------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Sept. 21, 2000 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- NOW AS IN 1960: HARLEM TURNS OUT FOR CUBAN LEADER By Deirdre Griswold New York Forty years after his first visit to Harlem as head of an independent and revolutionary Cuba, Fidel Castro returned here Sept. 8 to speak for over four hours to a crowd charged with electricity. This time the venue was not the Hotel Theresa on 125th Street but Riverside Church on 120th Street. Some 2,400 people filled the vast, vaulted nave plus an overflow auditorium, while hundreds more listened to loudspeakers placed outside. The majority Black and Latino crowd had started lining up for seats in mid-afternoon, but they stayed until after 2:15 a.m. That's when the Cuban president finished his address, full of pep, with the words "Buenos días"--Good morning. For over four hours he had talked about the growing inequality in the world, especially affecting Africa and Latin America, and about the great contributions little Cuba has made to struggling countries in providing medicine, education and soldiers to fight fascism and apartheid. The world has changed in these 40 years, but the Cuban leader's message has not. It is totally consistent with what he told the Cuban people on Sept. 29, 1960, when he made a speech in Havana reporting on his first trip to the U.S. What he said then describes the situation today. "We must make an effort even to imagine the campaign that is being waged systematically against Cuba by all the magazines, newspapers, radios and television stations" in the U.S., said Castro at that time. "Yet the Cubans, the Dominicans, the Puerto Ricans, the Black people of Harlem, and the Latin Americans in general, remain firm. They are the groups most exploited and oppressed by imperialism in its own territory. It is very moving. "From the time our delegation began traveling through Harlem, from the instant a Black person saw us, he began to wave to us in greeting. In the very heart of the empire there are 20 million Black people, oppressed and exploited. Their aspirations cannot be satisfied with a fistful of dollars, it is a very much more difficult problem, because their aspirations can only be satisfied by justice." Forty years later, his words sound prophetic. The income gap is greater than ever. More African Americans, Latinos, Native people and poor whites are in jail than ever. There are daily accounts of police brutality against people of color. The cry of the anti-racist movement is "No justice, no peace!" CONCERN ABOUT SHAKA AND MUMIA Castro is in tune with this movement. He brought the crowd to their feet when he mentioned Shaka Sankofa, a prison activist executed in Texas after Gov. George W. Bush refused to stop what a worldwide movement calls a racist legal lynching. The audience cheered even louder when the Cuban president went on to talk about Mumia Abu-Jamal, a Black journalist on death row in Pennsylvania. Castro described how Abu-Jamal has become known throughout the island since U.S. activists and experts appeared on Cuban television in several round- table discussions on the racist injustice system in the United States. Several of those round-table participants were in the audience at Riverside Church, including Monica Moorehead of Millions for Mumia, Abu-Jamal's attorney Leonard Weinglass, law professor and attorney Lenox Hinds, and Gloria La Riva of International Peace for Cuba Appeal. Scores of community and activist groups, including progressives from many parts of the world, had organized their members and friends to pack Riverside Church for the historic event. Tickets had to be obtained in advance because of strict security procedures. When the Rev. Lucius Walker of Pastors for Peace congratulated Castro on his recent 74th birthday, the Cuban president quipped that he was lucky to have lived this long-- a reference to the many CIA attempts on his life. The audience laughed along with him, but everyone knew it was not a joking matter and that his security had to be taken very seriously. Castro read for the audience a description he had written of his brief encounter with Bill Clinton at the United Nations-- the handshake that has been analyzed and dissected ad infinitum by the corporate press. Clinton was in a narrow hall shaking hands with all the world leaders as they passed. "I couldn't run away," said Castro. "In two minutes or less, I arrived at the place where he was standing. I stopped for a second, and with great dignity and courtesy we shook hands. He did exactly the same thing. It would have been rude for me to act differently. It all lasted for 20 seconds." Taking off his glasses, the Cuban leader then looked straight at the audience and said that no one representing the people of Cuba would ever go begging to another power. While the program was kept short in anticipation of one of the sweeping, educational expositions Fidel Castro is famous for, several key personages in the Cuba solidarity movement made brief interventions. MANY GROUPS JOIN IN WELCOME Luis Miranda of Casa de las Americas welcomed the "comandante" on behalf of Cubans in the U.S. who support the revolution. Teresa Gutierrez of the International Action Center joined Reverend Walker in asking the audience to respond to a series of questions, such as "What head of state sent thousands of doctors to Africa?" The audience roared back "Fidel" in recognition of his forceful contributions to oppressed nations. Gutierrez and Walker had led the campaign to let Elian Gonzalez go back home to Cuba. Two members of Congress--Maxine Waters of Los Angeles and Jose Serrano of the Bronx--helped welcome Castro and spoke out against anti-Cuban U.S. laws. The meeting was opened by the rector of Riverside Church, Rev. James Forbes. Rosemari Mealy of radio station WBAI--a long-time supporter of Cuba, a participant in the round table on Mumia, and an organizer of the New York Welcoming Committee--chaired the meeting with warmth and skill. - END - (Copyleft Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org) ------------------ This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. 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