Settling in the US Deep South: Race, Ethnicity, and Belonging among Haitian Migrants in a Small North Carolina Town

Abstract

In 2010, following the granting of Temporary Protected Status by the US government, more than 1,500 Haitians settled in Mount Olive, a small town in eastern North Carolina. Most of them found work in the meat‐processing plants of the region. Plantation owners founded Mount Olive, and enslaved people built it. Discrimination and exploitation of Black people and immigrants was and remains forceful in this region. This article sketches the history of race relations and racial capitalism in Mount Olive to understand how people of Haitian descent experience both anti‐Black racism and prejudices linked to their ethnicity in rural southeastern US. Far from being passive victims of white supremacy, African Americans, and later Haitians, created practices that enabled them to live on their own terms. This article analyzes the similarities between African American practices of autonomy and present‐day Haitians’ strategies to create spaces where they can belong and thrive. The article argues that economic and spatial practices forged after the 1804 revolution by the Haitian peasantry enable people of Haitian descent to build social and economic systems based on reciprocity and solidarity. These counter‐colonial practices allow people in Mount Olive to live autonomously and away from racist institutions and people.