--- title: Viola Desmond: Google Doodle Celebrates Civil Rights Icon description: Google published a new Doodle Thursday in memory of Canadian civil rights icon Viola Desmond, who would have turned 104 today canonical: https://time.com/5331569/google-doodle-viola-desmond-canada/ author: Joseph Hincks article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-07-06T06:55:19.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:53:42.107Z og:title: Google Doodle Celebrates Civil Rights Icon Viola Desmond og:description: The businesswoman and beautician helped galvanize Canada's civil rights movement og:url: https://time.com/5331569/google-doodle-viola-desmond-canada/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltac5c8b1191008626/698934b6656a3f0046bd4e08/screen-shot-2018-07-06-at-2-51-26-pm.png?branch=production&width=407&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 407 og:image:height: 229 og:image:alt: Viola Desmond og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Google Doodle Celebrates Civil Rights Icon Viola Desmond twitter:description: The businesswoman and beautician helped galvanize Canada's civil rights movement twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltac5c8b1191008626/698934b6656a3f0046bd4e08/screen-shot-2018-07-06-at-2-51-26-pm.png?branch=production&width=407&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Google Doodle Celebrates Canadian Civil Rights Icon Viola Desmond > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=5094785a-6617-4b23-b027-1c49d8bae79b&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1) by [Joseph Hincks](https://time.com/author/joseph-hincks/) ## Joseph Hincks Jul 6, 2018 6:55 AM UTC  Google Doodle marking what would have been the 104th birthday of Viola Desmond. Google Doodle marking what would have been the 104th birthday of Viola Desmond. Google by [Joseph Hincks](https://time.com/author/joseph-hincks/) ## Joseph Hincks Jul 6, 2018 6:55 AM UTC Google Doodle is celebrating the Canadian businesswoman and civil rights icon Viola Desmond, who would have turned 104 Thursday. Google’s [ten panel slideshow](https://www.google.com/doodles/viola-desmonds-104th-birthday) tells the story of how Desmond, a black beautician from Halifax, Nova Scotia, was dragged from a theater in 1946 after refusing to leave a seat in a section reserved for white people. She spent the night in jail, and then fought her conviction in court, helping to galvanize Canada’s civil rights movement. Although there were no Jim Crow laws in Canada, segregation was still practiced informally and New Glasgow’s Roseland Theatre expected black patrons to sit on a separate balcony, [according to](https://humanrights.ca/blog/black-history-month-story-viola-desmond) the Canadian Museum of Human Rights. Desmond’s flouting of racist rules preceded Rosa Parks’ 1955 refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama, by nine years. > [](https://twitter.com/Women%5FCanada/status/997492172252438529) Desmond is also remembered as a community-spirited entrepreneur. She identified the lack of cosmetics available for black women and developed her own line to address the need. Later, she opened a beauty school through which she mentored other black women in Canada. In March, Desmond became the first Canadian-born woman[ to appear on a regularly circulating banknote](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/viola-desmond-banknote-north-end-halifax-map-1.4573407) — the $10 bill. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5331569/google-doodle-viola-desmond-canada/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5331569/google-doodle-viola-desmond-canada/"},"headline":"Google Doodle Celebrates Canadian Civil Rights Icon Viola Desmond","datePublished":"2018-07-06T06:55:19.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:53:42.107Z","description":"The businesswoman and beautician helped galvanize Canada's civil rights movement","url":"https://time.com/5331569/google-doodle-viola-desmond-canada/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Google Doodle","onetime","overnight"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltac5c8b1191008626/698934b6656a3f0046bd4e08/screen-shot-2018-07-06-at-2-51-26-pm.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Joseph Hincks","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/joseph-hincks/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltac5c8b1191008626/698934b6656a3f0046bd4e08/screen-shot-2018-07-06-at-2-51-26-pm.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Viola Desmond","caption":"Google Doodle marking what would have been the 104th birthday of Viola Desmond.","creditText":"Google","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5331569/google-doodle-viola-desmond-canada/","name":"Google Doodle Celebrates Canadian Civil Rights Icon Viola Desmond"}}]}] ```