Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was clear about what justice meant. It wasn’t a theory or a slogan. It was about dignity—the dignity of poor people, the dignity of children, the dignity of communities that had been told, again and again, that their lives mattered less.
Right now, it’s hard not to feel far from the accomplishments of the movement he led. In the U.S., we are seeing the normalization of state-sponsored violence, the criminalization of poverty and peaceful protest, and the acceptance that might makes right. That reality is unsettling—and it’s real. But it isn’t new.
Haiti’s history is a long, unfinished struggle for the same things Dr. King fought for: freedom, justice, and power rooted in the people themselves.
Long before Dr. King, Haitians fought slavery and colonial rule under leaders like Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines—not because victory was guaranteed, but because dignity demanded it.
That struggle continued through the courage of women as well as men. Sanité Bélair, a young freedom fighter, refused to submit to colonial forces and was executed for it. Catherine Flon helped design and sew the Haitian flag—a declaration that freedom would be claimed, named, and made visible. Their contributions were not symbolic. They shaped the nation’s identity and its insistence on equality.
Haiti won independence against impossible odds, only to face punishment: first by isolation, then by paying their enslavers reparations over 100 years, and then a U.S. occupation that stole the national treasury to finance what is now Citibank. These acts of economic oppression would cripple the nation for generations.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Haitians again organized for democracy—teachers, farmers, women, church leaders, and students pushed back against dictatorship and repression. Progress was made. It was also undermined. Similar to what the United States is experiencing now.
Today, Haiti faces another crisis—armed gangs, political paralysis, and daily insecurity. And still, Haitians are not waiting to be rescued. Haitians are doing what they have always done: building what they can, where they are, with one another.
That’s what I see every day here at the Matènwa Community Learning Center.
The murals on the school walls—of Louverture, Dessalines, Bélair, and Flon—aren’t decoration. They remind students that their history includes courage, imagination, and collective responsibility. They remind teachers and parents that education itself is an act of nonviolence—a way of refusing despair and refusing to pass injustice on to the next generation.
The Jean-Jacques Dessalines mural at the Matènwa Community Learning Center.
Dr. King called his vision the Beloved Community: a society rooted in justice, mutual care, and shared humanity, where conflict is addressed without violence and where the well-being of the most vulnerable matters to everyone.
That idea is not abstract here. It’s visible in classrooms where children learn in their own language, where girls and boys have the same rights and responsibilities, where punishment is rejected in favor of respect, and where locally grown food, learning, dignity, and self-determination for all are treated as non-negotiable.
And you are part of this.
Friends of Matènwa supporters are not spectators to this work. Your solidarity, your generosity, and your presence power this movement. You are walking alongside a community that believes the future is something people build together patiently, seriously, and with hope—even when the world gives them plenty of reasons not to.
If you’re feeling discouraged today by the division, the abject failures of leadership, and the state-sponsored violence and criminality, I want you to know this: there is another way being practiced right now. You’ve seen it in my homecoming video. We all see it in the classrooms, the gardens, the breakfast tables, and the relationship with you, our supporters, who make this work possible.
Dr. King didn’t ask people to ignore injustice. He asked them to refuse to let it have the last word.
Matènwa is one small, real example of what can come next in a world that often feels broken.
Dr. King reminded us that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts of people willing to take responsibility for one another and to do the work in front of them.
That’s what’s happening in Matènwa, and it is work that you are part of.
Thank you for being part of this shared effort—across borders, across history, and across differences.
With respect and resolve,
Chris Low
Co-Founder and Executive Director | Friends of Matènwa
