From 2015 to 2019, I was the project archivist for the Radio Haiti Archive at the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University. 

The Radio Haiti Archive is a trilingual digital archive of Radio Haïti-Inter, Haiti’s first independent radio station. Radio Haiti’s director, the agronomist-turned-journalist Jean Léopold Dominique, was assassinated in April 2000, and the station closed three years later.

The project was made possible with generous support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Council on Library and Information Resources. 

In 2020, I received the Philip M. Hamer and Elizabeth Hamer Kegan Award from the Society of American Archivists for my work raising public awareness of the Radio Haiti Archive.

You can read some blog posts about the project by my colleagues, student assistants, and me here.

Follow the project on Facebook,  Twitter, and Instagram.

Publications

“How Jonathan Demme Walked the Walk in Haiti” (Slate Magazine, May 2017)

"Nou toujou la! The Digital (After-) Life of Radio Haïti-Inter.” (sx archipelagos, September 2017) 

“The Drum Never Stops Beating: Music as Resistance on Radio Haïti-Inter.” (Art Powered, January 2020)

“The Right to Lapawòl: Community Radio Stations in the Archive of Radio Haïti-Inter.” (Journalism History, March 2021)

“Archivism and Activism: Radio Haiti and the Accountability of Educational Institutions.” (Sounding Out! May 2021)

From the Other Side of the Sea: Rasanblaj/Reassembling Haitian Radio Archives of Exile.” (The Global South, 2022. With Ayanna Legros)

“Three Caribbean Radio Archives: Haitian Radio Journalism, Transnational Cold War Soaps, and ‘University of the Air’” (Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, 2022. With Christine Hernandez, Sharon E. Farb, and Alejandra Bronfman)

I also contributed to chapters about the Radio Haiti Archive to The Oxford Handbook of Musical Repatriation (with Craig Breaden), Decolonizing the Caribbean Record: An Archives Reader, and the forthcoming Cambridge History of Haitian Literature.

Press about the project

“Radio Haiti finds a new home with a trilingual archive at Duke University.” The World. (May 2022)

“Nou p ap dòmi bliye: Radio Haiti Still Speaks with Dr. Laura Wagner.” Teaser episode of the Nèg Mawon podcast featuring content from the Radio Haiti Archive. (April 2022)

“The Language of the Outside People.” Collaboration with the podcast Subtitle on Radio Haiti’s groundbreaking use of Haitian Creole (Kreyòl) (March 2022)

“The Duty of Memory.” The Radio Haiti project was featured on the Council for Library and Information Resources Material Memory podcast (December 2019)

”Radio Haiti Archive #KeeperOfTheDay.” The Radio Haiti project was featured on The Kitchen Sisters podcast (November 2018)

"Haïti : La malédiction du 3 avril !" by Roody Edmé, AlterPresse (April 2017)

“Un échantillon des archives de Radio Haïti Inter, disponible sur clé Usb.”  AlterPresse (June 2016)

Interview with Carel Pedre on Chokarella (June 2016)

“Forensic Anthropology Testimony In Haiti's Raboteau Massacre Digitized At Duke University.” By Kristina Killgrove at Forbes (September 2015)

"Bringing Back Radio Haiti, A Station That Told The Overlooked Stories.” Interview with Michèle Montas, Laurent Dubois, and Laura Wagner on WUNC’s The State of Things (February 2014)