Viola Desmond was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, to a white mother and a black father. Although intermarriages were uncommon then, her parents were accepted into the Black community and were active in various communal organizations. After graduating high school, she worked as a teacher in segregated schools for Black students. In those days, Black women were not allowed to go to beauty salons and beauty schools in Nova Scotia, so Desmond went to study the profession in Montreal and NYC at Madam C.J. Walker’s program. On her return to Halifax, she opened Vi’s Studio of Beauty Culture salon. Soon, she launched a line of skin and hair products for Black women called Vi’s Beauty Products and opened The Desmond School of Beauty Culture, in which she trained her students to open their own beauty salons. On November 8th, 1946, while on her way to a business meeting, her car broke down, and she had to stay overnight in New Glasgow. To pass the time, she went to see a movie at the Roseland Theatre. When buying the ticket, she requested a seat on the main floor, though, without informing her, the cashier gave her a balcony ticket, the area of the non-white customers. When she sat on the main floor, she was asked to move to her signed seat upstairs. At first, she thought it was a mistake and requested to change her ticket, but the cashier refused, explaining that “people like her” could not buy the downstairs tickets. Realizing that this discrimination was because of her skin color, she decided to take a stand and remain on the main floor. Then she was confronted by the manager, to whom she tried to explain that she was willing to pay the difference in the cost of the seats, but refused to leave the main floor. At that point, a police officer arrived, dragging her out of the theater, injuring her knee and hip, keeping her in jail overnight. In the morning, she was brought to court and charged with a case of tax evasion on the false claim that she refused to pay the amusement tax for the floor ticket. On her return to Halifax, Desmond decided to fight her conviction in court. With the financial help of the Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NSAACP), she hired an attorney that filed a lawsuit against the Roseland Theatre. Her story got covered by the journalist and social activist Carrie Best, who published it on the first edition of The Clarion – the first black-owned newspaper in Nova Scotia. Desmond’s case was brought before Nova Scotia’s Supreme Court, but she lost her appeal because she missed the deadline for filing it. Though she lost her appeal, Desmond’s case resonant within Nova Scotia’s Black community and inspired the civil rights movement in Canada. The trial had a significant impact on her life. Not long after, she got divorced, closed her business in Halifax, and moved to Montreal. Eventually, she moved to NYC, where she died from gastrointestinal bleeding at the age of 50. On April 15th, 2010, more than 60 years after her conviction, Desmond became the first person in Canada to be granted a free pardon by the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, Mayann Francis (the first woman and second black person to hold the position). Read more...

Hide Hyodo Shimizu was born in Vancouver, Canada, the oldest of eight children of Japanese immigrants. Her family was among the few Japanese in her neighborhood, and she was the only non-white student in her class. After graduating high school at 16, she studied for a year at the University of British Columbia but left when the tuition fee increased. Instead, she joined a teaching training program at Vancouver Normal School, and in 1926 she became one of the first Nisei – a second-generation Japanese-Canadians, to receive a teacher’s certificate. Shimizu struggled to find a teaching position because schools did not hire a Canadian Japanese teacher. Eventually, she got accepted to Lord Byng School in Steveston, where a large community of Japanese Canadians resides, assuming she knew Japanese, although she did not. As a first-grade and kindergarten teacher, she became the first Nisei to teach in the British Columbia school system and stayed there for 16 years. At that time, Shimizu became involved in the community. She worked with the Powell Street United Church and the Japanese Canadian Citizens League (JCCL), which included university graduate Japanese Canadians, who fought for full citizenship, and their right to vote. In 1936, 28 years old Shimizu was the only woman in a delegation committee to the Elections and Franchise Acts Committee in the House of Commons in Ottawa, presenting arguments to support the enfranchisement of Asian immigrants. Though the committee did not end the franchise ban, the delegation’s efforts encouraged other non-White communities to fight for voting rights. During WW2, the tension against the Japanese Canadians in British Colombia rose. After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, the Canadian government seized all Japanese-Canadians’ property and relocated them into detention camps. Japanese Canadians from coastal British Columbia were relocated to Hastings Park in Vancouver. Initially, she taught at Steveston school during the day and drove to Hastings Park in the afternoon to supervise the education of the kids, returning home by the 9 PM curfew. Several months later, she decided to dedicate herself entirely to building the education system at the camps. Working with the British Columbia Security Commission and her colleague, Teruko Hidaka, she recruited nisei high-school graduates and trained them to be teachers. She created and supervised the curriculum for all ages and formed a school system that operated in all the seven internment camps in British Colombia, allowing approximately 3,000 Japanese Canadian children to earn an education. As supervisor of education, Shimizu faced many challenges. The British Columbia Security Commission strictly supervised her, and the British Columbia Department of Education initially refused to provide classroom equipment and textbooks. She continued to fight to improve the classrooms’ conditions and raise the teachers’ wages. When the war ended, Shimizu reunited with her family in Ontario, and in 1948 she moved to Toronto. In the same year, she married Kosaburo Shimizu, a widowed Reverend. Once again, she became involved in various organizations, such as the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre, the Nisei Church, and the Momiji Health Care Society. During the 1980s, she became a prominent figure in the redress movement, who demanded compensation from the Canadian government for the seized property and forced migration of Japanese Canadians during the war. Shimizu died at the age of 91. Read more...

