This photograph from early 1946 is a rare record of a gathering of the intellectual vanguard of Haiti’s postwar generation. Fiercely idealistic, they had weeks earlier incited five days of massive street protests that caused Haitian President Elie Lescot to resign and flee into exile. They had overthrown, they believed, the cabal of mulattoes and…

From the first aerial views of Port-au-Prince and then past the chaotic welcome of Haiti’s only international airport, there are the blue-and-gray tent cities. More often, rather than camp tents, the structures are flimsy wood frames standing 6 feet or so, wrapped with vinyl tarps, everywhere you go. These carry the stamps of USAID or…