5 People You’ll Meet at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights
There’s a conversation-starter that has been both a cocktail party and interview standard for years: If you could have dinner with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?
A visit to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights can be a little like that dinnertime scenario. You’ll learn more about the lives of these human rights heroes, and how their stories changed the world for the better.
Viola Desmond
Desmond is the first Canadian woman to be featured on a regularly-circulating Canadian bank note. The new $10 bill also features an image of the museum, emphasizing Desmond’s contribution to the struggle for rights in Canada. It was in November 1946 that the hair salon owner went to a film at the Roseland Theatre in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. Unaware that the theatre was segregated, she refused to move to the balcony, where Black patrons were expected to sit. She was arrested and her case when all the way to Nova Scotia’s Supreme Court. She lived a difficult life, passing away in 1965. Her sister, Wanda Robson, carries on her legacy: “Change is gonna come. We have to be patient. Never give up. Never give up.”
Wanda Robson
Change is gonna come. We have to be patient. Never give up. Never give up.
Nelson Mandela
The Mandela: Struggle for Freedomexhibition continues at the museum until October 14. Here you’ll learn of the legacy of the South African’s fight against apartheid, and go inside a replica of the cell he lived in for 18 years of his 27-year imprisonment.
Nelson Mandela
No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Louis Riel
Learn about Métis leader Loui Riel on the Métis Rightsgroup tour, and the story of the Métis nation from early settlement to the cultural and political resurgence of today.
Louis Riel
My people will sleep for one hundred years, but when they awake, it will be the artists who give them their spirit back.
Roméo Dallaire
Dallaire is known as the leader of a United Nations mission before and during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. You can learn more about Dallaire, and view the flak jacket that he wore during his Rwandan mission, in the Museum’s Breaking the Silence gallery.
Romeo Dallaire
I know there is a God, because in Rwanda I shook hands with the devil. I have seen him, I have smelled him and I have touched him. I know the devil exists and therefore I know there is a God.
Malala Yousafzai
Yousafzai is a young Pakistani woman who defends children’s right to education, particularly for girls. A winner of a Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, she has persisted despite opposition and an attempt on her life.
Malala Yousafzai
So here I stand, one girl among many. I speak—not for myself, but so those without a voice can be heard. Those who have fought for their rights. Their right to live in peace. Their right to equality of opportunity. Their right to be educated.
