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Join us on September 17 for a lecture by Marlene Daut, Professor of French and African Diaspora Studies at Yale University.
This talk reframes the story of slavery and freedom showing Haiti at the vanguard of abolition and challenging the idea that Africans and Black Americans were mere passengers on a seemingly linear road from slavery to freedom. As underscored in Daut’s book Awakening the Ashes: An Intellectual History of the Haitian Revolution, Atlantic World leaders perpetuated slavery until Haiti’s revolutionaries redefined it as a “crime against humanity.” Understanding this trajectory necessitates delving into over four hundred years of history, from European colonization to the rise of slavery and plantations in the Americas, to the pivotal role of Haiti’s revolution in sparking the Age of Abolition. Haiti was the driving force for abolition, and its profound influence stretches beyond inspiration, as Haitians actively contributed to the destruction of slavery throughout the Americas.
This talk is co-sponsored by the Global South Lab at the Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley; the Center for Research on Social Change; the Department of Sociology; and the Anticolonial Lab.
The talk will be introduced and moderated by Ricarda Hammer, Assistant Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley and a 2024-2025 Matrix Faculty Fellow.