neither appeals were successful. Because of his public speaking on these and other topics plus visits to the USSR his concerts in America were cancelled and he had to go to Europe to perform. During the McCarthy era he was called before the HUAC where he refused to deny that he was a Communist. He spent the next few years toruing in Europe and Russia. Paul died in 1976 and is unfortunately little remembered today.  But his activism helped pave the way for people like Martin Luther King Junior to continue the work to get civil rights legislation passed in the United States.