Halifax's new harbour ferry will be named in honour of Viola Desmond, the businesswoman sometimes called Canada's Rosa Parks after she was jailed for sitting in the whites-only section of a movie theatre.
Desmond received about a third of the nearly 20,000 votes cast in a naming contest for a new city ferry which will go into service this summer.
The other nominees included two fallen soldiers, a former mayor and Halifax Explosion hero Vincent Coleman.
Desmond was the owner of a beauty salon in Halifax who inadvertently sat in a whites-only section of a movie theatre while on a business trip to New Glasgow in 1946.
She was forcibly removed, jailed for a night and issued a fine which she fought unsuccessfully in court.
Desmond, who left Nova Scotia after her legal troubles, received a posthumous pardon and an apology from the provincial government in 2010.