1964, April 1 – June 14: (Président-à-Vie: The Black-and-Red Flag, the Catéchisme de la Révolution, Christ with His Hand on Duvalier’s Shoulder, 2,800,000 Ou…

1964, April 1 – June 14: (Président-à-Vie: The Black-and-Red Flag, the Catéchisme de la Révolution, Christ with His Hand on Duvalier’s Shoulder, 2,800,000 Oui to 3,234 Non, and Our Doc Who Art in the Palais National for Life): Early in 1964, army officers began circulating petitions that Duvalier become president for life. A commission brought in a draft appointing Duvalier — like Toussaint — président-à-vie with power to name his successor, referring to him throughout as the Sovereign. On April 1, with Dessalinian haste, Duvalier installed himself as lifetime president of the world’s first hereditary republic — such a revolutionary, he explained, is found only once every fifty or seventy-five years. As part of the new constitution, the président-à-vie discarded the horizontal blue-and-scarlet flag designed by Pétion and adopted a black-and-red design blazoned with lanbi and pentad, said to have been used by Dessalines and King Henry Christophe — the black placed beside the staff because, in the words of Député Pierre Armand, black is the color of the true Haiti. Official decrees began capitalizing personal pronouns referring to the Sovereign; Oedipe ran a halftone of Christ with His hand on the shoulder of Duvalier, captioned Je Lui ai choisi — He is My chosen one. On the day, 2,800,000 Haitians casting ballots pre-printed Oui ratified the new order; the 3,234 who voted Non were mostly arrested for defacing a ballot. Paul Blanchet issued a Catéchisme de la Révolution: who are Dessalines, Toussaint, Christophe, Pétion, and Estimé? — they are five distinct Chiefs of State who are substantiated in and form only one and the same President in the person of François Duvalier. In place of the Lord’s Prayer, children were bidden to say: Our Doc, who art in the Palais National for life, hallowed be Thy name by present and future generations, Thy will be done in Port-au-Prince as it is in the provinces, give us this day our new Haiti and forgive not the trespasses of those antipatriots who daily spit upon our country, lead them into temptation and, poisoned by their own venom, deliver them from no evil.