Haiti: African American contact and interaction to 1960

• Main Author: Millender, Mallory K
• Format: Others
• Published: DigitalCommons@Robert W. Woodruff Library, Atlanta University Center 1996
• Online Access: http://digitalcommons.auctr.edu/dissertations/3454; http://digitalcommons.auctr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4977&context=dissertations

The primary purpose of this dissertation is to examine African American contact and interaction with Haiti to 1960, and to show that significant cultural products resulted from this interaction. This study examines American-Haitian relations from the American Revolution through the American Occupation of Haiti, with emphasis on the social, political, literary and cultural interaction between African Americans and Haitians. Attention is given to the migrations of Haitians to the United States and of African Americans to Haiti, as well as to African American ministers (ambassadors) to Haiti, especially Frederick Douglass. The study details the African American response to the American Occupation of Haiti from 1915 to 1934 and particularly the role of the NAACP, James Weldon Johnson, W. E. B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington and Marcus Garvey. It highlights the involvement of prominent African Americans who went to Haiti and the works that they produced as a result of their experiences in Haiti. This roster includes Langston Hughes, Clarence Cameron White, John F. Matheus, William Edouard Scott, Zora Neale Hurston, Katherine Dunham, Mercer Cook, Naomi Garrett, Alain Locke, Eldzier Cortor, Richmond Barthe, Ellis Wilson, and Lois Mailou Jones. Three appendices are attached with literary excerpts, selected biographies, and a chronology. The major conclusion of the dissertation is that all Americans and black people everywhere owe a great deal to Haiti. African Americans, whose combined wealth is said to equal that of the ninth richest nation on earth, have a particular responsibility to do a great deal more to help Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere.