Human Rights
Black America and the Passing of Fidel Castro
November 26, 2016
by
It is impossible to discuss Fidel Castro outside of an examination of the Cuban Revolution. And, while I hear that there are many Cuban Americans dancing with glee upon news of the death of President Castro, I know that the emotions within Black America are and will continue to be quite different.
For any Black American who knows anything about the history of the Western Hemisphere, both Cuba and Haiti have a special significance. Haiti, of course, for successfully ousting the French in 1803 and forming the second republic in the Americas; a Black republic. Cuba, in 1959, kicked out the USA, the Mafia, and a corrupt ruling class that had enforced racist oppression against most of the Cuban population. In the cases of Haiti and Cuba, their audacity in the face of a racist imperialism brought forth the wrath of their opponents. How dare the Cubans stand up to the USA? How could a country of all of these ‘brown’ and ‘black’ people insist that they should determine their own destinies?
Thus, Fidel Castro immediately had a special significance for countless Black Americans. When I was quite young I remember my father telling me how his brother-in-law, a professor at Johnson C. Smith University, had sat watching the television as pictures were shown of Cuban exiles entering the USA after the 1959 Revolution. His comment to my father was that all that he saw were white-looking Cubans stepping off the planes or boats. No brown and black Cubans. This told him something about the nature of the Cuban Revolution and its leader, Fidel Castro.
Castro further endeared himself to much of Black America when he visited the USA and took up residence in the Hotel Theresa in New York’s Harlem. It was there that he met another icon, Malcolm X. It was situating himself in the Black community that shook much of the US establishment and told Black America that something very unusual was unfolding 90 miles off the coast of Florida.
In the weeks, months and years to come there will be exhaustive examinations of the work and life of Fidel Castro and his impact not only on Cuba but the world. If you have not read Castro’s “spoken autobiography”
Fidel Castro: My Life
[http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Fidel-Castro-My-Life/Ignacio-Ramonet/9781416562337]
I strongly recommend it. I will not try to offer anything approaching an analysis of the man and his times. What I can say, however, is that there are certainly criticisms to be offered, and differences of opinion of the dynamics of the Cuban Revolution. That is all fair game. At the same time, it has been a rare moment when a leader, particularly of a small country, has been willing to thumb his or her nose at the capitalist juggernaut and seek a different path. Added to this has been, particularly in a Western Hemispheric context, the challenge of taking on racist oppression and approaching it as the cancer that it is, a disease to be removed.
The one and only time that I met Fidel Castro was in January 1999 when I was on a TransAfrica delegation led by the organization’s first president, Randall Robinson. At the last minute, the night before we were to leave Cuba, we were informed that we would have an opportunity to meet with President Castro.
It was close to midnight when we were informed that we needed to board the bus and head to his office. When we arrived we walked into a waiting room in anticipation of the meeting. Suddenly a door opened and out came an old man in an olive green uniform. Yes, it was Castro. I think, quite irrationally, I was expecting the young Castro of the 1960s. But here was someone about the same age as my father. He circulated around the room and was introduced to our delegation. We then retired to another room to begin our meeting.
It is hard to describe what happened next, and probably equally hard for anyone to believe it. We sat in the room with Castro until about 3:30am. He never lost a beat. He never seemed tired. In fact, as the minutes and hours went forward, he seemed to gain energy! Castro spoke with us about the Cuban Revolution, race, and many other issues. Yes, he spoke a lot, but we were transfixed. And, when we asked him questions, he would consider the matter and always offer a thoughtful response, rather than retreating into rhetoric. It was particularly illuminating when he informed us that the Cuban Revolution had underestimated the power of racism. As he said at the time, when the 26th of July Movement (the revolutionary organization that led the anti-Batista struggle) took power they thought that it was enough to render racist discrimination illegal and that should settle the matter. The entrenched power of racism, even in a society that was attempting to root it out, was more substantial than they had anticipated.
Hearing this from Castro represented a special moment. There has frequently been a defensiveness among Cuban officials about matters of race in Cuba, despite the tremendous advances that they have made, advances probably of greater significance than any other country in the Western Hemisphere. Yet, manifestations of racism remain and, to our surprise, Castro was prepared to address them.
Fidel Castro’s demise comes as no surprise. He had been facing health challenges for some time. Nevertheless, given the number of attempts on his life and the other challenges that he had faced, there has been a bit of magical thinking for many people, believing that he would, somehow, always be there.
For many of us in Black America, Castro represented the audacity that we have desired and sought in the face of imperial and racial arrogance. While it is unfortunate that some of us have withheld concerns and criticisms out of respect for Castro and the Cuban Revolution, it is completely understandable. After all, this was the country that deployed troops to Angola that helped to smash the South African apartheid army and their Angolan allies. This was the country that has deployed doctors in the face of countless emergencies, to countries that could never afford such assistance. This is the country that has studied and come to understand hurricanes in a way unlike most in the hurricane region, so much so that it offered assistance to the USA in the aftermath of the 2005 Hurricane Katrina, assistance that the then Bush administration turned down.
Let his soul rest easy. And, let the Cuban people continue on their way free of outside interference. Theirs path has been one upon which they have insisted. Fidel Castro was one important component in making that happen. And, if that was not enough, he and the Cuban Revolution shook the world of the 20th century.
—————————————–
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
About Bill
Blog
Books
Connect
Bill Fletcher Jr has been an activist since his teen years. Upon graduating from college he went to work as a welder in a shipyard, thereby entering the labor movement. Over the years he has been active in workplace and community struggles as well as electoral campaigns. He has worked for several labor unions in addition to serving as a senior staffperson in the national AFL-CIO.
