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Race and Government Policy in Revolutionary Cuba Background Essay For the last two hundred years, race-­‐relations in Cuba has remained a charged and complex issue. This was true under Spanish rule until 1898, United State’s influence after helping to liberate Cuba from the Spanish and even since its socialist revolution of 1959. Under the Spanish, Cuba’s plantation economy experienced a dramatic rise as a result of the slave revolt that ended in the Haitian Revolution in 1802. When Haiti’s sugar trade came to a virtual standstill following its revolution, Cuba replaced it, leading worldwide sugar production. As a result of sugar profits, the institution of slavery became more entrenched on the island. Cuba continued to import African slave labor long after most countries in the hemisphere had outlawed it. Continuous waves of Africans forcibly transported to Cuba across the Atlantic had a special impact on African cultural traditions on the island, most notably in dance, music and religious traditions, which helped Afro-­‐Cubans maintain stronger connections to their cultural past. In Cuba’s three insurgent wars of independence against Spain between 1868 and 1889, abolition became a central focus of debate (Ferrer.) Afro-­‐Cubans played an active role in the struggle for independence from the Spanish empire and vigorously advocated for the abolition of slavery. Many white Cuban plantation owners, however, were reluctant to support independence from Spain, driven by fear of a repeat of Haiti’s “Black Republic” in Cuba (Ferrer.) As a result, white Cuban abolitionists and those seeking independence from Spain exerted pressure on Afro-­‐Cubans to tone down their demands for freedom (Ferrer.) Their rationale was that if Afro-­‐Cubans delayed their immediate demand for freedom from slavery, more Cubans would support the movement for independence against the Spanish. Afro-­‐Cubans, therefore, fought for freedom on two fronts simultaneously, from slave plantations and Spanish imperial rule. They also constituted a great many of the troops and casualties. One of the war’s greatest military generals of Afro-­‐Cuban heritage was Antonio Maceo, also known as the “Bronze Titan.” Although US participation in the Spanish-­‐American War 1898 to liberate Cuba helped tip results in favor of Cuban victory, many Cubans resented a growing US influence on the island. They felt that the US replaced Spain as Cuba’s imperial overlord. It was during this time that the US built a military base in Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay and attempted to make it a US protectorate or a temporary colony. For a short time, Cuba was prevented from formulating its own foreign policy under the US imposed Platt Amendment. Eventually, the US agreed to abrogate the amendment, leaving Cuba, at least officially, an independent nation. Sixty years of informal US domination in Cuba also impacted race relations on the island. Cuba boasted one of Latin America’s highest per capita incomes yet ad the second highest level of economic disparity in the hemisphere with a great majority of Afro-­‐Cubans living in abject poverty. Afro-­‐Cubans were subject to an enduring legacy of slavery on the island as well as practices of racial segregation, fostered by US citizens in Cuba. As a result, many Cubans of color were barred from entering exclusive hotels, restaurants, yacht clubs and even many clacs
beaches (de la Fuente 261.) In this context, elite black social clubs such as Atenas were formed and working class blacks campaigned through the communist party for effective legislation barring racial discrimination. The 1940 Constitution banned racial discrimination, but it was not enforced and even suspended by President Fulgencio Batista, who, himself of mixed racial extraction, denied his African origins. Much of Cuba’s lands, private properties, hotels and casinos were monopolized by the white Cuban elite as well as American companies and private individuals. In the 1950’s, Fidel Castro’s 26th of July movement mobilized Cubans across the country to overthrow the deeply corrupt and unpopular President Batista. Afro-­‐Cubans were among his biggest supporters. With the triumph of the Cuban revolutionary movement in 1959, initiatives were immediately made to promote social democracy and redistribute the wealth of the country, long out of reach to Cubans of color. These initiatives included launching a massive literacy campaign, establishing universal health care and setting up job training centers. In the far reaching agrarian reform laws of 1959 and 1963, the government also expropriated lands and property from private owners exceeding a certain acreage. Once broken down, the lands were either then redistributed to those who had been working them or nationalized by the government to create state run farms. Many American-­‐owned cattle ranches, as well as coffee and sugar plantations, were also nationalized by the Cuban government causing great tension between the US and Cuba. Often mansions and properties belonging to wealthy white Cubans who fled the island were repurposed (de la Fuente 275.) Social clubs and private schools that formerly catered to whites exclusively became government property used for workers’ clubs or government schools (de la Fuente 260.) These initiatives lead to a vast improvement in the standard of living for many Cubans, a huge proportion of which were people of color. In a 1962 poll, 80% of Afro-­‐Cuban workers stated they approved of Castro’s new government (Sawyer 58.) Eradicating racism and racial inequality became an explicit part of domestic government discourse in the first two years of the Cuban revolution in speeches on television and in public squares. Very quickly, though, Fidel Castro adopted a gradualist and non-­‐confrontational approach to dealing with racism (de la Fuente 269.) This approach could be described as “color-­‐
blind” because the policies did not specifically mention race. Instead, the government promoted social programs to reduce class inequalities. The government saw economics as the true engine to implement wide-­‐reaching social change. Castro’s rationale was that if the wealth of society was radically redistributed, lifting the standard of living for all Cubans, Afro-­‐Cubans would substantially benefit. The logic followed that as Afro-­‐Cubans gained better living conditions, more educational opportunities and better jobs, racial discrimination would become a thing of the past. African art forms were continually supported, however, in government sponsored houses of culture throughout the country, as well as in dance companies, performances and popular festivals such as Carnival; discussion of racism by the government, however, soon became very rare (de la Fuente 289.) At times, independent black social organizations, fraternal clubs and religious societies that strengthened an Afro-­‐Cuban identity even became the object of government scrutiny and intolerance (Sawyer 67; de la Fuente 281.) clacs
