Tuesday Treasures

Tom the backroads traveller hosts this weekly meme.

July 2018 - Stratford ON

Click here for our weekend in Stratford at the end of July.

It included a trip to the Stratford - Perth Museum.

There was a particular exhibit I wanted to see, To Kill a Mockingbird.

From the website:


The Stratford Perth Museum is proud to partner with the Monroe County Museum to present Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird exhibit for the summer of 2018. This is the first travelling exhibit ever created by the museum in Monroeville, Alabama.

The iconic book is arguably one of the most enduring written works of our time and is as relevant today as it was in the 1930s when it was set and in the 1960s when it was published and despite dealing with an uncomfortable subject it has been a must read and loved book for generations.

Similarly, the famous movie, which was so loyal to the plot of the novel, holds a special place in cinematic history and for many Gregory Peck will forever be Atticus Finch.

Canadian society has included racial segregation in all facets of social life. While not enshrined in law, it existed nevertheless in informal ways in terms of how things were done and how people understood the "place" of those who were not of European background. From where people could live to where people could rest for eternity, the separation of Black people from White, in life and in death, has been a feature of the Canadian landscape.

Source

Viola Irene Desmond (July 6, 1914 – February 7, 1965) was a Canadian Black Nova Scotian businesswoman who challenged racial segregation at a cinema in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, in 1946. She refused to leave a whites-only area of the Roseland Theatre and was convicted of a minor tax violation for the one-cent tax difference between the seat she had paid for and the seat she used which was more expensive. Desmond's case is one of the most publicized incidents of racial discrimination in Canadian history and helped start the modern civil rights movement in Canada.

In 2010, Desmond was granted a posthumous pardon, the first to be granted in Canada. The government of Nova Scotia also apologized for prosecuting her for tax evasion and acknowledged she was rightfully resisting racial discrimination. In 2016, the Bank of Canada announced that Desmond would be the first Canadian woman (as compared to British born royalty) to be featured on the front of a Canadian banknote, but that honour went to Agnes Macphail, who appeared along with three men on a small print run commemorative note issued in 2017 to mark the 150th anniversary of Confederation.

In late 2018 Desmond will be the first Canadian-born woman to appear alone on a Canadian bank note — a $10 bill which was unveiled by Finance Minister Bill Morneau and Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz during a ceremony at the Halifax Central Library on March 8, 2018. Desmond was also named a National Historic Person in 2018.

 I had never seen the movie so we watched it when we got home. And as I wrote this I just bought tickets to see it on stage at Stratford at the end of the month.