Black Consciousness in Cuba: The Untold Revolution, 1968-1978

FAIN: FEL-262943-19

Devyn Spence Benson
Davidson College (Davidson, NC 28036-9405)

A book-length study about Afro-Cuban intellectual life during the 1970s.

This project recovers the untold history of the 1960s and 1970s black consciousness movement in Cuba by examining the works of Afro-Cuban intellectuals. While most of the existing literature locates black consciousness in the English- and French-speaking Caribbean and assumes that Cuban intellectuals bought into Latin American myths of racial democracy, my research highlights how Cubans were not only aware, but inspired by Caribbean black consciousness ideologies. Significantly, as the space for political debates about persistent racism narrowed in Cuba after 1961, Afro-Cubans shifted their critiques of the revolution’s racial policies into the cultural realm through art, fiction, and film. Afro-Cubana women played dominant, but hereto unexamined roles by combining antiracism and anti-sexism. This examination of Afro-Cuban activism after the 1959 revolution bridges the gap in scholarship about race in Cuba that currently jumps from 1961 to 1989.

Associated Products

Afrocubanas: History, Thought, and Cultural Practices (Book)
Title: Afrocubanas: History, Thought, and Cultural Practices
Editor: Devyn Spence Benson
Abstract: Originally published in Spanish and edited by Cuban historian Daisy Rubiera Castillo and playwright and theater critic Inés María Martiatu Terry, this ground-breaking edited collection is the first work of its kind. It places the experiences of black and mulata women at the center of Cuban history. Including essays from a mix of well-known and newly published Cuban authors, the volume examines the lives of Afrocubanas from the late nineteenth century to the present. The volume’s contributors collect and interrogate the voices of black Cuban women and the political, cultural, social, and ideological contributions they have made to the history of their nation. One of the unique qualities of Afrocubanas is that the text is the product of a grassroots community working group in Havana. A number of antiracist organizations emerged to fight racial inequality in light of Cuba’s new economic challenges after the fall of its chief trading partner, the Soviet Union in 1991. But, the Afrocubanas Project (founded in the mid-2000s) is one of the few groups that challenges racism and sexism together. The members of the Afrocubanas Project hail from a variety of professions, ages, and sexual orientations. They share a collective interest in challenging negative stereotypes about black women. This volume merges their activism and scholarship to offer a counter discourse to existing narratives about black women in Cuba while also creating and disseminating new knowledge about Afrocubanas. There is no other published work in English devoted to analyzing the political and intellectual dimensions of black Cuban women’s thought across the island’s history. This text is essential reading for scholars and students of Africana Studies, Afro-Latin American Studies, Caribbean history, and courses focusing on black women in the Atlantic region.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781786614810/Afrocubanas-History-Thought-and-Cultural-Practices
Access Model: not open access
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield International Press
Type: Edited Volume
Type: Translation
ISBN: 9781786614810
Translator: Karina Alma
Copy sent to NEH?: No

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