1935-09-15: (The LFAS Expands Beyond Port-au-Prince — As an Urban-Based Organization the LFAS Being Unique in Postoccupation Politics in Having Not Only Nati…

1935-09-15: (The LFAS Expands Beyond Port-au-Prince — As an Urban-Based Organization the LFAS Being Unique in Postoccupation Politics in Having Not Only National Messaging but Active Chapters Throughout the Nation, Within Months of Formal Founding Establishing Chapters in Port-de-Paix and Saint-Marc, Secretary Bellegarde Writing That September 15 1935 Was “One of the Dates We Must Mark as a Milestone,” LFAS Leaders Rising Early and Traveling in Two Cars to Meet New Members in Saint-Marc — Novelist Cléante Desgraves Valcin Recounting the Journey, Dr. Yvonne Sylvain Opening the First Shelter and Health Center for Mothers and Children at the Centre d’Hygiène de la Saline — the LFAS Taking Literal Roads Throughout the Nation to Extend Their Political Reach): As an urban-based organization, the LFAS was unique in postoccupation politics in that it not only had national messaging — as other political movements did — but also had active chapters throughout the nation. Within months of its formal founding, the women established organizational chapters in Port-de-Paix and Saint-Marc. When recounting the success of the Saint-Marc chapter, executive secretary Bellegarde wrote that September 15, 1935, was one of the dates they must mark as a milestone in the history of the organization. On that day a group of LFAS leaders rose early in the morning and traveled in two cars to meet the new members in Saint-Marc. Novelist and attendee Cléante Desgraves Valcin recounted the journey in La Voix des Femmes — the roads that the occupation had built to extend its surveillance now carried the women who were building the infrastructure of their own liberation. Dr. Yvonne Sylvain meanwhile opened the first shelter and health center for mothers and children at the Centre d’Hygiène de la Saline, translating the LFAS’s rhetoric of care into institutional practice. The LFAS women took several literal roads throughout the nation to extend their political reach, and these journeys were vividly captured in the pages of their newspaper — each trip a small act of sovereignty, each new chapter a node in a network that the occupation generation’s daughters were weaving across the nation their parents had fought to reclaim.