The Venceremos Brigade is an international organization founded in 1969 by members of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and officials of the Republic of Cuba. It was formed as a coalition of young people to show solidarity with the Cuban Revolution by working side by side with Cuban workers, challenging U.S. policies towards Cuba, including the United States embargo against Cuba. The yearly brigade trips, which as of 2010 have brought more than 9,000 people to Cuba, continue today and are coordinated with the Pastors For Peace Friendship Caravans to Cuba. The 48th Brigade travelled to Cuba in July 2017.

History

Original visit

The 1959 Cuban Revolution was a key event that galvanized and inspired the growing New Left in the 1960s. Cuba became viewed as a radical and anti-imperialist third world country worthy of praise by many of the radical activists of the 1960s.

In 1969, SDS was composed of competing factions with individual priorities and visions. SDS delegates travelled to Havana, and were inspired by Fidel Castro's New Year's Day speech, in which he called on Cubans to help with the sugar harvest. Hoping to unite SDS members behind a new project, the leaders began planning a trip, bringing American activists to Cuba to cut sugar cane. Carl Oglesby originally presented the idea to members of SDS, but was ousted from SDS before it came to fruition. Bernardine Dohrn appointed Julie Nichamin and Brian Murphy to organize the trip. Allen Young was also partly responsible for the organization and negotiations with Carlos Rafael Rodríguez and other members of the Cuban government. While in the US, the group met occasionally by regions to supervise, recruit, and fundraise for the trips. the first brigade of 216 Americans travelled to Cuba from Mexico City to skirt the U.S. government's restrictions on travel to the island. Michael Kazin participated in the first 1969 brigade trip and claimed it was an enthralling experience, but as he later heard news of economic failure in Cuba after 1970, he began to reflect on the heavy military presence he once saw in Cuba, and began rethinking his enthusiasm for Cuba, instead seeing it as a Sovietized society. Regina Anavy, a non-insurgent member of the Weather Underground, participated in the 1971 trip to Cuba and described frequent arguments among members, and that she personally became depressingly disillusioned with militaristic Cuban society, and her own radicalism.

Gay Cubans being imprisoned in UMAP camps became a contentious issue within the organization, alongside the issue of institutionalized homophobia in Cuba in general. In 1970, the Venceremos Brigade responded by officially banning LGBT members from joining, citing homosexuality as "a social pathology that reflects a left-over bourgeois decadence". The brigade organizer Allen Young left the organization, and later went on to document LGBT oppression in Cuba.

Antonio Maceo Brigade

The Antonio Maceo Brigade was formed as a Cuban solidarity group of Cuban American radicals, modeled after the Venceremos Brigade. Their first brigade trip to Cuba occurred in 1977. Many Cubans who joined the brigade were motivated to prove that they weren't counterrevolutionary "gusanos". At the time the Venceremos Brigade refused to allow Cuban exiles to be members believing them all to be middle-class and counterrevolutionary "gusanos" ("worms").

For a Cuban American to be allowed into the Antonio Maceo Brigade, they must have, first, "left Cuba by family decision", secondly "not participated in counterrevolutionary activities", and thirdly "defines him or herself as opposed to the blockade".

Organization

Ideology

In Venceremos Brigade, Sandra Levinson and Carol Brightman describe the participants, brigadistas, as "American radicals." They were attracted to Cuba by the socialist revolution taking place, the anti-imperialist movement, as well as Cuban culture.

Notable brigadistas

  • Karen Bass, mayor of Los Angeles
  • Carol Brightman, counter-cultural author.
  • Linda Burnham, communist political organizer.
  • Leslie Cagan, socialist peace activist and radio executive
  • Johnnetta Cole, college president and museum executive
  • Michael Kazin, historian, professor and co-editor of [[Dissent (American magazine)|

Dissent]] magazine.

  • Jeffrey Bruce Klein, founder of Mother Jones magazine.
  • Antonio Villaraigosa, former mayor of Los Angeles
  • Allen Young, counter-cultural activist and later critic of the Cuban government.

See also

  • Antonio Maceo Brigade

References

Further reading

  • Venceremos Brigade research collection, DePaul University Special Collections and Archives
  • Oglesby, Carl. Ravens in the Storm, Scribner, New York, 2008. pp. 223–
  • Cuban Journal : A Poet in the Venceremos Brigade. 1970.
  • Sandy Lillydahl Venceremos Brigade Photograph Collection
  • "Cuba, Que Linda Es Cuba? The First Venceremos Brigade". Dissent Magazine. Retrieved 2017-06-13.
  • Cluster, Dick. "The Venceremos Brigade," The Sixties, Harvard Review of Latin America.
  • Venceremos Brigade
  • Pastors For Peace Cuba Friendship Caravan
  • Brigade who Defied Cuba Travel Ban Return to US July 26, 2010
  • Rick Rice Papers. circa 1960–1999. 2.44 cubic feet (2 cartons, 1 box).