Mary Helen McKean-Malcolmson was born in Belfast, Ireland. When she was five years old, the family moved to Ontario, Canada. After graduating from school and before marrying Captain A.H. Malcolmson, she worked for a few years as a kindergarten teacher in Hamilton. In 1892, they relocated to St. Catharines, Ontario, where Malcolmson became an active member of various community organizations, including the Victorian Order of Nurses, the local Horticultural Society, and the board of Education. One of her concerns was the welfare of the youth, especially of girls and young women, and in 1909, after attending a rally of 10,000 Boy Scouts in London, England, she made up her mind to start a new chapter of Girl Guides in her own country. In November 1909, the company had its first meeting in St. Catharines, and within only one year, it became the first Canadian Company of Girl Guides to be officially registered. By 1912, the company had local branches throughout the country. Today, Girl Guides of Canada–Guides du Canada (GGC) is the largest organization for girls in Canada, with 90,000 active members. From its first days, the Canadian Company of Girl guides’ mission was to prepare its members for life, empower them, and give them leadership skills. Though the implementation of those goals had changed throughout the years, from learning to bandage wounds during WW1 to eliminating bullying in the 2020s, the organization’s purpose remained to provide a better world for girls – by girls. In addition to her role at the Girl Guides of Canada, Malcolmson co-founded the local chapters of the I.O.D.E (Independent Order of the Daughters of the Empire), served as vice president of the Mother’s Pension Board, and in 1918, founded the St. Catharines Council of Women and served as its first president. She passed away in St. Catharines at 71 years old. Read more...

Born Beverly Sainte-Marie on the Piapot reserve in the Qu’Appelle Valley, Canada. When she was an infant, her mother died in a car accident, and a couple of Mi’kmaq ancestry from Wakefield, Massachusetts, adopted her. At the age of 3, she taught herself to play the piano. At 16, she taught herself to play guitar and compose her own songs. After graduating high school, she studied Oriental philosophy and education at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. At the time, she began performing in coffeehouses, and in 1962, after receiving her degree, she moved to NYC. She became part of the bohemian art scene of Greenwich Village and soon went on tours, playing mainly at folk festivals and Indigenous reservations in Canada and the US. In 1963, a praising review in The New York Times led to a contract with Vanguard Records, and in the following year, 29-year-old Sainte-Marie released her first album, It’s My Way!. In the album, she used Indigenous vocal techniques and expressed her views on the treatment of Indigenous peoples, as can be seen in the song Now That the Buffalo’s Gone, in which she addressed Indigenous land rights and intercultural relationships. In her sixth album, Illuminations, she used electronically synthesized and manipulated instrumental sounds, becoming the first quadraphonic electronic vocal album to be recorded. In 1976, she released her 12th album, Sweet America, which included the song Starwalker – the first Indigenous-pop song, or powwow rock as Sainte-Marie dubbed it. At 35, she took time off from recording to spend time with her son. She began to paint, score films, and participate in various radio and TV shows. She joined the cast of Sesame Street for several years to raise awareness of Native American cultures. In 1982, she composed the song Up Where We Belong for the film An Officer and a Gentleman, for which she received an Academy Award, a BAFTA, and a Golden Globe. During this period, Sainte-Marie also began experimenting with computer-based visual art, exhibiting her work in museums across North America. After 16 years, Sainte-Marie resumed her recording career with the release, via the Internet, of her 14th album Coincidence and Likely Stories. Four years later, she released the collection album Up Where We Belong. It awarded her the Juno Award for Best Music of Aboriginal Canada Recording. In 2017, at 76, she released her 17th album, titled Medicine Songs. For which was awarded the Juno Award for Indigenous music album of the year and the Indigenous Music Awards for Best Folk Album. Sainte-Marie used her music and voice to advocate for various political causes. She was a loud advocate against the Vietnam War and was part of the militant American Indian Movement. She claimed that her activism caused her to be blacklisted by the US administration and limited her radio airplay and performances. In 1969, she founded the Nihewan Foundation for American Indian Education and built the curriculum for its Cradleboard Teaching Project – a partnership between Native and non-Native American communities that facilitates communication through computer networking. She often made public speeches to promote social issues of the Indigenous people and served as spokesperson for the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Read more...

