Human Rights And Civil Rights

Picking up where I left off yesterday, this is a model of the Canadian Museum For Human Rights. This is one of two national museums that are outside the National Capital Region. This one is in Winnipeg, while the other, the Canadian Museum of Immigration, is at Pier 21 in Halifax.

A panel around the corner goes into detail about Viola Desmond and the choice in 2016 to have her on the new currency. This includes a photograph of her surviving sister Wanda Robson with the former lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia, the federal Finance Minister, and the Governor of the Bank of Canada at the unveiling of the new bill. The bill itself is shown at top left, both sides.

Her story shows itself in panels and artifacts. Viola Desmond owned a beauty and barber shop with her husband Jack in Halifax. The items here included one of her notebooks and a business card.

Other items are related to a fateful night in 1946. Nova Scotia didn't have segregation laws, but allowed theatres to enforce racial segregation if they wanted. Such was the case with the Roseland Theatre in New Glasgow, which required black audience members to sit in the balcony section of the theatre. Viola Desmond was in town on a business trip when her car broke down. Waiting for it to be repaired, she decided to see a movie. She went into the Roseland- two of the former cinema seats are displayed here.

She took a seat on the main floor, but it escalated from there, with theatre staff trying to enforce their segregation policy. She would be arrested and fined, a case that she would appeal but lose, and yet in the long run would set forth the road for civil rights in Canada- this was a decade before Rosa Parks in the States defying an officially entrenched segregation. Several years ago, the Nova Scotia government issued a formal pardon wiping the record clean for Viola Desmond.

The permanent portion of the Bank Of Canada Museum starts with a bracelet- something given to you as you come in- and creating an avatar for yourself. You make use of the bracelet throughout the interior, interacting with screens to bring up details on items within. I chose an odd name for my avatar.

You enter where you exit, and this lit up area caught my eye.

This panel, giving a few facts and figures about the economy, is one of the first things you see inside. We'll pick up here tomorrow.

At The Bank Of Canada Museum

The main headquarters of the Bank of Canada stands across from the Parliamentary precinct downtown. The Bank is a government Crown corporation which formulates Canadian monetary policy, promotes the stability of the economy, and oversees the issuing of banknotes. In the background of these shots, the Confederation Block of Parliament looms in the background.

The building had a currency museum inside for years. Several years ago the building underwent some work, and one of the projects included this terrace area on the east side, with its triangular shapes. This terrace is actually the entrance for the newly reconstituted Bank of Canada Museum, a small museum which lies below street level, but one well worth visiting. 

The first thing item one sees after entering is this object alongside the staircase down (there is, of course, an elevator). This view from below shows it in full, about two metres tall. This is a Rai, once used on the Pacific island of Yap as currency. Rai are stone circles that range in size from a few centimetres to four metres, and this is the largest known outside of Yap. Obviously the big ones could not be moved when traded, so they would stay in place when changing ownership. The panel nearby indicated that these were quarried on Palau and taken by raft to Yap 500 kilometres away. These days the American dollar is the currency of use in Yap, while the Rai are occasionally used in a ceremonial way.

A temporary exhibit is going on in the museum. Last year a new version of our ten dollar bill went into circulation, a vertical bill honouring Viola Desmond, a civil rights pioneer on the one side, and a design centred on the Canadian Museum For Human Rights on the other. The exhibit details both.

This museum takes the presence of children into account, and so in this area are two tables for kids to put together a puzzle version of the bill- both sides, in fact- while their parents are looking at the panels.

Viola Desmond was the final choice for a Canadian born woman on currency, which had started with 461 unique nominees from public consultation. That list was narrowed down to twelve, then to five, before the Finance Minister selected the final choice.

The other eleven were worthy of the honour, including artists, authors, athletes, political figures, and activists, with French, English, and indigenous choices among them. Emily Carr, Gabrielle Roy, Lucy Maud Montgomery, and Therese Casgrain were some of them.

Here we see a mix of images of Viola Desmond.

The other side of the new bill is occupied by imagery that includes the Museum For Human Rights, the eagle feather (a nod towards the First Nations), and a portion of the Charter of Human Rights And Freedoms. I will be picking up with more of this tomorrow.