1935–2010s: (Manigat’s Assessment and the Space Between “Oh” and “Yes” — Legal Historian Mirlande Manigat Observing That More Radical Movements Have Since Re…

1935–2010s: (Manigat’s Assessment and the Space Between “Oh” and “Yes” — Legal Historian Mirlande Manigat Observing That More Radical Movements Have Since Relegated the LFAS to a Place Where It Sometimes Remains Embalmed and Praised for Drawing the Path of Women’s Politics but Otherwise Criticized for Failing to Follow the Radical Strategy, Sanders Johnson Locating Political Meaning at the Intersection of History and Memory in the Affective Space Between “Oh” and “Yes” Where Something Between Women Could Have Opened but Instead Remained Closed, the 2010 Earthquake Quickening the Urgency as Leaders of the Haitian Women’s Movement Transitioned from the Land of the Living to That of the Dead, Gina Athena Ulysse Calling for New Narratives of Haiti Because the Old Ones No Longer Suffice): Legal historian Mirlande Manigat offers coordinates for reading the LFAS women’s wayfaring: more radical feminist or women’s movements have since taken place in Haiti and have relegated the pioneer of the women’s movement to a place where it sometimes remains embalmed, and praised certainly for drawing the path of women’s politics, but otherwise criticized for failing to follow the radical strategy. Sanders Johnson locates political meaning at the intersection of history and memory — in the affective space between “oh” and “yes,” where something between women could have opened but instead remained closed. She conducted many of her interviews in the years before and in the tender moments after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. As similar comments reverberated across this tectonic shift in time, she was struck by how steady the resonances of the “oh” and “yes” were. Feminist scholar Gina Athena Ulysse called for new narratives of Haiti, or at least other narratives, because the old ones no longer suffice. The call was urgent because leaders of the Haitian women’s movement and many women transitioned from the land of the living to that of the dead during the 2010 earthquake. It was urgent because narratives of exceptionalism — resilient, poor, pitiful, supernatural, weak, strong — that circulated during that period were old narratives that failed to communicate or intentionally erased ordinary, human narratives of Haiti. Haitian women activists in the twenty-first century contend with many of the same conditions early twentieth-century activists managed: a disproportionate wealth gap, marginal recognition by the state, foreign invasion, predatory global markets, sexual violence, and the meaning of access to education and health services.