Born Letitia Ellen Mooney on a farm at Chatsworth, Ontario, grew up in Manitoba. She had received formal education only when she was nine, learning reading and writing and discovering the wonders of literature, which shaped her liberal thinking. At 16, she got her teaching certificate from the Winnipeg Normal School and started teaching at Hazel school near Manitou, Manitoba. As a teacher, she implemented her progressive views regarding girls’ education, including introducing football for girls and boys. In 1892, at 19, she took a teaching position at the Manitou school and stayed at a family of a Methodist minister. The minister’s wife, Annie E. McClung, was a women’s suffrage supporter and the provincial president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), who inspired and influenced McClung to become an active member of the organization. She developed a romantic relationship with the family’s second son, Wesley, and the couple married in 1896. After the wedding, she stopped working but remained socially active in the WTCU, and other organizations, including the Methodist Ladies’ Aid, Epworth League for Methodist youth, and the Economics Association. At the age of 29, McClung wrote a short story for a contest in an American family magazine. Although she did not win, the story was the basis for her first novel, Sowing Seeds in Danny, published in 1908. It became a best-seller, and afterward, McClung continued to publish articles, short stories, and books in Canada and the US. In her writing, she expressed her beliefs on social issues, such as laws against women, battering of wives and children, single motherhood, and the land and culture right of the native population. In 1911, McClung and her family moved to Winnipeg, where she joined the local women’s organizations, including the Canadian Women’s Press Club and the Local Council of Women. She co-founded the suffrage’s Political Equality League and became one of the most effective public speakers for the cause. In the 1914 elections, McClung played a leading role in the Liberal campaign against the Conservative Premier of Manitoba, who opposed women’s suffrage. She did not enjoy the fruits of her success because when Manitoba became the first province in Canada to grant women the vote in 1916, she already lived in Edmonton, Alberta. In Edmonton, she continued her activism, fighting for various causes, such as women’s suffrage, property rights for married women, mothers’ allowances, prohibition, factory safety legislation, and medical care for school children. After WW1, she continued the campaign for suffrage, emphasizing the importance of women’s contribution to society after they had filled in for the men working positions during the war. In 1921, 48 years old McClung won the Liberal seat at the Alberta Legislative Assembly, serving in this position until 1926. In the following year, she became part of what became known as The Famous Five. A group of five women, Emily Murphy, Louise Crummy McKinney, Henrietta Muir Edwards, and Irene Parlby, petitioned the Supreme Court to recognize women as Persons. Though rejected in Canada, they appleade to the British Privy Council, who ruled that women included in the term Persons, thus can serve in the Senate. In 1933, McClung moved to Lantern Lane in Vancouver Island, where she invested herself in writing, completing her two-volume autobiography Clearing in the West: My Own Story, published in 1935, as well as four more novels and various short stories, essays, and a syndicated column. She was a member of various social organizations, continued to give public speeches, and in 1936 she became the first woman to be appointed to the new Canadian Broadcasting Corporation board of governors. In the last ten years of her life, McClung suffered from arthritis and heart problems that limited her activities. She died at the age of 78. Read more...

