1946: (The Unnamed Woman’s Intentionality and the Broader Landscape of Women’s Organizing — The Unnamed Woman Not Wandering into the Assembly Hall but Her In…

1946: (The Unnamed Woman’s Intentionality and the Broader Landscape of Women’s Organizing — The Unnamed Woman Not Wandering into the Assembly Hall but Her Intention to Join Women Being Clear, Perhaps a Member of the LFAS or a Student at Their Night Schools or a Participant in the Foyer Ouvrier the LFAS Community Center, Outside the Assembly Black Labor Organizer Daniel Fignolé Leader of the Mouvement Ouvrier Paysan Having Galvanized His Urban Working-Class Supporters the Rouleau Compresseur to Form a Street Protest, the MOP Supporting Women’s Rights Through Its Bureau d’Action Féminine Founded in 1948 and Led by Carmen Jean-François Fignolé, Multiple Women’s Groups from Leftist to Christian Right Organizations All Playing a Role in the Movement for Women’s Rights): The unnamed woman did not wander into the assembly hall; her intention to join women was clear. Perhaps she was a member of the LFAS, or a student at their night schools, or a participant in the Foyer Ouvrier, the LFAS women’s community center in Port-au-Prince. Outside the assembly, Black labor organizer Daniel Fignolé, leader of the Mouvement Ouvrier Paysan (MOP), had galvanized his legion of urban working-class supporters — emphatically named the rouleau compresseur (the “steamroller”) — to form a street protest and roll over any opposition to workers’ rights. The MOP openly supported women’s rights, had a section for women in its Chantiers newspaper, and made demands on the state through its women’s department, Bureau d’Action Féminine, founded in 1948 and led by Carmen Jean-François Fignolé. Sylvain-Bouchereau later recalled that there were many groups of women interested in women’s social and cultural improvement in 1946, from leftist organizations to Christian right organizations. Although the LFAS was the only organization to be non-party-affiliated and to have an explicit feminist practice with a social, political, and economic agenda, each group played a role. The women’s archive reveals a crucial nuance: it is in the LFAS’s narration of their protest against the unnamed woman’s removal that we learn of their temporary alliance with the crowd. The majority of assembly attendees shared disapproval of the dismissal of the femme du peuple — the same crowd that booed the LFAS’s presence. As Haitian feminist Sabine Lamour cautions, the entry of affluent women into the labor market after the US occupation often signified a misleading form of transcendence of the internal cleavages of race and class among women. Women were hailed in the political theater as multiple factions objected to the treatment of the unnamed woman, but they also put forth little subsequent action to change or include her participation.