Jackson 1 What impact did the Cuban revolution have on Afro-Cubans and race relations in Cuba? Describe the experience of African American radicals and nationalists in Cuba. In March 1959,two months after the conquest of state power, Castro broke the conspiracy of silence on racism in Cuba by confronting it head on.
His first step was to abolish the old private school system and establish a well-funded public school system that was completely integrated. Economic and social conditions for Blacks improved dramatically when the revolutionary government decreed the Agrarian Reform and Urban Reform Laws, which gave the land to small farmers, and lowered rents in the cities by 50 percent. Laws were enacted and enforced prohibition discrimination in jobs, schools, housing, and medical care. In Cuba, race prejudice would be a punishable offense.
Official Cuban census figures say black and mixed-heritage people are about 35 percent of the island’s population, but a quick stroll around any Cuban town will provide visual confirmation of just how many Cubans of color deem themselves “white”. That may not be surprising, given that race is not an objective scientific category, but rather an organizing principle of political power both before and after the revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power. Cuba(pre-Fidel)had been a place where multiracial alliances coexisted with persistent, entrenched racism and vast racial inequality. The last pre-revolutionary president, Fulgencio Batista, was a mulatto who may have hadsome Chinese and Indian blood. While he may have firmly ruled that system of inequality, he was, demographically speaking, more inclusive than were the white revolutionaries who overthrew him.
But once the rebels won and tens of thousands of the wealthiest whites fled to Florida, Castro emphasized independence from American capitalism, improvements in healthcare, and literacy drives and he also told Jackson 2 American journalists in January 1959 that his new government would work to erase racial discrimination once and for all. In 1962, a North American survey found that 80 percent of black Cubans were wholly in favor of the revolution, compared to 67 percent of whites. The ensuing years saw visiblegains towards social equality. The entire country was literate, regardless of color, and the 1980s, sawa generation of young black Cubans whose parents had been sugarcane and service workers enter the workforce as doctors, engineers and professionals. Still, despite major economic and social gains, black Cubansremained unrepresented in the political leadership.
In the years between Castro’s ascendance and the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, race was an issue kept under the rug. During the Black Power Movement, the African American organization that established the most significant relations with Cuba was the Black Panther Party. The BlackPantherPartywas a radical Marxist organization which was inspired by the Cuban revolution. Huey P.
Newton, cofounder with Bobby Seale of the Black Panther Party, wrote in his autobiography: “For Castro guerrilla warfare was a good form of propaganda. Walking armed through Richmond was our propaganda”. For many Black Panthers,Cuba symbolized a perfect example of how a socialist system could succeed in offering equal opportunities to all its citizens. Socialist Cuba also became a safe place for those panthers who wanted to escape from the illegal activities of John Edgar Hoover’s Counter Intelligence Program,and starting from 1967-68 many membersoftheBlack Panther Partymembers went into exile in Cuba.
Among the African Americans in exile in Cuba there were some of the most prominent leaders of the Black Power Movement such as Eldridge Cleaver, Huey P. Newton and Assata Jackson 3 Shakur. Cleaver came to Cuba in 1968 to avoid arrest and spent eight months on the island. His story is particularly interesting because, as the Minister of Information of the BlackPantherParty, he had high expectations from the alliance with the Cuban government: he hoped that the Cubans would organize a military camp for the training of African American revolutionaries. The project failed because the Cubans decided not to transform their political support for the African American liberation struggle into a military one. Huey P.
Newton went into exile in Cuba in 1974 after being charged with the murder of a prostitute in Oakland. Even though Newton withdrew himself from public life in the town of Santa Clara, he continued to lead the BlackPantherPartythrough his daily telephone conversations with the new leader of the organization Elaine Brown. Assata Shakur, a former BlackPantherPartymilitant and Black Liberation Army member, also escaped from prison in 1979 and reached Cuba five years later, in 1984, when she was given political asylum by the Castro government. During the Black Power struggle, other activists went to Cuba as official guests of Fidel Castro. This was the case of the Black Power advocateStokelyCarmichael, who was the only non-communist African American to receive an official invitation by the Cuban government after 1965. InJuly 1967,Carmichael attended the Organization of Latin American Solidarity Conference, an international meeting which celebrated Guevara and praised Guevara’s activities as a source of inspirationfor Third World revolutionaries and alsofor Black Power advocates.
