New $10 bill featuring Viola Desmond

The Canadian government introduced a new $10 bill featuring civil rights icon Viola Desmond on International Women’s day.

The purple polymer bill is the first vertically oriented bank note issued in Canada.  It includes a portrait of Desmond, who is the first black person and the first non-royal woman, on a regularly circulating Canadian bank note.  The bill marks a growing recognition of Desmond’s refusal to leave the whites-only section of a Nova Scotia movie theatre back in 1946.