Harlem Shows the Way on Cuba

Fidel Castro's marathon speech at Riverside Church last Friday is the latest milestone in the revolutionary relationship between the island of Cuba and the village of Harlem, a relationship that dates back to September 20, 1960.

It was on that day that Castro, in town for the opening of the UN General Assembly, bailed out on the posh midtown Shelbourne Hotel. Angered at the poor treatment they received there, the Cuban delegation threatened to camp out on the UN lawn.

Ultimately, Castro chose to take Malcolm X up on his suggestion to stay at the Theresa Hotel at 125th Street and Seventh Avenue. Castro said he was glad to be in Harlem with "people who knew oppression." Each time Castro comes to New York, he reaffirms his warm relationship with the city's African-American community.

History professor and director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies Manning Marable has written extensively about Cuba and black America.

"Since the 1959 Revolution, Cuba has developed a special relationship with Black people throughout the world," Marable wrote.

Several years ago, Marable lead a group of prominent African Americans, including Columbia's Chaplain, Jewelnel Davis, and Visiting Professor Michael Eric Dyson, on a trip to Cuba. They met with academics and politicians, and examined race, gender, human rights, civil liberties, and the effect of the changing global economy on the island.

Marable describes a place where "a quarter century after the revolution, employment, infant mortality and life expectancy rates were better for Blacks in Cuba than for Blacks anywhere in the world, even in the United States."

The bloody excess of Castro's regime cannot erase the promise of such a complex and storied nation. Cuba has initiated creative and successful health and education programs, been progressive in terms of race, and the Cuban people have been remarkably resilient and dignified in the face of domestic poverty and repression and international isolation.

There is no easy answer here, but there is an unambiguously positive first step that can be taken to reach out to the Cuban people and share the best of American culture. The time has come for the United States to end its anachronistic and futile embargo. Nearly every nation on the planet has chastised the U.S. for this harmful Cold War throwback, and support has even eroded here at home. We should listen to Harlem, and realize how much the U.S. and Cuba have to offer one another.