Atlantic revolutions, Philadelphia crossroads

In a year filled with events focused on 1776 and the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, an exhibit at the Penn Libraries fast forwards to concentrate on the 1790s. "The Time to Right All Wrongs: France, Haiti, and Philadelphia in a Revolutionary Age" considers the revolutions that shook the Atlantic world at the close of the 18th century —and the intense reverberations that reached Philadelphia.

The U.S. Constitution was signed in Philadelphia in 1787. Just two years later, in 1789, French insurgents stormed the Bastille, and the first version of the Declaration of the Rights of Man was adopted in France. In 1790 and 1791, enslaved persons and free people of color led revolts and insurrections in Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti), and in the years that followed, Philadelphia became a harbor for refugees of the Haitian and French revolutions and a hub for debate on citizenship, free speech, and the future of democracy.

"The Time to Right All Wrongs" – a phrase borrowed from a speech by Etienne Mentor, a military leader and deputy from Saint-Domingue, who served on the French legislative Council of Five Hundred from 1797 to 1799 – leans into these themes to interpret 18th-century history for today's audiences. The exhibit poses provocative questions like, “do books make revolutions?” and, “should representations of violence be read as historical evidence or as propaganda?” The exhibit's title implies a question of whether the social order could be rebuilt on new, more equitable foundations. Was this era, in fact, "the time to right all wrongs”?

The exhibit, which runs through September 4 in the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, explores these topics through archival items and documents from Kislak Center collections as well as loans from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and the American Philosophical Society. The curatorial team and its partners have also examined these themes and more through a series of related events, from a three-day academic conference to a Haitian Flag Day community celebration.

In April, the Lisette Project came to Penn as part of the Music in the Pavilion series, for the event, "A Song's Journey from Haiti and Back." Led by Jean Bernard Cerin, assistant professor and director of the Voice Program at Cornell University, the Lisette Project brings people together to explore Haitian classical musical through film, lectures, concerts, scholarly resources, and new recordings. Their interdisciplinary interpretive approach complements that of "The Time to Right All Wrongs," delving into cultural artifacts and the stories they tell to spotlight the role of history in shaping the contemporary world.

“When we started working on this exhibit, we wanted to have some events that would really speak to a wider audience," said Lynne Farrington, the Kislak Center's director of programs and senior curator. "We were so thrilled to learn about the Lisette Project and what Jean Bernard Cerin was doing.”

The evening included a performance of "Lisette quitté la plaine," the oldest printed song in Haitian Creole, and a screening of the documentary Lisette (2022), which traces the history of the text from colonial St. Domingue and France to 20th-century Haiti and Louisiana, where it became a symbol of Black pride and cultural heritage. Cerin pointed out that "Lisette" was rewritten five times, on multiple continents, over a period of 270 years. The melody changed with each rewriting, and sometimes the title and text did, too.  

“This is not a single song. It's a tradition," Cerin said. "As audiences and time shifted, so too did the meaning derived from this story. However, enough of the words remain for us to tell that this was the same song reinventing itself through time, preserving the memory of an enslaved man, the woman he loved and lost, his language, and his culture.”

Befitting this complex history, the performance weaved together anthem parodies, folk songs, arias, and solo-piano pieces. The evening culminated in a performance of a newly reimagined Lisette for the 21st century ("Lizet f'on kite la plenn," music by Amos Coulanges, text by Lunise Jules), commissioned in 2025 by the Lisette Project. This final musical selection re-emphasized the push and pull between historical context and contemporary interpretation.

As Cerin put it, "I do this work with the conviction that knowing the story of this song, the violence out of which it emerged, and the ways in which it was re-appropriated by black communities over two centuries to remember their past and to celebrate their Creole language, can deepen our perspective today as we consider where we've come from and how we might move forward."

The Time to Right All Wrongs is on view through September 4, 2026, in the Goldstein Family Gallery on the sixth floor of Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center.