Castro claimed was a vicarious one for soldiers in freedom struggles from the Southern Africa to the American South.
Whether with a “Cuba, si!” or an “Amen,” blacks were cheering for the man who talked about a society based on racial equality. As Malcolm X would tell the Pittsburgh Courier after a dramatic meeting with Castro in Harlem in 1960, “Fidel Castro has denounced racial discrimination in Cuba, which is more than President Eisenhower has done here in America.”
Carlos Moore said Fidel Castro’s vow to end racism in Cuba intrigued black journalists. (Photo courtesy of MooreCarlos.com)
Dr. Carlos Moore, a once youthful Castro supporter who has spent most of his life as a dissenter in exile, offered this context. “The black movement in the United States had enough international connection to these issues to understand that a revolution in Cuba just next door, 90 miles from the United States, a revolution which promised to liberate Cuba not only from American hegemony but also to liberate Cuba from racism and discrimination was important. So they fully supported it wholeheartedly, and that support was reflected in all magazines, in all newspapers. Unanimously, the black press took a positive attitude towards the Cuban Revolution, contrary to what is called the mainstream press.”
American blacks had long been interested in Cuba's blacks, people living not too far away in a land exploited by the United States for its human and natural resources .Even as far back as Frederick Douglass’ time, black newspapers paid attention to Cuba and its racial and economic issues, which in many ways mirrored those of blacks in the U.S. When Batista became Cuba’s “strong man” in 1936, the Associated Negro Press (ANP) wire service distributed upbeat reports like this one: “The colored army chief is one of the most popular figures in Cuba today.” By the time he was defeated by Castro’s army, the Philadelphia Tribune, which had earlier carried that ANP story, ran one by its editor, John A. Saunders, reporting on Jan. 6, 1959, that Batista “hates and despises all dark Cubans, who under his iron rule existed as little better than serfs and slaves.”
White supremacy and anti-communist witch hunts were very real enemies of black progress in the United States; the possibility of an emerging multi-racial democracy was just too tantalizing to ignore. For some scribes, Castro was a modern-day Abraham Lincoln.
Many in the press even justified the Castro regime’s brutal retaliation against Batista supporters – hundreds of whom were executed as thousands more were jailed – as well as the seizure of American business interests, from utilities to banks to hotels. They reported Powell’s efforts to encourage Castro to conduct fair trials for war criminals and to live up to his promise of equal employment for blacks. But they also saw Castro’s moves during this dizzying time as necessary responses to U.S. government moves to thwart a grand experiment.
Encouraged by Castro, dozens of black journalists, artists, intellectuals and entrepreneurs traveled to Cuba to witness for themselves this new world in formation – many more than had sojourned to Ghana for independence celebrations in 1957. Simeon Booker, of Jet, was among the first wave after Castro took over on Jan. 1, 1959, reporting on everything from protests by black Cubans in a province considered the most prejudiced in Cuba to the status of Orestes (“Minnie”) Minoso, the popular Cuban-born baseball player then playing for the Cleveland Indians and who had been a big Batista supporter.
As the U. S. tightened the screws, Moore said in a telephone interview from his home in Brazil, “Castro did everything possible to woo the black American population.” And he succeeded for the most part as “they came back with glowing reports that were published in newspapers and magazines.”
For sure some journalists raised questions early on. Alice Dunnigan, in her May 9, 1959, column in the Pittsburgh Courier wrote: “Is there a color question in Cuba? Negro newsmen who visited the country during the recent ‘big trial’ say, ‘Yes! Definitely!’ White reporters say, ‘No!’”
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