Finally, the communist party member and black freedom fighterAngela Davis toured the island after being released from jail in 1972 to demonstrate hersolidarity with the revolution. Her trip to Cuba, where the previous year hundreds of thousands of people had supported the “Free Jackson 4 Angela Davis” campaign, was a hugesuccess and helped to confirmDavis as one of the most prominent figures of the black freedom movement worldwide. Jackson 5 What are the main struggles of Black neighborhood activists inGamboadeBaixoand Salvador, Bahia? Discuss Perry’s theoretical and methodological approach to research on Black politics. Interestingly, like those in the United States, Afro-Brazilian politicians face the challenge of racial authenticity as well as racism, making it difficult for them to fully achieve self-agency. In 1985, when the military regime finally collapsed, Brazilian social sciences had to start from where they were cut off twenty years earlier.
Nevertheless, critical race studies came back with a vengeance, now equipped with the newly developed tools of more sophisticated statistical analyses that could count on a variety of new data, as the Brazilian state started to reintroduce skin color categories into its censuses and surveys. At timesGamboadeBaixoresidents found they needed to step up the intensity of their activism to demand social change. One told me, “When we conversed, things were not resolved. They only were resolved when we went crazy.
” (Perrypp. 77) The women ofGamboadeBaixoespecially suffered with everyday experiences with racism and sexism. They were sort of forced to accept changes and adapt to the unfair conditions that were thrown upon them. Racial restructuring in the city of Salvador brought about many problems with residents fightingfor permanent residency. Although many questions were raised why were their surroundings such an eye sore and they were living in such deplorable conditions. In 1984, vast amounts of money were spent to revitalize the city ofPelourinho, but instead most of the Jackson 6 resident’s homes were transformed into museums, restaurants, hotels, and performance stages.
The biggest obstaclefor the citizens were to make themselves visible, not only to the activists, but to the people that they encounter in everyday life. Most times they felt a need to make their presence known, and to come to grips that they are actually being represented in a fair and civil manner. The citizens are invisible and so are the women activists. Perry expressed that she expected things to be theoretical, but that was far from the case, it turned out to be the total opposite. In a methodological point of view, everything affects gender, class, and there has to be an admittance to there’s a problem in the first place.
It is also said to get a full understanding of what the theoretical and methodological views display one must come live among the people in Salvador, Bahia to understand hands on research. GamboadeBaixo’spolitical organizationcomes from a stance of theoretical. It is ultimately built on the grassroots politics in black urban neighborhoods. The city was clearly a poster board for making gaps between racial and class patterns. Race and classare definitelythe major factorsthat determines where one is placed as far as residency goes. I would imagine that since there’s at least 135 categories of self-identification, the divisions of the races would be a very difficult task to endure.
In Brazil, black women’s placement and demands for social change were scarce. Especially poor Black women whose main goal was to fight for land and housing rights as well as their passion to gain leadership of social movements. Women were not ever considered as heroes nor did they get any recognition their many efforts to make the city wholesome and have complete fairness for all. Jackson 7 More often many were pushed or forced out of their homes by the government, causing plenty of areas to become a waste of historical homes. There’s a central importance for those women who are most interested in grassroots organizations. Perry expresses that there’s tonsof platforms for women in Brazil to thrive on, and to have a voice all their own.
She also talks about the many ways that women donot have the necessary access to basic resources, which is very alarming. Black women inGamboadeBaixofought to stake their claims to land areas below and around historic forts. There were these wall that were commonly built as a popular feature of the housing designs. There were verandas and door fronts with metal bars in addition to the built walls around their homes.
For the most part the walls protected them from both internal and external harm. Mainly from the drug traffickers and police who many of the residents believe contributes to the crime and fear that takes place. They even built the walls to prevent theft from happening. With a long search of citizenship, the people ofGamboadeBaixostill resists against the acts of violence and of the social and racial discrimination that they’re introduced to constantly.
