Time times three

Sudhir Hazareesingh, in Black Spartacus, calls Toussaint Louverture the “first black superhero of the modern age.” Louverture defies easy description. Cunning, multi-lingual, theatrical, he was as much intellectual, storyteller, and entrepreneur, as he was bold revolutionary. One incredible gift was his ability to hold multiple notions of time simultaneously. His Catholicism led him to consider time as a generous infinite expanse, to be trusted. As military leader, he knew time was precious, not to be wasted. As the founding leader of Haiti, he depended on treaties, goodwill, secrets.. Time, in this sense, had to be carefully managed. His death, in solitary confinement far from his home and his cause, created an unfulfillable void, too sad to reckon with.