Gloria Rolando, an Afro-Cuban documentarian, produced a film about the 1912 massacre of the Independent Party of Color.
Photos courtesy of Tonyaa J. Weathersbee.
For more than a century in Cuba, people of African descent have been faced with having to choose silence for the sake of national unity.
On one level, the fault for that lies with Jose Marti.
Back in 1891 Marti, author and national hero of Cuba’s War of Independence, wrote in his essay, “Nuestra America,” that Cuban unity depended on all Cubans identifying as Cubans and not as members of different races.
That didn’t work, however, because the United States, Cuba’s ally in that war and subsequently its occupier from 1898 to 1902, imposed segregation on that country. Like black people in the U.S., black Cubans had to endure a form of segregation that severely limited their educational and employment opportunities.
But in 1908, some Afro-Cubans decided that they had paid too heavy a price in their support of Cuba’s independence war to adhere to Marti’s admonitions.
Two Afro-Cuban veterans of that conflict, Evaristo Estenoz and Pedro Ivonet, formed the Independent Party of Color. The organization was made up largely of black war veterans who were moved more by racial realities of Cuba’s Jim Crow practices, than hollow calls for nationalism. They wanted black Cubans who fought in the independence war to reap the respect and opportunity that their sacrifices had earned them – and which white war veterans enjoyed.
But in 1912 when members of this black political party dared protest a decree that banned them from running candidates in elections, the government slaughtered more than 3,000 of them and imprisoned others.
The massacre led to… silence.
That silence lingered throughout the long succession of U.S.-backed dictators – the last one being Fulgencio Batista.
Throughout that period, Afro-Cubans endured the deprivations of racial discrimination and segregation. They were barred from certain beaches and parks, and most were isolated in the countryside, thus effectively barring them from access to schools and the education that could prepare them for professional careers.
Enter the Revolution – and a new silence
Then Fidel Castro came to power in 1959 – and vowed to end discrimination. By initiating reforms that gave Afro-Cubans access to broader educational opportunities and
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National Unity Shouldn’t Hinge on Black Cubans’ Being Quiet About Racism
g By Tonyaa J.Weathersbee