HSI Archives and Special Collections Open House/Inauguration of the Daniel Simidor Reading Room

Come learn about Haitian Culture and history being preserved at the HSI Archives!

The Haitian Studies Institute Archives and Special Collections will be having its official opening of the Daniel Simidor Reading Room. To honor this event, the campus will welcome three prominent archivists and librarians within Black and Haitian Studies, along with an open house that will display Simidor’s and other prominent collections. There will also be a book talk with Monique Clesca hosted by The Haitian Times.

Register here.

Event Rundown:

9–10 a.m. High School Class visits led by HASA\Room 360

10:30 a.m. Noon Panel Discussion: Resisting Erasure: Black Radical Traditions and the Legacy of Daniel Simidor Gottlieb Room 412

12:15–1:15 p.m. Book Talk with Monique Clesca and Haitian Times | Gottlieb Room 412 Library

1:15–2:15 p.m. Lunch

2:15–3:15 p.m. Open House | 360 Library

3:15–5 p.m. Archival Tours Led by HASA | 360 Library

11:45 a.m.–12:30 p.m. Archival Tour (with Midwood High School students)

12:30–2:15 p.m. Lunch

2:30–5 p.m.  – Archive Open House

• Book Talk
  • Monique Clesca , author of Silence and Resistance with Macolvie. editor at Large The Haitian Times)

About Daniel Simidor

André Elizée also known by his nom de guerre Daniel Simidor was a distinguished writer, poet, activist, and archivist who spent his career preserving the history and political legacy of the Haitian Left. A participant of the anti-Duvalier movement in the 1980s, Elizée also protested the U.S.-backed coup against Haitian President Aristide in 1991 and contributed to efforts to shut down Guantanamo, which the US had used to detain Haitians seeking political asylum following the coup d’état.

Elizée is most recognized for his work in creating and maintaining archival collections at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture where he worked in the Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Division for 26 years. A specialist in Haitian history, politics, and culture, Elizée is equally knowledgeable in the histories of French-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, African American civil rights, Black Nationalism, the Black Arts Movement, and Communist history and theory. At the Schomburg, he processed many collections and co-curated major exhibitions including “The French Revolution in the Americas” and “Dechoukaj! Contemporary Social and Political Developments in Haiti, 1986-1988,” alongside Miriam Jiménez Román. To further explore the themes of politics, migration, and culture in the “Dechoukaj” exhibit, he organized a film and lecture series at Hunter College.

André Elizée’s commitment to collecting, developing and ensuring public access to Haitian history made him a living resource for scholars worldwide. He is remembered as a significant public intellectual, preservationist of Haiti’s cultural and political history, and an important member of the Haitian left in New York in the last quarter of twentieth century.

Steven Fullwood

Steven G. Fullwood (he/him) is an archivist, writer, and cultural documentarian committed to preserving the histories of people of African descent. A Toledo, Ohio, native, Steven’s career spans over 30 years, including 19+ years at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, where he founded the In the Life Archive, the largest collection of materials by and about LGBTQ people of African descent. In 2004, Steven founded Vintage Entity Press, where he published works of poetry, fiction, and anthologies, including Black Gay Genius: Answering Joseph Beam’s Call (2014) and Carry the Word: A Bibliography of Black LGBTQ Books with RedBone Press (2007). His work has earned recognition from The New York Times and the New York Public Library, but his greatest honor is being in service to the global Black community, past, present, and future.

Hadassah St. Hubert  PHD

Hadassah St. Hubert, Ph.D. is a Historian, Digital Humanist, Preservationist, and Artist Supporter with over a decade of experience working with artists, scholars, and cultural heritage workers. She worked in philanthropy focusing on the humanities for the federal government and was the former Council on Library Information Resources (CLIR) Postdoctoral Fellow in Data Curation for Latin American and Caribbean Studies with the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) at Florida International University (FIU). She received a Ph.D. in History from the University of Miami specializing in Caribbean, Latin American, and African Diasporic history. She is a co-founder of Sidra Collaborative which partners with arts, culture, and humanities organizations and funders to build sustainable programs and reimagine a funding landscape that centers transparency, equity, and community. She currently serves on the Board of Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator, an organization that promotes, trains, and exhibits the diverse talents of emerging artists from the African, Latin, and Caribbean Diasporas through an artist-in-residence program, international exchanges, community arts events and a dynamic exhibition program collaborating with art spaces.

Joanne Hyppolite PHD

Joanne Hyppolite, Ph.D. is the Supervisory Museum Curator of the African Diaspora at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) with interests and expertise in African American and Afro-Caribbean material and expressive culture. She curated the Cultural Expressions inaugural exhibition and is co-curator of A Century in the Making: Building the National Museum of African American History and Culture inaugural exhibit for the NMAAHC. She began her museum career in 2004 as the Folklife Curator at the Historical Museum of Southern Florida, where she researched and presented programs and exhibitions on Miami’s multi-ethnic communities. Prior to joining the Smithsonian, she was the Chief Curator at HistoryMiami Museum from 2008 to 2013, where she curated, among others, the exhibitions Black Crossroads: The African Diaspora in Miami, Haitian Community Arts, Necropolis Cristobal Colon: Photographs by Raul Rodriguez and Black Freedom in Florida. She holds a Ph.D. in Literature from the University of Miami, an M.A. in African American Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles and a B.A. in English and Afro American Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Hyppolite is member and past board president (2020-2022) and vice-president (2017-2020) of the Museums Association of the Caribbean.