Stumbled across references to a couple of Toussaint-related productions. Danny Glover starred as TL in a production at Carnegie Hall on May 23rd of this year. Also, I had been aware of the play For Love of Freedom, produced in 2001 at the Robey theatre in LA, but not that it was a trilogy! Apparently, [...]
Korngold p 101 – Speculates on Toussaint’s reason for choosing the name Louverture. I would prefer to avoid speculation on such things. Who knows whether Toussaint himself consciously knew the reason? Sometimes our psyches assimilate circumstances for us. Perhaps, though, Toussaint did see himself as a savior. Perhaps he was aware of himself as uniquely [...]
I got my new PowerBook today, so I can hardly concentrate, but here goes… Korngold makes the astonishing claim that Toussaint was in on the revolution from the beginning in 1791! I’m stunned. I never heard this part before. According to Citizen Toussaint, the then-Governor of St. Domingue was convinced that the best way to [...]
I’m reading Ralph Korngold’s Citizen Toussaint today. Uncle Jay says this book, published in 1944 seems to be the definitive book of Toussaint. The author certainly has good credentials and a chunky bibliography. Korngold was a French professor at one point and therefore was able to translate the French documents of the period. On page [...]
I’ve spent the last 3 hours sorting Grandfather’s Toussaint-related files. Man there’s a bunch of stuff! My strategy is to separate all of Grandfather’s writings, then organize the rest and use that as the supporting research to get me started. I’d love to get rid of a lot of this – looks like there’s a [...]
My girlfriend pointed out this newspaper article to me about the horrendous living conditions of modern Haitians, who are preparing to celebrate the 200th anniversary of independence as the world’s first black republic. On the same page of that November 23rd, 2003, Seattle Times was this article about child slavery in Haiti. The first article, [...]