When Fidel came to Harlem
Dan Snow's History Hit
History Hit
4.7 • 13.7K Ratings
🗓️ 9 September 2020
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Simon Hall joined me on the pod to talk about Fidel Castro’s trip to New York in September 1960. Based at Harlem’s Theresa Hotel, Castro met with a succession of political and cultural luminaries, including Malcolm X, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Nikita Khrushchev, Amiri Baraka, and Allen Ginsberg. We discuss the coming together of revolutionaries embracing the politics of anti-imperialism, racial equality, and leftist revolution.
Subscribe to History Hit and you'll get access to hundreds of history documentaries, as well as every single episode of this podcast from the beginning (400 extra episodes). We're running live podcasts on Zoom, we've got weekly quizzes where you can win prizes, and exclusive subscriber only articles. It's the ultimate history package. Just go to historyhit.tv to subscribe. Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/€/$1.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello everyone, welcome down to Snow's History at New York City, September 1960. |
| 0:06.5 | There was an event that would help shape the character of that pivotal decade. |
| 0:11.5 | Fidel Castro arrived in America. He just sees power in Cuba. He was here for the opening of the |
| 0:17.4 | UN General Assembly and he was the hottest date in town. Great leaders from all over the world |
| 0:23.1 | beat a path to his hotel in Harlem, from Christchurch to NASA. And in their weight came |
| 0:29.5 | other political and cultural luminaries like Malcolm X and Alan Ginsberg. He was selling anti-imperialism, |
| 0:35.4 | racial equality, left this revolution and there were plenty of takers. The Eisenhower |
| 0:40.4 | administration didn't know what to do with him. This is a fantastic episode and it's one caught by |
| 0:46.3 | Professor Simon Hall, he's the University of Leeds and he's been on the podcast for a long time |
| 0:50.6 | ago. He's going back on now to talk about these 10 days that were a critical hinge point really |
| 0:57.2 | in the trajectory of the Cold War, international relations but also the culture of the 60s. |
| 1:03.8 | If you want to watch more Cold War documentaries you can do so at History Hit TV. If you're not |
| 1:08.2 | going to listen to Simon Hall's previous appearance on this podcast you can only do so on History Hit |
| 1:12.8 | TV, all the back episodes of the podcast are there. They're all ad-free so you don't have to listen |
| 1:17.1 | to my boring voice. You go on to History Hit TV, it's like Netflix, you take out a subscription |
| 1:22.4 | using the code pod1, POD1, check out that gets you a month for free and a second month for just |
| 1:26.8 | one pound euro or dollar and then you'll be a History Hit subscriber. You'll be joining the |
| 1:31.0 | revolution. Bring the meantime everybody, here is Simon. |
| 1:40.6 | Thanks so much coming on the podcast. It's nice, really great to be here. You've done that |
| 1:44.3 | thing that I love it when historians do, you've found that little 10-day period that just with the |
| 1:49.1 | most extraordinary cast list you can imagine, what was the background to this famous visit of |
| 1:54.4 | Videl Castro to New York City? Yes, he's flown in for the 15th General Assembly of the United |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from History Hit, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of History Hit and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.