Archive for May, 2010

Haiti: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Today, May 18 marks the 207th anniversary of an event that sealed for good the fate of the French Empire in North America. On this day, the seeds of an independent Haiti were planted when blacks and colored, former slaves and free people of color, vowed to life free in a land that they controlled or they would die trying. These men and women proved to the world then that they were the equal of others in all aspects. How did the pearl of the Antilles turn 200 years later into the poorest country in the western hemisphere? And can it rise from the most devastating earthquake so far this century?