On January 4, 1965 Raymond Joseph, the Secretary-General of the Haitian Coalition, sent Frances R. Grant, Secretary-General of the Inter-American Association for Democracy and Freedom (IADF), two small booklets that outlined the political and economic aims of the Coalition, one of the leading Haitian exile organizations in New York City. The gesture proved to be an act of legitimation and a way to harness the material and political clout of transnational human right organizations, like Grant's

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... ADF. A couple of years earlier, Grant had encouraged leading Haitian exiles in the United States to consolidate their political efforts and devise a comprehensive platform for Haitian reform and development that challenged the dictatorial politics of François Duvalier. Grant recalled a press conference at the Overseas Press Club of America in New York City on August 7, 1963 during which influential Haitian exiles left a bad impression on US journalists regarding their vision for a non-authoritarian, post-Duvalier state. Their "defensive mood," a lack of "positive answers," and an absence of a "written" positive pledge, according to Grant, did not bode well with the media and would have serious implications on the "necessary moral and material support" needed to liberate Haiti and to "avoid any chaos in the country." 1 Over the next two years more than 40 Haitian exile leaders assembled to form larger, more organized alliances, including the League of Haitian Patriots, a more leftist organization, and the Haitian Coalition, a non-militaristic political group that sought the economic and social advancement of Haitians.