A Life of Meaning: Virna Canson

Virna Canson, shown here in a Sacramento Bee photo from 1978, served as director of the NAACP’s Western Region, which covered nine states, from 1974 to 1988. She had a long history as an effective activist for social change, including serving as a consumer education and credit union specialist in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles after the 1965 riots there. She died in Sacramento in 2003 at the age of 81.