Animated series profiles brave women, including Canada’s first Black female lawyer

EDMONTON — Jo-Anne Henry says her mother never described herself as a rebel.

“I don’t ever remember my mom saying, ‘I was the first Black woman lawyer in all of Canada,'” Henry said in a phone interview from her home in New York.

Violet King, who later married and became Violet King Henry, was also the first Black person to graduate with a law degree in Alberta and the first Black person to be called to the bar in the province.

More people can now learn about her in an animated series on YouTube and TFO, Ontario’s public French-language channel, called “Rebelles” — French for rebels.

Each episode tells the story of a brave, female barrier buster in Canada. The last episode is set to be out in March, and another season with more brave women is planned for release next year.

The episode on King is being highlighted throughout February for Black History Month.

Renee de Sousa, the co-producer and co-director of Rebelles, said other great women in the series include Diane and Béatrice Desloges. The Ottawa sisters famously stood against an Ontario policy that restricted French-language instruction in schools in the 20th century.

There are also Kit Coleman, Canada’s first war correspondent, Harriet Brooks, a pioneering nuclear physicist, and Abby Hoffman, an Olympian and sports activist.

The series focuses on women for several reasons, said De Sousa.

“One of the questions that kept coming up was … do we still need that type of programming?” she said. The answer was a resounding yes.

De Sousa said women faced severe oppression not so long ago, such as when they were banned from opening bank accounts or voting.

“If we look at the political climate today … it’s become increasingly relevant that the fight against the systems that rule us isn’t something that’s part of the past only,” she said.

“We can inspire ourselves from the actions of these women who dare to challenge the system, not just for their own advancement but for the betterment of society.”

She said women are also not equally represented in Canadian history books.

“We’re not 50 per cent of the heroes of history.”

The animated format of the series makes the stories memorable, De Sousa added.

“I find that often we just talk about facts, but we don’t really retain many facts, or at least I don’t. So that’s why storytelling is such a big part of how we present the lives of these women.”

She found archival images of the women and used artificial intelligence to animate their stories. A narrator speaks as “collage style” images flip across the screen.

Using the style was a no-brainer, De Sousa said, as it was upper-class Victorian women who popularized it, De Sousa said.

Photography had become more available and women of that era, while waiting around to get married, would cut up photos and piece them together — like modern-day scrapbooking, she said.

De Sousa began crafting “Rebelles” in 2023.

“What we were looking for were women who had kind of a pivotal moment where they were told, ‘No.” And then when we found the moment, we’re like, ‘OK, this is a rebel.’ And off we go,” she said.

King was a prime example.

Her episode begins with a description of what life was like for Black immigrants after the abolition of slavery in 1865.

The Canadian government had invited immigrants to settle in the country, but Black farmers from the United States weren’t welcomed with open arms.

Canada’s government sent officials to the U.S. to tell Black farmers stories about a hostile life in Canada to get them to change their minds about moving north. Immigrants also had to undergo medical tests to be accepted into Canada, and doctors who rejected Black immigrants were given bonuses.

King’s family beat the odds and eventually moved to Alberta from Oklahoma.

Born in Calgary in 1929, she graduated from the University of Alberta’s law program in 1952 and was called to the bar the following year.

“To just have the confidence and the perseverance to pursue when everybody is telling you it’s not worth it, no one like you is in this position, to just kind of plow through, that’s quite admirable,” De Sousa said.

Jo-Anne Henry said she’s particularly happy that youth are watching the series and learning about her mother.

“I love when children show an interest in something and are curious and are inspired.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 1, 2026.

Fakiha Baig, The Canadian Press