Brazil composes one of the largest numbers of a people that are unemployed, possesses a denial of history, and are commonly targeted with institutionalized violence. The communities live in fear without security and without having to turn to in time need for safety and for rights in general. Most of the citizens have been victimized by the continued violence of the absence of the public works, the abuses, and the psychological and physical tortures that are happening with a great spreading than any other country worldwide. Jackson 8 Based on your reading of Harris, which contemporary Afro-Christian tradition (social gospel/liberation theology or the prosperity gospel) serves African Americans better? What impact has the Obama presidency had on Black people’social gospel- Christian faith practiced as a call not just to personal conversation but to social reform. Prosperity gospel-Referred to as prosperity theology, the health and wealth gospel is a religious belief among some Christians who hold that financial blessings and physical well-being are always the will of God for them and that faith. The social gospel is defiantly a better practice for Black people because it offers them a chance to get out in the world and to absorb so much more that this practice has to offer.
It embodies the characteristics that the faith takes the poor and transforms them whether it’s from a community-based or active point of view. The social gospel birthed the theological worldview, meaning that the righteous people should not only concern themselves with salvaging sinners, but also entertain the displacement of them here on Earth. Most urban churches placed their focus on saving souls and making the lives of their congregation richer by building schools, orphanages, hospitals, and mutual-aid and burial societies. Unlike the prosperity gospel, the social gospel definitely did not thrive on incorporating monies to live a better life.
The social gospel also was responsible with advancing thecivil rights by enhancing the motives for groups such as the Urban League and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Even Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. sided with the social gospel and often Jackson 9 referred to it in many of his speeches.
He believed that the freedom of Blacks was inevitable, whether he reached it with them in the Promised Land or not. King’s social gospel faith really mapped many of his ways of handling situations in a nonviolent/ turn-the-other-cheek philosophical way. Social gospel,in its own right,sympathizes and empathizes with its followers and unequivocally gives them a sense of hope and a path of unforsaken faith. AlbertCleagewrote in his book the Black Messiah that “not only did God side with the oppressed, but that Christ, because of the suffering he endured, was black”.
(Harris pp. 85) The leading theologian of black liberation from then until now is James Cone, who strictly adopts the theories and viewpoints of Black Nationalism. His influences have produced an array of ministers at traditionally black churches throughout the country. Social gospel isarguably the best religion to portray Christianity, due the understanding that money isn’t important to live a prosperous life. Money is important in certain situations, but there is not a necessity for it to prosper and gain personal faith to move along in life under the guidelines of the social gospel. The founders of the movement initially reflected on middle-class Protestants, Catholics and Jews, however on down the line the social gospel became vastly lead by urban black clergy.
It ultimately legitimized the involvement and support of the civil rights movement. Socialgospel gave a sense of freedom to those that believes in it and gave them a means to understand their oppression and struggle. It revealed hope and faith without denial and also provided a faith where peers weren’t judgmental or hypocritical at all. President Barack Obama had a special impact in my life personally, because I was on crack cocaine for many years leading up to his presidency.
November 07, 2008 was a very important day, when a Black man was announced as the president of the United States of Jackson 10 America. This is also the day that my God took the taste of crack cocaine out of my mouth. Still to this day I have not relapsed through the grace of God. I can remember that day as if it were yesterday. Looking at the television saying I’m don with using drugsbecause a black man has made it to be president. History was made for Barack Obama, and myself Stone Jones.
Barack Obama has also made a huge impact in the black community with health insurance. Blacks couldn’t afford health insurance if they were not employed. Barack Obama also has shown the black race that we can overcome any obstacle thrown our way. He has also shown the blacks how to put back into our communities and to buy back our own land. He provided a way for us to be first time homeowners with the $8,000 home owners loan. He impacted the black community on showing us how to be proud of being black again.
Wow! A black man ran for presidency of the U. S. and served for two consecutive terms, totaling eight years. Many white presidents have not done this. History has definitely been made on November 8, 2008, the first black man lead our country through good and bad times. Even the first lady, Michelle Obama, showed black women how to become strong, independent women in today’s society, where women still have a hard time being treated equally as men.
