It’s always cause for celebration when you win an award that will help pay for your university education.
That satisfaction reaches another level when you’re a young African Nova Scotian woman and the bursary honours Viola Desmond.
“She really carries the legacy because not many people acknowledge that she wasn’t only an activist but she was also a businesswoman,” said Leah Matheson, a second-year commerce student at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax.
“She’s like a very great role model for the African Nova Scotian community.”
Matheson and fifth-year student Kendra Smith, 22, of North Preston are the first recipients of the Viola Desmond bursary for African Nova Scotian students at Saint Mary’s.
The 73rd anniversary of Desmond’s stand against racism in a New Glasgow movie theatre will be marked Friday.
“She was that stepping stone,” Smith said in an interview with Matheson at SMU on Thursday. “For us to go to school, it was no question of, why are you here? And (with Desmond) being also a businesswoman it gives you that extra motivation - like she can do it when she had so much adversity, why can’t I do it now? It makes you even more motivated to push those boundaries.”
The bursary comes in the amount of $1,946, in recognition of the year Desmond refused to leave the whites-only area of Roseland Theatre. On Nov. 8, 1946, the Halifax native was dragged out of the theatre by police, jailed for 12 hours and fined.
I want to be able to push myself and get where I want to be and go back and help my community so other people don’t feel like they’re too small to do something.
- Kendra Smith, co-winner of SMU's Viola Desmond bursary
Desmond received a posthumous apology from the Nova Scotia government 63 years later, as well as a "free pardon" from the Queen, which is granted only to those who have not committed a crime. Demond's image also appears on the latest Canadian $10 bill.
A full-time commerce student at SMU pays over $9,000 a year in tuition and fees so the bursary will be a big help, the students said.
“It just takes one less worry off,” said Smith, who also must bear the fuel costs of driving to SMU from North Preston every day.
Balancing the financial books isn’t only a personal challenge for Smith, it’s part of her long-term career goals. She hopes to become a chartered professional accountant.
Whenever she visits a business, "I always think how they do their inventory, how they do their returns and things like that,” said Smith, who has worked in the returns department at Costco for three years.
Matheson said she’ll likely also go into accountancy but as a second-year student, she’s still figuring things out.
“I haven’t declared my major yet. I’m leaning towards accounting or something to do with finance. . . . I like the numbers side of business,” adding that she chose SMU because it’s a small campus and so it wasn’t that big of a transition from high school to university.
Beyond their career aspirations, both acknowledge their symbolic role, particularly in a time of often hate-filled invective in the social media world.
“I think you’re always thinking of it, it’s kind of hard to ignore,” said Matheson, as Smith nodded and said, “It’s always in the back of your mind.”
Matheson calls the fight against racism and discrimination “a work in progress. We continually need to work together as a group. I’m pretty sure it’s never going to be ended but we can all work together to try to solve it.”
Smith said she aspires to be a role model, particularly for the young women in her community,
“I want to be able to push myself and get where I want to be and go back and help my community so other people don’t feel like they’re too small to do something. . . . I want to be able to be that motivation to other girls.
“I have a niece, I want to be a role model for her too, I want her to be able to do whatever she wants with the mindset that ‘I’m a woman but I’m gonna sit there and I’m gonna take over the world.’ I want to have her to have that same mindset.”
