Welcome to Blowback.

I'm Noah Colwyn, and this is the third bonus episode of our second season.

Now, toward the end of the fourth episode of our main story, we talked a bit about the

visit of the Del Castro and the Cuban delegation to Harlem in the fall of 1960.

In this bonus episode, we're going to return to that moment as part of the theme of this

episode, examining the links between the shared struggle for black liberation in both Cuba

and the United States.

Now if you've already listened to the main story episodes, you'll have already heard

the voices of people in this episode, Martin Union, Sermiento, Rosemary Mealy, and others

who will get fuller introductions before you hear from them.

After a bit more introduction and some deeper Cuban African-American history, we'll talk

a little bit more about radical black politics globally during the time of our story.

We'll add more context and color to the visit of the Cuban delegation to Harlem in 1960.

And how black radicals in the 1960s were involved in the Cuban cause and vice versa.

And then we'll talk about successes and failures of the Cuban revolution as they relate to issues

of race.

And all of these will be explained directly by our guests.

So now Fidel's visit to Harlem in 1960 was just one moment in a longer history between

black radicals in the United States and in Cuba.

The historian Rosemary Mealy, in our main narrative, pointed out how it went back many years

and how Jose Marti, the hero of Cuban independence at the turn of the 20th century, developed ties

with African-American radicals during his own time in the United States.

...