South Bronx to South Bay: Opportunity in the rubble
Haitian children line up for the Maison de Lumiere feeding program, which is largely operated by the orphans themselves. Photo by Lucas Simmons Poor Haiti. It almost makes you think the country has been cursed by God, or by some voodoo spirit, or by the ghost of Papa Doc. The first modern Black nation, independent of colonial rule in 1804, Haiti was born in hope but for most of its history has been battered both by the elements of nature and by human avarice. Roiled by revolutions, exploited by foreign powers, ransacked by its own leaders, in the dead-on path of hurricanes and sitting on top of a San Andreas-like fault, it’s a Murphy’s-Law place, a bull’s-eye for the arrows of evil. Even some of its saints became its greatest sinners: Once in office, both the benevolent physician François Duvalier and the liberationist priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide turned into vicious oppressors. Power corrupts, absolutely. And just when a fragile social and political stability had been achieved in the last few years, the tectonic plates collided, flattening the capital city, cathedral and presidential palace included. Completely lacking building codes and with a government too weak and…
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