Saturday, June 1, 2014. El Raton Theater. 6:00 PM
The following information was provided by Will Weir, Chair Democratic Party of Colfax County.
Director/Producer, Alain Martin, is expected to be here for the screening (on June 1) and for a Q&A afterward. He and his wife are flying in from New York and will start with a screening on Thursday, May 30, at the African American Performing Arts Center in Albuquerque. The Albuquerque screening is sponsored by the Democratic Party of New Mexico’s Black Caucus which Representative Pamelya Herndon leads. The AAPAC is using this film to kick off their Juneteenth events. Incidentally, Opal Lee, proclaimed by President Biden as the “grandmother” of Juneteenth, is scheduled to be in Santa Fe on May 29.
May is Haitian Heritage Month. The history of Juneteenth has an interesting contrast with the US occupation of Haiti that occurred from 1915 to 1939. Here’s a bit of the timeline for your history buffs: Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 and landed on the island where Haiti is now located. The genocide of the indigenous people soon began, and enslaved Africans were shipped in, replacing the indigenous population. Haiti’s fertile land, excellent location, and free labor, made it France’s most valuable holding. But, after 300 years of slavery, Haiti became a free country in 1804 after a bloody rebellion by the enslaved people themselves. Napoleon’s famous army was defeated and kicked off the island. Haiti claims the status of being the first country to abolish slavery in its founding documents. Due to this heavy financial loss, France sold the Louisiana Purchase, which includes Raton, to the US for cheap. France brought their naval fleet back to Haiti and threatened to invade unless Haitians agreed to pay for their freedom. Fearful Haitian leaders agreed to make large annual payments to France until this “debt” was paid. At that time, slavery was still the official policy in the US. Many in the US, and also in the European countries involved in and benefitting from the slave trade, viewed Haiti as being a possible inspiration for slave rebellions in the US and elsewhere. The US, France, and their allies instituted policies to isolate Haiti and keep them economically disadvantaged, which eventually provided an opportunity for Germany as it looked for allies during the years leading up to World War I.
The Emancipation Proclamation occurred in 1863, which some enslaved Texans did not hear about until Juneteenth 1865 as Jim Crow was beginning. Then, in 1915, President Woodrow Wilson screened the KKK-inspiring racist film The Birth of a Nation at the White House in the same year that he also sent US Marines, many of whom were from former Confederate states, to Haiti, where they re-enslaved Haitians while bringing many other brutal Jim Crow practices to Haiti. The Marines were officially pulled out of Haiti in 1934 but many policies instituted by the US during that occupation are still in place. All one has to do is fill in the gap between 1934 and 2024 to know why Haiti is in the trouble it is in today.