Roseland Theatre

The Roseland Theatre was built in 1913 at the corner of Forbes and Provost Streets after a fire destroyed a hardware store and Oddfellows Lodge which had previously occupied the prominent location in downtown New Glasgow. The Roseland was built by John D. Grant, a local builder who later became the mayor of New Glasgow, and was first owned by Henry (Harry) MacNeil.

Constructed of brick with three stories, with a marquee and two large display windows promoting current and coming attractions. It received renovation when sound was introduced there in 1929. The marquee was topped with a large neon rose, which became a landmark in New Glasgow as the pre-eminent theater in town. At the time, it was also one of the two main movie theaters for the Pictou County area, and the Roseland is the only one with a balcony.

This theater however sparked massive controversy. Nova Scotia did not have racial equality laws for businesses such as theatres like all other Canadian provinces, so it allowed business owners to enforce racial segregation if they wished. In 1941, in response to complaints from white customers, the Roseland segregated the entire theater, forcing African Nova Scotians to sit in the balcony. In 1943, a school class was ejected from the downstairs seats because the class included African Nova Scotian students. In response, Carrie Best, an African Nova Scotian writer and New Glasgow resident, decided to challenge the segregation. She arranged to purchase two tickets for the downstairs seating of the Roseland and attempted to watch a film with her son James Calbert Best. Both were arrested and fought the charges in an attempt to challenge the legal justification of the Roseland’s segregation. Their case was unsuccessful and they had to pay damages to Roseland’s owners. The experience helped motivate Carrie Best to found The Clarion, a newspaper aimed at African Nova Scotians which became an important voice in exposing racism.

The history got darker after the war. Viola Desmond, of Halifax, was a successful and respected businesswoman who ran a Halifax-based beauty parlor and beautician school. She was driving through New Glasgow on November 8, 1946, on business trip when her car broke down. While her car was being repaired, she went to the Roseland to pass the time by seeing Olivia de Havilland’s “The Dark Mirror” (unknown if extras added). Desmond bought a ticket for the 7:00 p.m. evening show and, not knowing that the Roseland was racially segregated, asked for a downstairs seat as vision problems made it hard for her to see the screen from a distance. Desmond was sold an upstairs seat for 30 cents, which included the two-cent provincial tax. A downstairs ticket was 40 cents, and the tax was a penny more. Desmond was told by usher Prima Davis that she did not have a downstairs ticket, but when she returned to upgrade to an upstairs ticket, the ticket seller, Peggy Melanson, told her, “I am sorry, but I am not permitted to sell downstairs tickets to you people”. Desmond decided to take her seat anyway and quietly found a seat near the front of the half-empty downstairs. While trailers and snipes appear on the screen, the usher followed her and said, “I told you to go upstairs”. Desmond refused to move. The usher returned with the theater manager, Henry MacNeil, son of the Roseland’s original owner who demanded that she leave. Desmond politely and repeatedly asked the manager to take her money to pay the extra for a downstairs ticket because of her eyesight. She refused to leave her seat and said that she had a right to quietly enjoy the film like any other customer. MacNeil grew angry and left in a huff, returning with a New Glasgow police officer who ordered Desmond to leave. MacNeil and the officer dragged the stoic Desmond up the aisle of the Roseland and into the lobby inflicting numerous bruises. Her purse and shoe were ripped away in the process but returned to her by onlookers.

Desmond was arrested and was taken into custody in a taxi where she was imprisoned for the night. The next day, she was convicted of not paying the extra cent in provincial tax and paid a $20 fine as well as $6 to the Roseland Theatre’s manager for legal costs. Desmond appealed the conviction, but the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia dismissed the appeal over a legal technicality. The conviction was left on her record, and she later moved to the United States, where she died in New York City on February 7, 1965. Her appeal of the Roseland Theatre conviction, while unsuccessful, drew attention to segregation in Nova Scotia and helped start a process among Black Nova Scotians that successfully ended the legal basis for segregation in theaters and other businesses in 1954. The case is regarded as a pioneering challenge of racial segregation in Canada, and Viola Desmond is often called Canada’s Rosa Parks. The province of Nova Scotia issued a posthumous pardon and apology in 2010 to recognize Desmond. Her stand against racism and injustice at the Roseland led the Bank of Canada to choose Desmond for the new Canadian ten-dollar bill in 2016.

A short time after the incident, Odeon Theatres Canada (later under the Canadian Odeon branding and the Cineplex Odeon chain) took the theater over, who operated the theater for decades until the early-1990’s, when it closed down as a first-run house following the opening of the Aberdeen 4 Cinemas (later Studio 7 and now Cineplex Cinemas New Glasgow) at the Aberdeen Mall. After its closure, the marquee and namesake neon rose were removed, but the Roseland name was retained, and the building exterior has otherwise changed little over several renovations. The former movie house became the Roseland Cabaret nightclub later in the 1990s, but complaints over assaults and vandalism by bar patrons led the mayor to call for a restriction of the cabaret’s hours in 2015. The Roseland marquee has been depicted prominently in several artworks associated with the Desmond case including a first-day cover by Canada Post and a replica set in a Heritage Minute by the Historica Canada Foundation.

Despite the historical significance of the building, it received no heritage recognition until 2015 when Raymond Pentz, a new owner of the nightclub, made a plaque to display on the front of the Roseland honoring Viola Desmond’s stand against racism. However, in late October 2015, significant roof problems led the building’s owner to close the nightclub and sell the building to MacGillivray Properties, a law firm and real estate development company. MacGillivray demolished the interior floors and restored the exterior of the Roseland to convert it into office and retail space. The renovations uncovered vintage film projection equipment. Some of the Roseland’s original seats from the theater’s auditorium were salvaged and have been both preserved and used in displays by the Nova Scotia Museum, the Canadian Museum of History, and the Bank of Canada Museum.

The following year in 2016, teachers and students of the New Glasgow Academy began to use the historic theater as a destination for educational marches on Martin Luther King Day. Following class study of the history of the civil rights they marched to the Viola Desmond plaque on the theater building. The Roseland’s owners sponsored an art competition in 2018 for murals to depict the human rights history of the Roseland. A custom motorsports company, Bespoke Motor Company, opened in the former theater in 2021.

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