An editorial asserts that petty politics and diplomatic one-upmanship should not play a part in a stated request by Dr Juan Carrizo Estevez, the director of Cuba's two-year-old Latin American School of Medical Sciences, to obtain a visa to the US to meet with black college officials and the Congressional Black Caucus to discuss a grandiose, gratuitous offer from Cuba of a free medical education to US students.
Shunning warnings that Cuban Pres Fidel Castro was using them for propaganda purposes, eight US residents have taken Castro up on his offer to grant them free medical education, provided they return to poor communities in the US. On Apr 4, 2001, the eight African-American students took part in welcoming ceremonies hosted by Cuba's Latin American School of Medical Sciences.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
270 p., Cuba's geographic proximity to the United States and its centrality to US imperial designs following the War of 1898 led to the creation of a unique relationship between Afro-descended populations in the two countries. Drawing on archival sources in both countries, the author traces four encounters between Afro-Cubans and African Americans.
Thanks to the federal Freedom of Information Act, citizens were made aware of a program the FBI - under the leadership of J. Edgar Hoover - enacted to "neutralize" Black leadership in America.
Ever since [Assata Shakur] (nee Joanne Chesimard) became a member of the Black Panther Party and subsequently a member of the Black Liberation Army, she has been involved in revolutionary activities to change the racist policies of America. She found herself in the crosshairs of the criminal justice system in the early 1970s after she and her comrades were stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike by New Jersey State Troopers. Assata was traveling with Zayd Shakur and Sundiata Acoli in May 1973 when they were stopped, the troopers said, because of a faulty tail light on their car. Shortly after the stop, a shootout occurred. "There were lights and sirens," Shakur recalled in her autobiography. "Zayd was dead. My mind knew that Zayd was dead. The air was like cold glass, my mouth tasted like blood and dirt. Suddenly the [car] door flew open and I felt myself being dragged out onto the pavement. Pushed and punched, a foot upside my head, a kick in the stomach. Police were everywhere. One had a gun to my head," she wrote.
A trade accord spearheaded by the NAACP worth $1.5 billion between the Cuban government and black farmers was heralded on Nov 17, 2002 by the Rev Al Sampson, who called the accord an "international window of opportunity" for African Americans. Sampson, who works with African American farmers, said this agreement gives black farmers an "international window" through Cuba into the Caribbean.
Ms. [Adona] is a photographer utilizing the visual medium to tell stories of cultures from around the world, with the hope of creating a better understanding of diverse people through the visual arts. Last summer Ms. Adona introduced "CUBA, Reflections of Life" during a speech at the United Nations in Geneve, Switzerland, where she spoke on the necessity utilizing a single, powerful image to tell the story of a nation.
Reviews several books regarding Cuban history which focused on the areas of race, identities, ideology and nationhood. Between Race and Empire: African-Americans and Cubans Before the Cuban Revolution, by Lisa Brock and Digna Castaneda; `El Directorio Central de las Sociedades Negras de Cuba, 1886-1894,'by Oilda Hevia Lanier; Nationalizing Blackness: Afrocubanismo and Artistic Revolution in Havana, 1920-1940, by Robin Moore.;
Since 1959, when Fidel Castro overturned the corrupt, proAmerican government of Fulgencio Batista and declared Cuba a communist nation, the American policy has been one of not just opposing the Cuban government, but of isolating Cuba and its citizens from all economic and social interaction with the United States. The reality is that allowing trade and travel does not eliminate our ability to address Cuba's human rights problems. In fact, one could argue - as even some conservatives did when we participated in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing - that such interaction gives greater voice to questions of human rights in Cuba. Our policy against Cuba has largely been shaped by the politics of Florida, where anti-Castro Cuban immigrants have long been a powerful economic and political force. But even that is changing; younger Americans of Cuban origin are becoming increasingly more likely to support travel to, and trade with, Cuba.
