Shorefront Legacy Center cohosted its fourth and final lecture celebrating Black History Month Saturday afternoon at the Levy Senior Center.
The event, titled “From Haiti to New Orleans: Creolization of Culture, Food, Language, Music, People,” explored the close links between Haitian and New Orleanian culture, which resulted from mass immigration after the Haitian Revolution. It featured several presentations, including those highlighting popular phrases in the Creole language and similarities between New Orleans’ second lines and Haiti’s rara music and concluded with a dance party.
The lecture series was cosponsored by the Haitian Congress to Fortify Haiti, the city, the Evanston/North Shore Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Afro-American History and Genealogy Study Group of Evanston.
Before the occasion formally began, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Lionel Jean-Baptiste spoke on the recent death of Rev. Jesse Jackson and held a brief moment of silence.
Jean-Baptiste then discussed the impact of Toussaint Louverture, a Haitian revolutionary, and compared the country’s independence movement to the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. He added that while many of the movement’s leaders, including Jackson, have been lost, the freedom fight they began lives on.
Two members of the panel, chefs Byron Glapion and Daniel Desir, emphasized the impact of Haitian immigrants on food in New Orleans. Cuisine from both panelists’ restaurants was also available at the event. Glapion, who identifies as Creole, cooked gumbo, a New Orleans staple. Desir, who immigrated from Haiti in 1999, made traditional Haitian patties.
Desir owns Kizin Creole Restaurant in Chicago. He recognized Haiti’s influence on both New Orleans and Chicago, which he explained has sustained a relationship with the country since its founding.
“Haitian cuisine has its place in Chicago,” Desir said. “Chicago was founded by a Haitian, so there is absolutely no way for us not to have Haitian cuisine.”
Glapion also discussed his personal connection to New Orleans and the influence it’s had on his life.
Aside from his ancestral connection to voodoo queen Marie Laveau, Glapion said he is most proud of Haitian mass immigration and its role in reshaping the South.
“While slavery took place all over the Deep South, you had this little carving in the South — in New Orleans — where Black men and women owned land, were in real estate, were educated, were owners, were involved in high society and culture,” Glapion said. “We keep this tradition alive today.”
The event culminated with speeches from Jean-Baptiste, representatives of the Haitian Congress to Fortify Haiti and Rev. Dr. Michael Nabors, the president of Evanston’s NAACP.
Ketlie Acacia Luckett, the treasurer of the Haitian Congress to Fortify Haiti, urged Evanston residents to donate to and volunteer for the organization, sharing an anecdote about the group’s recent success in freeing a Haitian man from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.
Marie Lynn Toussaint, chair of the Haitian Congress to Fortify Haiti, echoed Luckett’s sentiments, arguing that now is the time to act.
“We are not going to just lay down and die,” Toussaint said. “We’re going to figure out a way to do what we have to do. That’s what we’ve always done, and that’s what we’re always going to continue to do.”
Jean-Baptiste shared a similar message as he discussed Haiti’s centuries of economic exploitation by the French after winning its independence.
Despite Haiti’s struggles, Jean-Baptiste said the impact the country had on independence movements in the Western Hemisphere — and the influence Haiti continues to have — is something worth celebrating.
“We may be poor, but always proud of where we came from,” Jean-Baptiste said.
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