Abstract

The article retraces the reactions of the African American liberation movement to the Cuban revolution and the following relations between some activists and Fidel Castro's Cuba from 1959 until the Bay of Pigs invasion. Analyzing the papers of the African Americans who traveled to Cuba, those of several progressive organizations and the newspapers, the research focuses in particular on three crucial aspects: the African Americans' reactions to the revolution, Castro's trip in New York in September 1960 and his meeting with Malcolm X, the African Americans' responses to the Bay of Pigs invasion. Considering the period 1959-1961 as the time when the groundwork was laid for the birth of an alliance between African Americans and Castro's Cuba, the article shows how the revolution influenced the black freedom movement's political demands - at least those of its more radical wing. It was in particular after the success of the Cuban revolution that many activists elaborated internationalist ideologies which brought them closer to the Third world nationalistic movements and which inspired the African-American protests during the Black Power years.