Haitian Documentary Airs on PBS on Jan 25

Egalite for All: Toussaint Lourverture and The Haitian Revolution is a new Haiti documentary will air on PBS Television on January 25, 2009 at 10:PM

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Updated December 2, 2012 3:48 PM

Koval Films is proud to announce the broadcast of their latest documentary "Egalite for All: Toussaint Louverture and The Haitian Revolution" The film tells the story of the first black leader in the Americas and his participation in the only successful slave revolution in history.

(From Media-Newswire.com) - Egalite for All: Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution, tells the breathtaking and tragic story of the Haitian Revolution that began in 1791 and raged for twelve apocalyptic years.

It was led by Toussaint Louverture - a singular figure who rose from slavery to become a world-class military strategist, a master of imperial power politics, and author of Haiti's first democratic constitution. Louverture embraced the radical ideas born of the French Revolution and insisted they applied to slaves, too. Seventy years before the American Civil War, Louverture argued "equality for all" truly meant for all -- regardless of race.

His persuasiveness and success on the battlefield carried far: France not only freed all its colonial slaves but in 1794, it made them full citizens, too.

Sadly, the epochal expansion of equality neither propelled Louverture, nor the country he founded, into a secure and prosperous future. Within eight years, Napoleon Bonaparte sought to turn back the clock with a new invasion and Louverture ended his life in a French prison.

It was other black revolutionaries - most notably Jean-Jacques Dessalines - who ultimately expelled French armies and established the Haitian Republic once and for all.

The victory was monumental; but the cost was crippling - not just in white, black, and brown lives -- but in the devastated economy and scarred sense of nationhood that emerged from the embers. It's a legacy that dogs Haiti to this day.

Egalité for All features interviews with Haitian and American writers, historians, and cultural figures. It excerpts letters, diaries and public pronouncements from the period and visualizes them with richly photographed period reenactments.

The one hour documentary was developed by Margaret Koval, produced by Patricia Aste and written and directed by Noland Walker It is narrated by Haitian author Edwidge Danticat.

David Davis is the executive producer.

Egalite for All: Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution is a co-production of Koval Films, ITVS, Oregon Public Broadcasting and NBPC with funding form PBS and CPB.

Egalité for All:
Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution

Date; January 25, 2009
Time: 10pm
Network: PBS

For information contact Patricia Aste
310 242-0515