In August 2022, a Black activist delegation from the US followed the tradition of Black Cuban solidarity during a nine-day trip to Cuba. . . .
Cuba
Rivers & The Sea
“if Hughes saw rivers of ancestors past / then i sit here writing as i see the sea. / in all its glory, i come to know the waters / and how they stole something from me.” . . .
Reflections From the 51st Venceremos Brigade
The first Venceremos Brigade came to Cuba in 1969, just ten years after the triumph of the Cuban revolution, making the VB the oldest Cuba solidarity group in the world. The Venceremos Brigade started when a group of young people living in the US offered to send doctors, lawyers, and teachers in support of the Cuban revolution and to protest US policy against Cuba. In response, Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro explained that Cuba didn’t need doctors, lawyers, or teachers from the US – they had their own. What Cuba needed was help harvesting sugar cane. And so the Venceremos Brigade . . .
For Haitian Asylum Seekers, Biden is the More Effective Evil
For many 2020 voters of Presidential candidate Joe Biden and Vice-Presidential candidate Kamala Harris, their historic electoral win would symbolize a drastic change from the vituperative language and callous policies that came to define the chaotic and destructive Trump years. Whether it was the Trump administration’s criminalization of asylum seekers, separation of mother and child at the border through their cruel “zero tolerance” strategy, reduction in refugee resettlement, or use of xenophobic rhetoric before racializing a viral disease like COVID-19 that would stoke rampant Sinophobia, a more “compassionate” approach was promised by his would-be successors. However, as the late journalist . . .
The Venceremos Brigade & the Necessity of Solidarity with Cuba
The Venceremos Brigade (VB) is the youngest and oldest Cuba solidarity delegation in the US. By that I mean the VB, whose name means the “We Shall Overcome” Brigade, is the longest running US-Cuba solidarity delegation in existence with a base of brigadistas who are predominantly African, Indigenous, Chicanx, poor, working class, queer, and trans young people. The Venceremos Brigade was formed in 1969 by a group of US-based students and activists who wanted to show their solidarity with the Cuban revolution while also challenging imperialist US policy towards Cuba, including the genocidal economic blockade and the US government’s ban . . .
Cuba Burns and the US Stokes the Flames
The All-African People’s Revolutionary Party and the All-African Women’s Revolutionary Union would like to express our total solidarity with the Cuban people and their revolution as they battle a major ongoing disaster in the province of Matanzas that has been greatly exacerbated by the genocidal US economic blockade. On Friday August 5th, 2022 lightning struck a major oil storage facility in Matanzas, a province in the western part of Cuba. The lightning ignited a fire at the facility that killed several people, wounded over a hundred more, and sent a large cloud of smoke containing hazardous chemicals into the atmosphere, . . .
Maybe the Rally Won’t Get Us Free
my comrades remind me there are fires to start
and i notice my hands are not nearly dirty enough. . . .
Out of the Clouds: Remarks on ‘anti-Blackness’ in Cuba
Transcript Wassup y’all. I had to set a timer because my comrades have better notes than I do. I want to talk to you for a little bit. My name is Salifu. I’m a member of Black Alliance for Peace. I’m from Charleston, South Carolina. I’m also a member of the All African People’s Revolutionary Party. And I want to talk to you a little bit about one of my least favorite games that the U.S. plays, because the US plays a lot of games. One of the things that the United States does is try to combat liberation struggles . . .