By Rosemari Mealy—1993, 2013 Black Classic Press
Reviewed by Steve Halpern
In September of 1960 an event brought together the people of Harlem, New York with the revolutionary government of Cuba. This was the time when Fidel Castro spent a few days at the Hotel Theresa while he was in New York City to address the United Nations. Malcolm X helped in arranging the stay of the Cuban Delegation at the hotel in Harlem.
Rosemari Mealy was one of thousands who greeted the Cuban delegation. She wrote a short book of interviews with several people who interacted with the Cuban delegation during their stay in the city. To appreciate the significance of this meeting, I believe it is useful to look at the backgrounds of both Harlem and Cuba during those years.
The Black community in 1960
Today there continues to be vicious discrimination against the Black community. Evidence for this was seen in the murder of George Floyd as well as many others by the police. However, the reality of the discrimination in 1960 was even more vicious.
Many people who lived in Harlem at that time migrated away from the states where Jim Crow segregation was the law. Black and white people were prohibited, by law, from using the same hotels or restaurants. The law even prohibited Black and white people from playing a game of checkers.
While Jim Crow wasn’t the law in the northern or western states, discrimination was institutionalized. Employers prohibited Black people from getting the better jobs. When Blacks managed to get an education, they found that discrimination was routine even in the more skilled jobs.
Malcolm X came out of that environment. His father was lynched, no doubt because of his political activity in support of the politics of Marcus Garvey. The insurance company refused to pay on the fund his family paid into because they ruled the murder of Malcolm’s father a suicide.
When Malcolm told a teacher that he wanted to become a lawyer, his teacher responded. A lawyer isn’t a job for a n—word. You’re good with your hands and can become a carpenter.
Because employers prevented Black people from getting lucrative jobs, many resorted to hustles outside the law to make a living. Malcolm received a longer sentence in prison because he was seeing a white woman at that time.
While in prison, Malcolm’s family introduced him to the Nation of Islam and the writings of Elijah Mohammed. Upon his release from prison, Malcolm recruited thousands of Black people to the N.O.I. For people who saw little future in the racist system of the United States, the politics of disciplined self-reliance promoted by Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam was inspiring.
Cuba and the 1959 revolution
Cuba had a long revolutionary heritage going back to the 19th century. Antonio Maceo was a Black Cuban Major General of the Cuban revolutionary forces that demanded an end to slavery as well as and end to Spanish rule. Today the women’s contingent of the Cuban armed forces is named for Maceo’s mother, Mariana Grajales. Black Cubans known as Mambises were the heart of those Cuban revolutionary forces.
This Cuban revolutionary movement was cut short because an invasion by the United States. This was mis-named the Spanish-American War. Cuba became an island where most people lived in dire poverty. Mobsters ran resorts that catered to people from this country who enjoyed what they thought was a tropical paradise.
Cuban cultural history also had a profound connection to the Black community in this country. We see this in the connections to both music and baseball.
The Cuban musical influence
The Palladium was a nightclub in New York City that featured Machito and his Afro-Cuban All Stars. This was the first band in this country that openly identified with Africa. Machito’s band also introduced the conga drums to the music here.
A leader of Machito’s band was Mario Bauza who was a mentor to Dizzy Gillespie who was one of the most influential jazz artists of his day. Bauza introduced Chano Pozo to Gillespie and they teamed up to compose the tunes Salt Peanuts and Manteca.
Cuban rhythms also influenced many artists as diverse as Bo Didley and Frankie Lyman and the Teenagers.
Cuban baseball and the Negro Leagues
Up until 1947, the owners of professional baseball teams prevented Black players from joining teams in the so-called Major Leagues. So, excellent Black ball players competed in the Negro Leagues. One of the routine stops for the Negro Leagues was in Cuba.
Cuban baseball had a different history from this country. In Cuba the amateur game had the most prestige. Cuban corporations gave generous donations to the so-called amateur players. The professional players competed in a league that wasn’t as prestigious. Because of the racist discrimination in pre-revolutionary Cuba, Black players competed in the professional leagues along with Negro League players from this country.
