For those of us who are too young to remember the event of April 20, 1990, I am pleased to share with you another great Haitian success. Seventeen years ago today, Haitians have once again shown the world that united we are powerful. Fresh out of High School in January 1990, as I was attending Buffalo state College, I was turned away as I attempted to voluntarily donate blood at a “Blood Bank Center” on campus. Reason for not accepting my blood was pointed out to me in a leaflet, “blood from Haitians and sub-Saharan Africans are not to be accepted” to paraphrase it. Needless to say that I was ashamed, the blood that I was about to donate has dried up in my veins for I was ready to fight the scheme of the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) to use Haitians as scapegoat for the AIDS Virus.

When news came to us on campus that the Haitians are organizing a march to protest against the FDA’s policy towards the Haitians, the Haitians on campus enthusiastically organized load of buses to attend the rally. Haitians all over the world have joined in to make April 20, 1990 the biggest Haitian gathering on a foreign soil. It was believed that as many as 80,000 Haitians have crossed the Brooklyn Bridge and only one isolated incident was registered by the NYPD.

When it was time to leave, it was as if the rally has just begun. The NYPD was helpless, hopeless and unable to control the Haitians. To show respect to the then Mayor, David Dinkins, only he could have handled the situation. The Haitians, instead of following the order of the NYPD, started calling on the Mayor to come and join them in the crowd. I remember vividly when some marchers took the Mayor on top of their necks, literally like a kid, and started chanting “Dinkins, Dinkins, Dinkins”. Only the Mayor could have stopped us and so he spoke to the crowd, thanking them and asked that we please go home as he supported our goal.

To relive the moment and pride of the Haitians, below is an article from the New York Times dated April 21, 1990 about that stunning day of Haitians on foreign soil.

F.D.A. Policy To Limit Blood Is Protested

By DONATELLA LORCH

Published: April 21, 1990

Tens of thousands of demonstrators swarmed across the Brooklyn Bridge into lower Manhattan yesterday to protest a Federal health policy on blood donations that they said unfairly stigmatized Haitians and Africans.

The protesters - college students, factory workers and families with picnic baskets and umbrellas to protect them from the sun - massed in the morning at Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn and then crossed into Manhattan. The bridge was closed to traffic, hopelessly clogging lower Manhattan for most of the day.

Waving flags and chanting, the marchers, whose numbers surprised the Police Department, were intent on their mission but also festive and orderly.

2 People Are Hurt

The only reported trouble occurred after the demonstration, when a group beat up a motorist and another man who tried to help him in downtown Brooklyn. The police said the motorist had apparently argued with people in the crowd.

By early afternoon, the marchers reached Federal Plaza at Broadway between Worth and Chambers Streets, with a crowd that the police estimated at 50,000 and that rally organizers said was nearly 80,000.

The rally was to protest a recommendation by the Food and Drug Administration in February that excludes all people from Haiti or the sub-Saharan region from donating blood.

The policy is not binding. Because the agency oversees the blood supply, local blood banks are complying as a precaution.

Yesterday afternoon in Washington, an F.D.A. advisory committee voted to urge the agency to abandon the policy on excluding donors based on geographic or national origin, a spokesman for the agency, Bradford W. Stone, said.

Mr. Stone said he was unable to say whether outside pressure had influenced the decision.

He said that such recommendations carry considerable weight. The leaders of Haitian-American organizations and organizers of the rally called the guideline irrational and racist, contending that Haitians, who number 350,000 in the New York metropolitan region, are no more likely to carry the AIDS virus than other groups.

The chairman of the Haitian Coalition on AIDS, Dr. Jean Claude Compas, said, ''This policy is on the basis that Haitian blood is dirty, that it is all infected with the HIV virus. The decision is based not on sexual preferences, but on nationality, ethnicity.''

The marchers began converging on lower Manhattan at 8:30 from places including Trenton; Dix Hills, L.I., and New Rochelle. Many wore the red and blue of the Haitian flag.

The police closed the Brooklyn Bridge to vehicles from 11:30 A.M. to 2 P.M., and from 5:30 to 7 P.M., the Transportation Department said. Normal traffic resumed shortly after the evening rush hour.

At Federal Plaza

Some of the marchers carried placards reading, ''We're proud of our blood,'' and, ''Let's fight AIDS, not nationality.''

''We're not the only ones who have AIDS,'' Ralph Alexis, 22 years old, a student at Brooklyn College, said.

Some protesters said they believed reports that the Government had created AIDS and was infecting blacks on purpose. ''We want the white folks to know that AIDS is their weapon and we're going to turn it back on them,'' a speaker who was not identified bellowed into a microphone.

Mayor David N. Dinkins issued a statement saying he supported the marchers' goal. The F.D.A. recommendation, he said, reinforced inaccurate and unfair stereotyping. ''AIDS is spread not by groups of people, but by the behavior of individuals,'' Mr. Dinkins said.

Dinkins Speaks to Cheering Crowd

Later, police escorted the Mayor through the cheering crowd. He addressed the demonstrators, attracting shouts of approval as he repeated his support.

The demonstration ended soon after the Mayor spoke. But as the crowd began to leave, the police said, people among the marchers assaulted a motorist and a man who came to his aid after an argument at Pacific and Court Streets in downtown Brooklyn, about a half a mile from the bridge.

The driver, Elroy Ramdez, 29, of 282 East 35th Street in the Flatbush area, suffered head injuries and was listed in serious condition at Long Island College Hospital, said a spokesman for the police, Sgt. Edward Burns. Mr. Ramdez was dragged from his car, which was overturned. There were reports of about 60 people chasing the car, jumping on it and breaking its widows and pummeling Mr. Ramdez. A bystander who came to Mr. Ramdez's assistance was also punched, said Sergeant Burns. He was identified as Eddie Dunne, the owner of the Clark Street Station Restaurant, 78 Clark Street in Brooklyn Heights. Mr. Dunne was reported in stable condition at Long Island College Hospital. Police reported no arrests. The F.D.A. recommendation that prompted the demonstration Friday was based on data indicating that for Haitians the primary route of AIDS transmission is through heterosexual intercourse, making it more difficult to identify people at high risk.

The F.D.A. recommendation excludes donors with a greater than average likelihood of having been infected, Dr. Joel M. Solomon, director of the division of blood and blood products, said in a statement. ''It is the predominant role that heterosexual activity appears to play in the transmission of HIV in Haiti that is the key factor in F.D.A.'s blood-donor exclusion policy with regard to its population,'' Dr. Solomon said.

But Herve La Guerre, 37, said at the march, ''They're putting us in a position that we're not going to be able to survive here because uneducated people will discriminate against us if they think we have AIDS.''