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"The Plantation is Everywhere": African American Solidarity with Haitian Refugees, 1978-1995
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Barber, Llana, Archer, Jermaine
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Fall 2023
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2024-03-27
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From 1978 to 1995, tens of thousands of Haitians fled to the United States to escape the brutal dictatorships of François and Jean-Claude Duvalier, and the violence that ensued after the overthrow of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Hoping for safety and refuge, most Haitian refugees were instead punished and barred from receiving asylum and entrance by the American government. Many African Americans critiqued the mistreatment of the Haitian refugees as anti-Black and demonstrated solidarity in an array of ways. Drawing from a series of Black newspapers from this era, I present this history of solidarity, arguing that African Americans were motivated to stand with the thousands of Black Haitians because of their own dealings with anti-Blackness in the United States.
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This thesis was completed as an option for requirements of the degree of Master’s in Liberal Studies and is a conjoined effort to highlight an overlooked history of both Black and Immigration Studies and push back against the dominant conversations of diaspora wars, I deliberately chose to highlight and provide an in-depth analysis of African American solidarity with Haitian refugees during the late twentieth century. Through an extensive cultivation of editorials and opinion pieces from African American newspapers dispersed throughout the country, I was able to re-tell this long-overlooked story of struggle and allyship within the African diaspora.