Increasingly, racism was dealt with as external problem, officially solved domestically but continually reinforced by imperialistic countries (Sawyer 60.) In the international arena, especially during the 1960s and 1970s, however, the Cuban government became increasingly vocal in criticizing contemporary and historical racial injustices. Much of this was done by Fidel Castro and the revolutionary leader Ernesto “Che” Guevara, in opposition to US foreign and domestic policies and practices. This was a sore spot for the US, especially in the 1960s when the civil rights movement still had its major battles to win. During their visit to New York for the opening session of the United Nations in 1961, for example, Castro and the Cuban delegation chose to stay at the Hotel Theresa in black Harlem “as a big lesson to people who practice segregation” (de la Fuente 297.) There they met with black-­‐nationalist leaders such as Malcolm X. During his visit, Castro stridently criticized US racism in his speech at the United Nation’s General Assembly. Indeed, criticizing the US record on racial discrimination also became a Cuban weapon to discredit the US, which was increasingly becoming antagonistic to the Castro government. The CIA had tried to assassinate Castro several times through what was known secretly as “Operation Mongoose,” and President Kennedy supported the 1961 invasion of Cuba’s Bay of Pigs which ended in a well publicized fiasco (Sawyer 59) In October of 1962, tensions between the two countries climaxed in the Cuban Missile Crisis which almost brought the two countries to the brink of nuclear war. Earlier that year, the US also placed pressure on Latin American countries to criticize and expel Cuba from the Organization of the American States, a regional body for countries of the Western Hemisphere In response, the Castro government developed a defense of the revolution and a criticism of the US in the creation of the famous document, The Second Declaration of Havana (Lippmann.) Distributed around the world to foreign governments, it is a prime example of how Cuban foreign policy sought to delegitimize US moral authority in the world political order by criticizing the American record on domestic racism and imperialism. In this document, Castro proudly listed the eradication of racial discrimination among Cuban revolutionary accomplishments, even though it was clearly a bit too premature to make this claim (de la Fuente 279). In addition to this, the Cuban government organized and financed trips to Havana by African-­‐American delegations from the US (de la Fuente 297.) Those who went to Havana included, among others, African-­‐American congressmen, representatives of the black press, heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis and Stokely Carmichael (also known as Kwame Toure) who popularized the term “Black Power” (de la Fuente 298-­‐300.) The Cuban government even offered African-­‐American activists political asylum including those such as Huey Newton and Assata Shakur of the Black Panther Movement. Another African-­‐American activist, Robert Williams, was given his own radio program in Havana, called Radio Free Dixie, (de la Fuente 298.) Likewise, posters by Cuba’s Organization for the Solidarity of Asian, African and Latin American People, were commissioned to support the Black Liberation movement as well as African, Asian, Middle Eastern and Latin American liberation movements (OSPAAAL). clacs
Castro and Che Guevara sought to develop Cuba’s international influence by establishing solidarity with African leaders whose countries were emerging from colonization. Cuba supported liberation and socialist movements worldwide. Nowhere did it do so with more resources than in Angola’s civil war where it committed an astounding fifty thousand troops and civilian aid workers (Sawyer 61.) Having secured the backing of the USSR, Cuba’s most important ally, its troops countered the military intervention of the US ally, South Africa, which had a legalized system of racial segregation called Apartheid. In this context, Fidel Castro identified Cubans as an “Afro-­‐Latin people,” and there was a marked surge of Afro-­‐Cubans in the government paralleled by a renewed government openness to discuss the issue of racism once again in Cuba (de la Fuente 303.) Despite this, the free criticism of race relations in Cuba was not permitted (Sawyer 59.) It would be labeled as divisive or akin to treason, playing into the hands of Cuba’s enemies, who tried to discredit the regime. Sources Ferrer, Ada. Insurgent Cuba: Race Nation and the Revolution: 1869-­‐1898. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999. de la Fuente, Alejandro A Nation for All. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. Lippmann, Walter “Second Declaration of Havana” www.walterlippmman.com. January 24, 2011. Organization for the Solidarity of Asian, African and Latin American Peoples www.OSPAAAL.com Perez Jr, Louis A. Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution. New York, Oxford University Press, 2011. Sawyer, Mark Q. Racial Politics in Post-­‐Revolutionary Cuba. Los Angeles: Cambridge University Press, 2006. clacs
Questions: 1. Which factors contributed to the practice of slavery in Cuba, even after most countries in the Western Hemisphere had outlawed it? 2. What was “the black fear?” And how did it complicate Cuba’s wars for independence from Spain? (What prevented Cubans from uniting against Spain?) 3. What were some of the approaches used by Fidel Castro to eliminate racial inequality and racism? After listing, rate them in a spectrum from most to least radical. (Use low numbers for most radical, high numbers for the least radical.) 4. Why do you think that the Castro government backed down from taking an explicit stance in policy against racial inequality in Cuba? Do you think this was a good idea? 5. What were the long and short term Cuban grievances against the US? List several. 6. How and why did Cuban domestic and foreign policy on race differ? 7. Why do you think the Cuban government had a limited tolerance for black social clubs and independent criticism of racism in Cuba?