You’ll get your first peek at Canada’s new $10-bill in a few days.

The bank note, featuring civil rights pioneer Viola Desmond, will be unveiled at the Halifax Central Library by Finance Minister Bill Morneau and Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz.

Desmond was a beautician who, through her beauty school, was a mentor for young black women in Nova Scotia.

It was in 1946 that she challenged racial discrimination by sitting in a whites-only section of a movie theatre in New Glasgow.

She was arrested and fined.

A senior instructor of black studies at Dalhousie University has said that unlike Rosa Parks, who was part of an organized protest movement when she refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger in Alabama in 1955, Desmond’s act of defiance, nine years earlier, was a singular act of courage.

Desmond’s legacy is being increasingly recognized as her name now graces a Halifax Transit harbour ferry with plans to name streets after her in Halifax and Montreal.