Istwa Nou

The woman turned away at the door walked into a quarrel. After Lescot went into exile in January 1946, Haitian politics was crowded and impatient. Leftist organisers argued that the light skinned presidents holding office since the occupation represented neither the colour nor the class of the country's black majority. Migration from the countryside to the towns, the swings in world markets between the wars and after, and the rise of anticolonial black nationalism elsewhere all raised the temperature. The men who came to the August assembly were noiristes, communists, labour organisers and socialists, united only in wanting nothing of the old order left standing. The Ligue Feminine d'Action Sociale had support among the communists of the Parti Communiste Haitien and the socialists of the Parti Socialiste Populaire, including its president Max Hudicourt. It had none among the leading noiristes. The two currents had shared a front led by Emile Saint-Lot until June, when the communists broke with a leadership that treated colour as the fundamental division and class as secondary. The attacks that followed were personal, and at the assembly they landed on the women.