Fletcher is the former president of TransAfrica Forum; a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies; and in the leadership of several other projects. Fletcher is the co-author (with Peter Agard) of “The Indispensable Ally: Black Workers and the Formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, 1934-1941”; the co-author (with Dr. Fernando Gapasin) of “Solidarity Divided: The crisis in organized labor and a new path toward social justice“; and the author of “‘They’re Bankrupting Us’ – And Twenty other myths about unions.” Fletcher is a syndicated columnist and a regular media commentator on television, radio and the Web.
He can be followed on Twitter, Facebook and at www.billfletcherjr.com.
Fidel Castro
Castro's Failed Coup
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/castro-failed-coup-moncada-barracks/
Moncada was the second largest military garrison in Cuba. Although Castro's assault failed, it earned him recognition as a leader of the opposition against Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.
Courtesy: Kyra Pahlen
Dictator's Grip
On March 10, 1952, Cubans had awakened to the news that Fulgencio Batista, a former president and a candidate with little hope of victory in an upcoming presidential election, had taken over the government by force. Batista's coup d'etat shattered Cuba's fragile democracy -- and the political aspirations of a young lawyer named Fidel Castro. Castro had been running for congress as member of a political party called El Partido Ortodoxo. Most Cubans were stunned, but at the University of Havana, traditionally a political hotbed, conspiracies abounded. Castro himself began preparing an armed revolt. "One night he was at the steps of the university," writer Norberto Fuentes recounted. "No money, no work, and he does not know what to do...and that's when he decides to attack the Moncada Barracks."
Plot in the Making
Castro persuaded university student leaders to provide him with machine guns and some ammunition they kept for emergencies, and safely hid them at his sister's home in Havana. Painstakingly, he began to gather supporters -- two hundred young Cubans in one year, all members of Partido Ortodoxo.
Suicidal Mission
On the evening of July 24, 1953, Fidel's men (and two women) boarded two buses and left Havana for Santiago de Cuba, with the excuse of attending the carnival revels then in full swing. The group gathered at a farm near Siboney beach, twenty minutes from the city. There Castro informed them, for the first time, of the details of his plan. It was suicidal. Approximately one hundred and fifty young attackers, including Castro's brother Raúl, armed mostly with .22 caliber hunting rifles and the few weapons Castro had earlier retrieved from the university, would assault the Moncada Barracks -- the main provincial garrison of Batista's armed forces -- and take over the adjacent Palace of Justice, a nearby hospital and a radio station. They would proclaim a manifesto: a return to democracy and the ideals of opposition politician Eduardo Chibás. Castro's goal was to rouse the people to insurgency, hoping that the army would join the people and force Batista from power. "Even if it failed," Fidel noted, "it would be heroic and have symbolic value."
Dawn Approach
At 5:00 a.m. on July 26, 1953, a caravan left the farm at Siboney beach and slowly made its way toward Moncada. At the head was Fidel Castro, and his second in command Abel Santamaría. Santamaría's sister, Haydée, followed in the second car with her boyfriend Boris de la Coloma, who wore a new pair of two-tone shoes for the occasion.
Failure and Torture
Fidel Castro's car arrived first. Batista's soldiers opened fire. Outnumbered and facing superior fire power, the rebels stood no chance. Eight of the attackers were killed on the spot; another twelve were wounded. More than 70 were taken prisoner, including Raúl Castro. The detainees were brutally tortured, some even murdered, including Haydée's boyfriend Boris and her brother Abel. Haydée was taken prisoner, her brother's eye brought to her in prison. Castro himself escaped and hid at a farm in the Sierra Maestra mountains.
Intervention for Castro
One week later, after gaining assurances that he would not be killed or tortured, that he would get a fair trial, Castro arranged to surrender at the home of a peasant near Santiago. There are several versions of subsequent events. Castro's own account recalls a sergeant approaching him with a gun, but sparing his life with the words "ideas are not to be murdered." In reality the sergeant was simply following orders: Castro's life had been guaranteed by Santiago's Catholic archbishop, Monsignor Pérez Serantes. According to the testimony of Castro's best friend, Alfredo "Chino" Esaquivel, Perez Serantes's own intervention had been assured through the efforts of Castro's socially-connected wife, Mirta Díaz Balart, and a family member with influence as a close friend of Batista.
Dynamic Figure
In Havana other student leaders accused Castro of irresponsibility and cowardice, but he didn't much care. At his trial the following September, the young lawyer, speaking in his own defense, called for the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista and for reforms to make Cuba a more just society. "All of Cuba," said Melba Hernández, who'd sewn the uniforms Castro the attackers, "had its eye on the trial" -- and on its dynamic defendant. Fidel readily admitted to leading the Moncada attack, and dramatically pronounced: "You may condemn me. History will absolve me." His judges handed down a stiff sentence: fifteen years in prison. Castro was sent to the Island of Pines, off Cuba's southwest coast, to serve his sentence.
Start of the Revolution
"Moncada was a wake-up call to the Cuban people," according to professor Marifeli Pérez Stable. Dialogue had failed; violence seemed the only alternative. "No one quite knew what to do about Batista, and Fidel pointed the way -- armed struggle," recalls Huber Matos, who became a rebel commander. Every year since the triumph of Castro's revolution, the storming of the Moncada would be remembered as the "first shot" fired in the struggle against Fulgencio Batista.
