Two historical events that have influenced contemporary racism and equality in Cuba are the Cuban revolution

of 1959 and the Special Period of the 1990s. The Cuban revolution led by Fidel Castro and the 26th of July Movement gave the Cuban populous a more equal distribution of the wealth based on the Communist system of government. The revolution aimed to overthrow the US backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Bautista, eradicating American influence, and to evenly distribute the wealth to the Cuban people. The revolution succeeded in giving the less fortunate people access to healthcare, education and increased slightly the presence of Afro-Cubans in government, but ignited a still ongoing conflict with the US. The ruling party then led a conference on race and racism where leading figures were gathered to discuss issues of racism affecting the Cuban way of life. A few years after the conference Cuban Authorities had formally proclaimed Cuba to be a discrimination free society, and the Second Declaration of Havana issued in February of 1962 asserted that the revolution had eradicated discrimination because of race or sex in Cuba.(The resurgence of racism in Cuba by Alejandro de la Fuente pg. 31.) With this declaration it seemed that discussions on racism were silenced and became almost taboo in Cuban Society. I found this interesting because the same government that did the most to eliminate racism also did the most to silence the debates about its presence. (pg. 32) The Special Period during the 1990s in Cuba saw a resurgence of the once thought of solved social issues of crimes and more importantly race. In the tourism industry Afro-Cubans are misrepresented, because they are deemed undesirable and unattractive to be around one of the major lifelines of the Cuban economy. The lack of jobs, and legitimate income opportunity then leads to individuals turning to a life of crime. This completes the cycle because Afro-Cubans are looked on as criminals to begin with but the lack of opportunity and the discrimination they face eventually leads them to, the lifestyle people already think they are in.

Two examples that illustrate the success of the Cuban revolution are locally the Cuban population that was once under a dictatorship where foreign interest was the main concern, began distributing the wealth among the people allowing more of the population to have roughly similar access to employment, nutrition and education, and internationally they were influencing other nations like Venezuela, Guyana, Grenada and to a lesser extent Jamaica to adopt their Socialist style of government.

The need for improvements in post-Revolutionary Cuban race relations will lead to improvements in the society as a whole. Cubans would rather not discuss the issue of race because some feel that would divide the nation, but with the increase in criminal activities directly related to the lack of employment opportunities provided to Afro-Cubans, the relevant authorities need to implement a solution to race relations. With the same vigor that they had in 1959, organizing a conference to discuss the issue of Cuban race relations, the government needs to gather a similar group to see how they can improve the underline factors, and not just scratch the surface like was done before. Implementing programs, redefining the tourism sector to include Afros and other programs will only help the Cuban economy and lessen the division between the races.