It was the first story Anisa Hassan saw when she checked the news Thursday morning.

Civil rights pioneer Viola Desmond, a black woman, will be immortalized on Canada’s $10 bill.

Called the “Rosa Parks of Canada,” Desmond defied the colour barrier at a New Glasgow, N.S., movie house in 1946.

When the new banknotes enter circulation in 2018, Desmond will be the first woman who is not a Royal to have her face featured on Canadian currency.

For Hassan, a young black woman in Toronto, the announcement holds particular significance.

“For as long as I can remember, I’ve always wondered what it would be like to see people that look like me represented in different parts of our everyday lives,” said Hassan, 25.

“For it to be on our money, it’s a big deal.”

In 2014, while studying criminology at Ryerson University, Hassan won one of the school’s Viola Desmond Awards, honouring the achievements of black female faculty, staff and students.

Hassan was rooting for Desmond as the Government of Canada prepared to put a woman on the new banknotes.

Desmond was a beautician, owner of Vi’s Studio of Beauty Culture in Halifax and a beauty school for black women.

On Nov. 8, 1946, trying to see a movie in New Glasgow’s Roseland Theatre, she was told that, because she was black, she would only be allowed to sit in the balcony.

Refusing to bow to segregation, the 32-year-old Desmond took a seat on the main floor of the theatre, normally reserved for whites and refused to move.

Desmond was arrested and spent the night in jail, then charged the following day with attempting to defraud the provincial government, for failing to pay the one-penny tax on ground-floor seats. A judge fined her $20 and ordered her to pay an additional $6 in court costs.

In the months after the incident, Desmond fought to have her charge reversed. Her case was taken as high as the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, and, ultimately, her appeal was dismissed in 1947.

She died in 1965 at age 50.

In 2010, Desmond was granted a posthumous pardon by then-Lt.-Gov. Mayann Francis, and a public apology from then-premier Darrell Dexter.

On Thursday morning, Finance Minister Bill Morneau, Status of Women Minister Patty Hajdu and Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz announced that Desmond had beaten out four other finalists to be the new face of the $10 bill.

“It’s a big day to have a woman on a banknote,” said Desmond’s sister, Wanda Robson, who spoke at the ceremony. “It’s really big day to have my big sister on a banknote.”

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“She would be so very proud,” Robson added.

Yusra Khogali, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Toronto, said she had “a lot of mixed feelings” upon hearing Desmond would appear on the $10 bill.

“I thought, symbolically, it was really powerful, but there’s also the reality that (it doesn’t) mean anything, unless politics is also affected,” Khogali said.

“There’s continuous attacks on black women on every level of society (from) education to politics to media representations to even the way police engage with us . . . and we know that this is not doing anything to address that.”

Still, she said, the new banknote will be a reminder of the segregation lurking in Canada’s history, and of a powerful woman who stood against it.

“I think this can be a really big step for us, to advocate and push forward the narratives of blackness and slavery within Canada and how it looks today,” said Khogali.

Desmond was one of five accomplished, barrier-breaking women shortlisted for the banknote honour.

The runners up were Mohawk artist and poet E. Pauline Johnson; Olympic gold medalist Bobbie Rosenfeld; journalist, feminist and suffragette Idola Saint-Jean, and Canada’s first practicing female engineer, Elsie MacGill, who also became the world’s first female aircraft designer.

For Darrell Bowden, a staffer in Ryerson’s Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, and the organizer of the Viola Desmond awards, the recognition is long overdue.

“There’s a lot about Viola Desmond that I think we need to be celebrating,” said Bowden. “For what she has done for Canada generally, for black people, and for black women, a population that we know has not always been given the best press.”

Bowden grew up in New Glasgow, the town where Desmond was arrested. He lamented that far more Canadians seem to know U.S. civil rights figure Rosa Parks than Desmond.

“Viola was not the Rosa Parks of Canada. Rosa Parks was the Viola Desmond of America,” he said.