Peter C. Bjarkman wrote a history of Cuban Baseball. Bjarkman reported that Martin Dihigo was included on the list of all-time best players in the Negro Leagues. Dihigo played second base but was also a fearsome pitcher and hitter.
To paraphrase a statement by Orestes (Minnie) Miñoso, “it is perhaps impossible⎯especially in today’s transient world crammed with instant celebrities but void of lasting heroes⎯to apprehend just how large a national treasure Dihigo actually was in the baseball-crazed nation of Cuba.” Bjarkman adds that “Here was a disadvantaged youth from Miñoso’s own sugar cane plantation background of grinding poverty who had somehow ignored all insult and exclusion to achieve ultimate hero status.”
Black people in this country were aware of these historical ties to Cuba.
Cuba and the United States
I believe it is useful to look at the timeline of events in this country and Cuba.
On July 26, 1953 Fidel Castro led a raid on the Moncada Barricks in Santiago Cuba. That raid failed. The armed forces murdered many of the insurgents. After the government sent Fidel Castro to prison, he wrote his statement that “History will absolve me.”
In 1955 racists murdered Emmett Till because he might have whistled to a white woman. The murderers were found not guilty in the town of Money, Mississippi.
Months after the murder of Till, a police officer arrested Rosa Parks because she refused to sit in the back of a bus. Then the Montgomery Bus Boycott erupted. The Black people of Montgomery refused to ride the busses in the city for over one year. The city eventually changed the law.
On July 1, 1959, the revolutionary armed forces of Cuba forced the repressive government of Fulgencio Batista out of power. The new government outlawed racist discrimination, instituted a land reform, carried out a comprehensive literacy program, and began to develop an internationally recognized health care system.
In September of 1960 Fidel Castro stays at the Hotel Theresa and addresses the United Nations.
In April of 1963 Martin Luther King writes his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” The authorities in Birmingham sent MLK to prison for leading the movement to do away with Jim Crow segregation.
In that letter King explained that he could no longer be patient in waiting for progressive change to happen. He and his daughter didn’t like the fact that they were barred from entering a public park because of their skin color.
In her book, America on Fire, Elizabeth Hinton reported on hundreds of rebellions that erupted in the United States between the 1960s and 1980s. The cause of these rebellions were usually protests against police brutality.
From 1975 to 1991 Cuban forces defended the government of Angola from an invasion supported by the apartheid government of South Africa. The defeat of the South African forces was instrumental in forcing the apartheid government to make fundamental change. As a result, the government freed Nelson Mandela from prison and abolished the apartheid laws. Mandela would become the first Black president of South Africa.
Cuba and the United States today
Ever since the Cuban Revolution of 1959, the United States government has been doing everything in its power to overthrow the revolutionary government. When we look at history, we see that Cuba has had a distinctly different history from the reality here.
The repressive measures against Cuba have escalated. Now there is an oil embargo that is attempting to starve the Cuban people into submission.
As we see this trade embargo, we see a vicious escalation in the war against working people here. The United States has the largest prison population of any nation in the world. Yet democratic and republican politicians aren’t satisfied with this. So, they are arresting people off the streets and placing them in concentration camps. What is the crime that these people are guilty of? Due to circumstances beyond their control, immigrants were born in another country, and they might not have proper documentation.
These actions by the federal government are reminiscent of the support previous governments gave to the infamous “slave catchers” who apprehended people who escaped from human bondage. About 350,000 Union soldiers died in the effort to rid this country of the infamous institution of chattel slavery.
So, when we look at the history of the United States and Cuba, we see two nations where the governments have clearly conflicting missions. The U.S. government has had a long history of supporting the interests of the most affluent people in the world. This while working people all over the planet struggle to make ends meet.
Cuba has done its best to support the people who live on the island as well as to bring health care to some of the poorest regions in the world.
This is why I continue to support the movement that has been in solidarity with Cuba since their revolution.