Marie Thérèse Casgrain was born in Saint-Irénée-les-Bains, Canada, to a wealthy family. At the age of 8, she was sent to a boarding school of the Dames du Sacré-Coeur order at Sault-aux-Récollets. After graduation, she wanted to attend university, but her father refused, believing that a woman of her status should learn to manage a household. In 1916, at 20, she married Pierre-François Casgrain, a wealthy Liberal politician. In 1918, she traveled to Ottawa with her husband for the Parliament session opening. There, she became aware of the importance of women’s right to vote, given in the previous year by the Wartime Elections Act only to wives, widows, mothers, and sisters of soldiers serving overseas and in reality excluding the majority of women. She became a leading figure of the women’s suffrage movement in Quebec, using her family and husband’s political contacts to promote the cause. She wrote letters to influential people, made public speeches, and in 1921, at the age of 25, she founded the Provincial Franchise Committee for women’s suffrage. In 1928, Casgrain started heading the Ligue des droits de la femme for 14 years. The organization fought for women’s right to vote at the provincial level, which was eventually approved only in 1940, making Quebec the last province in Canada in which women could vote. During WW2, she founded and was co-president of the Women’s Surveillance Committee for the Wartime Prices and Trade Board. In 1942, at the age of 42, Casgrain ran for Canadian Parliament as the Independent Liberal candidate for Charlevoix-Saguenay – a federal electoral district in Quebec and reached second place. She tried six more times, both federally and provincially, but lost. She continued to advocate for women’s rights, and in 1945 she triumphantly campaigned to enable women in Quebec to receive family allowance cheques in their name, not in the husband’s name alone. After the war, Casgrain left the Liberal Party to join the social democratic Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). Two years later, she was nominated as the national vice-chair of the party, the only woman at its management level. In 1951, at 55, she was elected as the leader of the Québec wing of the CCF, becoming the first woman in Canada to head a political party. In 1960, she founded the League for Human Rights, and in the following year, she established and later served as president of the Québec branch of the Voice of Women – an anti-nuclear pacifist movement. Over time, she founded several more human rights organizations, including the Fédération des femmes du Québec and the Quebec Civil Liberties Union. In 1969, at 73, Casgrain was elected president of the Quebec section of the Consumers’ Association of Canada. In this position, she successfully lobbied for forming a federal minister of consumer affairs. In the following year, 74 years old Casgrain was appointed by the Prime Minister to the Senate of Canada, serving only nine months before reaching the mandatory retirement age of 75. Afterward, she lobbied against compulsory retirement from any job. Even in the last decade of her life, Casgrain did not stop her activism work and continued fighting for various social causes, such as education, housing, health care, unemployment, workers’ rights, and Indigenous rights. She died at the age of 85. Read more...

Margaret Eleanor Atwood was born in Ottawa, Canada, and grew up in Ontario and Quebec. From an early age, she was an avid reader, writing plays and stories at the age of 6, and by 16 began to write professionally. After graduating high school, she went to Victoria College at the University of Toronto, where she published articles and poems in the college’s literary journal. In 1961, she received her Bachelor’s degree in English, with minors in philosophy and French. In that same year, at 22, Atwood published her first poetry collection, Double Persephone, for which she received the E.J. Pratt Medal. She continued to graduate studies at Radcliffe College of Harvard University and pursued doctoral studies but did not submit her dissertation. She continued to write while studying, publishing two more poetry collections, The Circle Game (1966) and The Animals in That Country (1968). In 1968, at the age of 29, Atwood married the writer Jim Polk, but they divorced a few years later. Soon after, she met her life-long partner, the novelist Graeme Gibson, with whom she has one daughter. In 1969, Atwood published her first novel, The Edible Woman, a metaphoric satire about the social status of women and consumerism in North America. Those themes of feminism and materialism return in many of her works. Over the next decade, she published four more novels, eight poetry collections, and the award-winning short stories collection, titled Dancing Girls. While writing and publishing her work, Atwood taught English in various colleges and universities. Including the University of British Columbia, York University in Toronto, and New York University. She also served as MFA Honorary Chair at the University of Alabama and as Writer-in-Residence in Macquarie University, Australia, and Trinity University, Texas. During the 1980s, she published two of her most recognized novels, Bodily Harm and The Handmaid’s Tale, which also performed as an Opera, and later was adapted into a movie and an acclaimed TV show. Her success and productivity persisted well into the next two decades, publishing the novel Alias Grace in 1996, the Odyssey-inspired novella The Penelopiad in 2005, the praised trilogy MaddAddam in 2013, and The Handmaid’s Tale sequel, The Testaments in 2019. By 2021, Atwood published 18 novels, 10 short fiction collections, 22 poetry collections, 7 children’s books, 11 non-fiction, as well as graphic novels, television scripts, and Opera libretti. Her work was published in more than 45 countries, and some of it was adapted for stage and screen. In her writings, Atwood explores global and personal politics, women’s role in society, power dynamics, and environmental degradation. Most of her heroines are modern-urban women, often artists or writers, who fight to survive in a men-dominated society. Read more...