It never occurred to me that anyone would name a nuclear missile “Peacekeeper”. It never occurred to me that thousands of people would be killed in the name of “peace-keeping”.
My fantasy of Cuba was that everybody was going to be going around looking like Fidel, with green uniforms – and it was very different from my vision of how Cuba was going to be.
I think that people who want to change this planet have to seriously understand that as human beings we have to work to be good.
The death penalty is used in such a blatantly racist way in the United States. There is no way that can be defended under any kind of definition of justice by anybody.
I think that any time anybody gets rid of oppression, intervention, exploitation, cruelty – that’s positive.
There’s something about approaching 50 that’s very liberating. Political struggle has always been a 24-hour-a-day job for me. I felt I could never take time out for myself. Now I feel I owe it to myself to develop in ways I’ve been putting off all my life.
It seemed that most women, because they had been caught, gave up on the movement and were just trying to pass the time until they could be released. Men in prison struggled to maintain their pride, including their manhood, because that is all they had left after everything had been taken away.
The methods of peaceful protests are not capable of being effective, because in reality most people pay little attention to things that are not abrasive.
I believe in self-defense and self-determination for Africans and other oppressed people in America.
I have been a political activist most of my life and many groups have attempted to label me as a criminal because of my outspoken beliefs. I am not a criminal and I have never been one.
People come telling the truth. When I ask how thing are in the States, they don’t give me the okeydoke. They say, “Honey, things are hard.” It reminds me I have to keep struggling.
I miss friends and family. If it weren’t for visits from old friends and other African Americans I meet who come to Cuba, I’d probably be in some kind of time warp.
A lot of contemporary American culture makes its way to this county. Cuba is not some gray, isolated backwater. This is a happening place.
Being in Cuba has allowed me to live in a society that is not at war with itself. There is a sense of community. It’s a given in Cuba that, if you fall down, the person next to you is going to help you get up.
Every person that steps up and commits to social change helps solidify the black movement cause. It is not easy for those who fill in the leader role.
The US government’s most acute fear is that other countries are going to follow the Cuban example. They want everybody to know that if you follow this example we will attack you in every way that we can.
I trust Cuba as a principled country. Cuba’s strength is that it has been steadfast in its commitment to the principles of liberation, freedom, of resistance to the kind of institutionalized terrorism that the United States government does every day.
I worked, studied, mothered and continued to be an activist. I found that Cuba was much different from the US; its government was genuinely trying to erase racism.
I think that one of the great things that the Cuban revolution has done is preserve history.
I really wanted to know what happens in a place that is trying to build socialism, that’s trying to construct some form of social justice. That’s trying to feed people, to make health care and education a right.