Reposted from The Black Agenda Review. Jean-Jacques Dessalines’s 8 April 1804 proclamation to the Haitian people is among the most stunning critiques of race, slavery, colonialism, and white barbarity to have emerged in modern history. It is also a profoundly radical statement on Black freedom and self-determination, and the morality of revolutionary violence. On January […]
Tag Archives: freedom
Anarchy / Autonomy / Utopia
There is a present-day tendency to retreat into the realms of dystopia, of catastrophe and disaster, of failed states and fascism, of environmental collapse and economic apocalypse. This tendency is neither wrong nor mistaken. Yet it is often suffocating, only adding to the pressurized dread of the era, offering no antidote to the plague of […]
Hunger Strikers at California’s Adelanto Detention Center
Miami’s Krome Service Processing Center has a well-deserved reputation for the particular cruelties it has dispensed upon the Haitian asylum seekers detained within its walls. Yet Krome’s notoriety may soon be superseded by a new breed of detention centers in the southwestern United States. A string of private prisons contracted by ICE operate near the […]
A Visit To / A Visit From / The Island
“….We are presented with a diptych of two beach scenes: one set on a sunny day off the coast of a posh resort with white people sunbathing and engaging in leisure activities; the other set in a storm with dark-skinned people―possibly Haitian refugees fleeing to Florida, in the midst of a crisis involving a seemingly […]
The Archive of Occupation
Citing the need to protect American life and property while preserving political stability in the Caribbean region, on July 28, 1915 three hundred and thirty United States Marines landed at Port-au-Prince. Thus began a nineteen-year military occupation whose consequences for the Republic of Haiti (and for the Black World) were arguably as significant as the […]
Black Folk in Dark Times: Storified
[View the story “Black Folk in Dark Times: A Workshop on Sovereignty, Citizenship, and Freedom” on Storify]
Abduction & Assistance: An Interview with Donald Rumsfeld
Q: Mr. Secretary? Rumsfeld: Yes, sir? Q: I wonder if you could tell us how many U.S. troops do you think, in a round figure, might be required — might be sent to Haiti, and how long do you think they would stay? And also, President Aristide is claiming now that he was virtually kidnapped […]
The Struggle for the Recognition of Haiti and Liberia as Independent Republics
If any good reason exists why we should persevere longer in withholding our recognition of the independence and sovereignty of Haiti and Liberia, I am unable to discern it. Unwilling, however, to inaugurate a novel policy in regard to them without the approbation of Congress, I submit to your consideration the expediency of an appropriation […]