Afro-Cuban Issues Must Be Part of the Dialogue in Cuba

Editor's note: This story was first published in March. We're featuring it again in light Fidel Castro's death. Suggested Reading Suge Knight Claims Tupac’s Mother Made This Shocking Move in His Final Moments Black TikTok Has Theories on Whether Taraji’s Daughter in ‘Straw’ Was Dead the Whole Time The Unbelievable Reasons Jury Deliberations in Diddy…

Editor's note: This story was first published in March. We're featuring it again in light Fidel Castro's death.

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Trump’s Tariffs Might Stick Around. What Should We Buy Now?
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On his first day in Cuba, President Barack Obama walked to the center of the Plaza de Armas in the colonial section of Havana to view the imposing marble statue of Carlos Manuel de Cรฉspedesโ€”the George Washington of Cubaโ€™s 19th-century independence movement.

Before he leaves, Obama also should visit a memorial to Antonio Maceo.

In 1868โ€”three years after slavery ended in the United Statesโ€”Cรฉspedes, a white plantation owner, freed his slaves and urged them to join the revolution he led against Spanish rule of Cuba. The following year, he became the first president of that rebellion, whose constitution called for U.S. annexation of Cuba. The rebellion failedโ€”in part over fear that a black-controlled government might emerge.

Maceo, an Afro-Cuban, was the legendary military leader of that struggle and the later campaign, which ended Spanish rule in 1898. Called the โ€œBronze Titan,โ€ Maceo was a commander of the interracial army that existed in Cuba around the time when, in the United States, Reconstruction was being dismantled, Black Codes that legitimized decades of Jim Crow practices were being enacted, and the Supreme Court issued its โ€œseparate but equalโ€ decision, which justified racial segregation.

Maceo is a major figure in the lost history of the close ties between Afro-Cubans and African Americans that date back nearly 150 years.

In 1872, while Maceoโ€™s interracial army was battling Spanish troops in Cuba, Samuel R. Scottron and James M. Trotter were organizing the Cuban Anti-Slavery Committee in the United States. Scottronย was the grandfather of Lena Horne. Trotter was the father of William Monroe Trotter, the black journalist who was kicked out of the White House in 1914 after confronting Woodrow Wilson over the racist practices of his administration.

Slavery didnโ€™t officially end in Cuba until 1886, but in this country, the drumbeat for emancipation was loudest among African-American leaders, including Frederick Douglass, who urged young blacks โ€œto surrender their citizenship to join their fortunes with those of their suffering brethren in Cuba,โ€ Johnnetta Cole wrote in a 1977 Black Scholar article titled, โ€œAfro-American Solidarity With Cuba.โ€

During the U.S. military occupation of Cuba from 1898 to 1902, it was the American black press that regularly complained about the imposition of โ€œAmerican race prejudiceโ€ on the Caribbean island. That racism sparked the creation of an all-black political party inside Cuba in 1908. Its members were largely veterans of the independence warโ€”soldiers who served with Maceo. In May 1912, thousands of them were massacred by Cuban government troops.

For nearly 50 years, a succession of Cuban leaders kept Afro-Cubans mired in an enforced racial caste system that locked them into the bottom of the nationโ€™s political and economic system.

When Fidel Castro first launched the rebellion that brought him to power, he told me during a 1999 dinner meeting, his army was 90 percent black, which he credited to his promise to โ€œgive them the equalityโ€ that Afro-Cubans earned in the fight to end Spanish rule.

In return, Afro-Cubans have overwhelmingly supported the Castro government. Few have joined the thousands of white Cubans who immigrated to the United States. And many fear that if a large number of those white Cubans return, they will bring back with them the racism that exploited Afro-Cubans.

So, to help allay these concerns, Obama should visit the bust of Antonio Maceo that sits in a tiny park across the street from the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Center and Ebenezer Baptist Church in the Marianoa section of Havanaโ€”an area that rarely sees a foreign leader or journalist. He should talk to the Rev. Raul Suarez, the churchโ€™s pastor, about the disparate impact of the U.S. embargo and some of the well-intentioned actions to roll it backโ€”on Afro-Cubans.

Obama should invite some of Cubaโ€™s leading black intellectualsโ€”people like filmmaker Gloria Rolando, poet Nancy Morejon, academic and civil rights activist Esteban Morales and journalist Gisela Arandiaโ€”to join him in the churchโ€™s small meeting room to share with him their thoughts about the path ahead for Cuba and its Afro-Cuban majority.

By going to Cuba, Obama has charted a new and exciting direction for U.S.-Cuban relations.ย But without a full understanding of the complicated interplay between the revolutionaries who seized power in 1959; the mostly white, anti-Castro Cubans in the United States whoโ€™ve had a heavy hand in shaping American policy toward the island; and the countryโ€™s Afro-Cuban population, Obama will struggle to keep it on course.

DeWayne Wickham is a syndicated columnist, as well as a founding member and former president of the National Association of Black Journalists. He is also dean of the School of Global Journalism & Communication at Morgan State University.ย 

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