From Douglass to Duvalier: U.S. African Americans, Haiti, and Pan Americanism, 1870–1964 by Millery Polyné (review)

Millery Polyné’s ambitious first book is a most welcome addition to several fields, including Haiti-U.S. relations, foreign policy, and transnational studies. This work employs a cultural lens to shed light on the significant, influential, and under-studied relationships between Haitians and U.S. African Americans from 1870 to 1964. Polyné encourages a new understanding of Pan Americanism—that is, acts and gestures of “mutual cooperation, egalitarianism, and nonintervention between nation-states in the Americas”—by placing Haiti at the center of this discussion (8). In particular, he uncovers two competing tenets of Pan Americanism: 1) a vision based in black (trans)nationalism that promoted racial solidarity and uplift; and 2) one that remained U.S.-centric and often hegemonic or paternalistic. This book historicizes several vantage points to reveal the fulfilled and unfulfilled promises of Pan Americanism and the implications it held for Haitian political, economic, and cultural development.

Polyné’s narrative introduces readers to some familiar and other lesser-studied figures. Chapter 1 offers a nuanced interpretation of Frederick Douglass that places him at the crossroads of U.S. and black Pan Americanism. He explores Douglass’s responses to U.S. imperialism in Hispaniola from 1870 to 1891, demonstrating how the ambassador grew more cautious and skeptical of the United States’ promises of egalitarianism both at home and abroad. Chapter 2 focuses on the 1930 Robert R. Moton Education Commission, a goodwill initiative in which U.S. black college professors, administrators, and journalists examined and proposed ways to ameliorate Haiti’s education system during the final years of the U.S. occupation. The author argues that the panel’s bold suggestions—including raising teacher salaries and asking for low-interest U.S. loans—stemmed from a transnational racial uplift project. Chapter 3 introduces readers to Claude Barnett, the founder of the Associated Negro Press. This particularly strong chapter finds Polyné dissecting the inner workings of the U.S. black press and its pivotal role in fostering diplomatic relations between U.S. blacks and Haitians. The author argues that Barnett championed capitalist development, such as foreign investment and tourism, as the best way to achieve racial advancement.

The author places the figures and events from the text’s final chapters in the context of a heated Cold War that drastically changed the politics of Pan Americanism. Chapter 4 centers around NAACP Executive Secretary Walter White and his efforts to launch a public relations campaign to introduce Haiti as modern and ripe for tourism and investment. In a similar vein, chapter 5 introduces readers to two choreographers/dancers: Haitian Jean-Léon-Destiné and U.S. African American Lavinia Williams. He follows their careers in both Haiti and the United States, demonstrating how they served as cultural ambassadors that helped “develop Haiti through tourism and cultural redemption. . .” (178). In this standout chapter Polyné simultaneously explores the exploitation, embrace, and taming of Haitian folkloric dance—revealing the battle for economic and cultural development and the breaking down of class and racial barriers. The author concludes with 1964, the year François Duvalier became Haiti’s self-proclaimed “president for life.” Polyné identifies a sort of ambivalent silence from U.S. blacks during this period, save for the new voices of the Haitian exiles. He demonstrates how Duvalier exploited U.S. Cold War imperatives to meet his interests. Polyné observes that this period constituted “the nadir of U.S. African American and Haitian relations” (205).

This work is remarkable for its original analysis and reevaluation of past events and interpretations. Polyné’s research materials are impressive and diverse, particularly resources acquired at the Schomburg Center in New York. His methodology will surely be mimicked in the future. His transnational framework sets the bar for narratives that go beyond the singular nation-state and instead note the many ways—political, cultural, social, and economic—that individuals regarded themselves as part of something larger...