Dr. Darline Wilkenson

There is something sacred about May for Haitian people. Not just because the flowers bloom or the season shifts, but because May carries within it the weight of who we are, where we came from, and how far we have come. Two moments in this month alone remind us that being Haitian is not simply a nationality. It is a calling, a legacy, and a declaration.

Close your eyes for a moment and go back to your grandmother's kitchen. Maybe it was in Port-au-Prince. Maybe it was in Savannah. Maybe it was in a small apartment in Brooklyn that somehow always smelled like something good was on the stove. You walked in and she was already there, moving with a certainty that came not from a cookbook, but from decades of knowing. She did not measure. She did not hesitate. She just knew. And if you were lucky, if you were paying attention, she was teaching yo

February 7, 1986. People poured into the streets of Port-au-Prince before dawn. Men wept. Women held their children toward the sky. Someone’s grandmother, who had never danced in public, danced. After 29 years of Duvalier terror, after 30,000 souls swallowed by darkness, after the systematic looting of our national dignity, we thought we were finally free.