Julia Gaffield – The Conversation

FIFA banned Haiti’s original jersey due its nod to the Haitian Revolution on the right hip of the jersey. Leonardo Fernandez/Getty Images

June 15, 2026

FIFA’s Haiti jersey ban echoes the long campaign to discredit and downplay the Haitian Revolution

Julia Gaffield, William & Mary

The move is part of a longer history of obscuring and demonizing the Haitian Revolution and its leader, Jean-Jacques Dessalines.

A statue of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, a leader of the Haitian Revolution and the first ruler of an independent Haiti. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

October 15, 2025

Jean‑Jacques Dessalines: Reassessing the Haitian revolutionary leader’s legacy

Julia Gaffield, William & Mary

Historian Julia Gaffield discusses her recent biography on Haiti’s first leader, whose life she argues was unfairly tarnished by biased verdicts of history.

Jean Marcellis Destine, dressed as Haitian independence hero Jean-Jacques Dessalines, heads to a protest against President Jovenel Moïse in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Oct. 4, 2019. AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell

November 15, 2019

Haiti protests summon spirit of the Haitian Revolution to condemn a president tainted by scandal

Julia Gaffield, Georgia State University

Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who freed Haiti from French colonial rule in 1804, is revered as a spirit in the Haitian religion. Now he’s become an icon of the uprising against President Jovanel Moïse.

A statue in Port-au-Pirnce honors Jean-Jacques Dessalines’ legacy as a Haitian revolutionary. Now, a renamed Brooklyn street does, too. AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery

August 30, 2018

Meet Haiti’s founding father, whose black revolution was too radical for Thomas Jefferson

Julia Gaffield, Georgia State University

A renamed Brooklyn street celebrates Jean-Jacques Dessalines, a Haitian slave turned president. For centuries his legacy was tarnished by allegations that Haiti’s revolution led to ‘white genocide.’

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