A Hartford Courant photographer, he opens the door to Haiti's dark, brutal secrets with explicit photographs taken in his native country. [Marc Yves Regis] was a freelance photographer with the Miami Times and an intern with the Miami Herald before joining the Courant. The book outlines Haiti's democratic reforms, beginning with the 1990 appointment of the country's first woman president. A year later, Ertha Pascal-Trouillot handed power to Jean-Betrand Aristide, who captured the presidency with an overwhelming 67 percent of the vote in the country's first true democratic election.
Lauderdale Lakes City Commissioner Hazelle Rogers has been named the new president of the Broward League of Cities. She was nominated by her peers to head the organization, comprising representatives from all of Broward's municipalities. "We try to identify issues affecting municipal government in Broward. I wanted to be a part of the planning that will shape what Broward, and my city, will be in 15 years," Rogers told The Broward Times. "We are living in a global world now. Broward needs to create partnerships with Caribbean countries. I want to organize trade missions and impress upon people how important the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries are to us, as far as trade is concerned," said Rogers, a native of Jamaica.
The Organization of Africans in the Americas, a Washington DC-based organization, will sponsor a symposium entitled "Afro-Latinos and the Issue of Race in the New Millennium."
Since 1959, when Fidel Castro overturned the corrupt, proAmerican government of Fulgencio Batista and declared Cuba a communist nation, the American policy has been one of not just opposing the Cuban government, but of isolating Cuba and its citizens from all economic and social interaction with the United States. The reality is that allowing trade and travel does not eliminate our ability to address Cuba's human rights problems. In fact, one could argue - as even some conservatives did when we participated in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing - that such interaction gives greater voice to questions of human rights in Cuba. Our policy against Cuba has largely been shaped by the politics of Florida, where anti-Castro Cuban immigrants have long been a powerful economic and political force. But even that is changing; younger Americans of Cuban origin are becoming increasingly more likely to support travel to, and trade with, Cuba.
Kwanzaa, an African-American holiday which celebrates family, community, and culture, is the fastest growing holiday in the U.S. An estimated 18 million Africans celebrate KWANZAA each year around the world, including celebrants in the U.S., Africa, the Caribbean, South America, especially Brazil, Canada, India, Britain and numerous European countries. Kwanzaa as an African-American holiday belongs to the most ancient tradition in the world, the African tradition. Drawing from and building on this rich and ancient tradition, Kwanzaa makes its own unique contribution to the enrichment and expansion of African tradition by reaffirming the importance of family, community, and culture. The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa. The central reason Kwanzaa is celebrated for seven days is to pay homage to The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa which in Swahili are: Umoja, Kujichagulia, Ujima, Ujamaa, Nia, Kuumba, and Imani. The principles are also known as The Seven Principles of African American community development and serve as a fundamental value system.
Congressman Charles B. Rangel (D-Harlem), who was instrumental in obtaining a license from the U.S. Treasury Department on behalf of the NAACP delegation for the trip to Cuba, hailed the planned trade link with Black farmers. Rangel said he considers the results of the NAACP's Cuba visit "an important breakthrough." Rangel is a longtime advocate of U.S. trade with Cuba, arguing that removal of the U.S. embargo would promote democracy in Cuba.
Although the program has a long, academic-sounding formal tide, "Sugar, Slavery and Imperialism: How Sugar Drove the Forced Migration of Africans to the Caribbean and the Impact of the Haitian Revolution," it is an informal presentation aimed at general audiences. This is a rare opportunity to learn more about Haiti's former status, as the richest, rather than the poorest, country in the hemisphere; about Haitian participation in the American Revolutionary War and aid to other independence struggles; about the brilliant diplomatic and military leadership of Toussaint L'Ouverture, Dessalines, Petion and others, who defeated the forces of Napoleon, Britain and Spain together; about how the Haitian victory caused Napoleon to sell the vast Louisiana territory to the United States, and about the great heroism of ordinary Haitians that was required for victory to be won. (The Louisiana Purchase, which will be commemorated on specially minted nickel coins in 2004, also opened the way for an expanded domestic "slave trade" within the United States, which was even larger than the former Atlantic trade).
Attorney Michael Etienne, Irvence St. Jean, President of United for Haiti, Sandra JeanPierre, owner of WOW Factor Weddings and Events and the Fernande Saint Jean, the host for United for Haiti Gala, enjoy a night of celebration at the United for Haiti First Annual Black Tie Gala at FIU.
For [Heidi Rondon], the opportunity to express her African roots through music and dance was a calling. "In our veins we carry the African feeling," she explained. "We are direct descendants of slaves that cultivated cocoa and coffee in the central coast of Barlovento many years ago." "These Africans were Latin America's first liberators," says historian and activist Jorge Guerrero Valez accompanying the group. A dignified Venezuelan enormously conscious of his African heritage and history, Jorge spoke eloquently about the solidarity Afro-Venezuelans, as they call themselves, feel with their African American brothers and sisters in the United States and the need to enhance the relationship.
