A Better View Of Our Neighbor To the South

[Judi Lynn]

A Better View Of Our Neighbor To the South

By Courtland Milloy
Sunday, April 18, 2004; Page C01


HAVANA

It took a few days being here, but I started loosening up. You really can walk down dark, narrow streets in this city and discover there is nothing to fear but fear itself.


I was still carrying a lot of that spooky old Cuban commie baggage when I arrived last week. The Cold War shadow was tailing me. I feared my room was bugged. Would they try to brainwash me, or just ply me with rum and make me talk?

In the end, all it took was a little tropical sunshine, and I was toast. Yeah, I'm down with the revolution, Fidel, and would you mind passing me a cigar?

I was here as part of a research project, sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Journalism Studies based at Delaware State University, to examine the influence of Africans in the Americas. In 1886, a rebellion of blacks and whites against Spanish colonial rule of this island helped end slavery in Cuba and put the nation on its way to becoming a truly integrated society.

Then, at the turn of the 20th century, the United States became a force in Cuban life, installing a series of puppet leaders who would institutionalize a Jim Crow style of racial segregation.
(snip/...)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20898-2004Apr17.html

[patchdickens]

1. DID YOU SEE THE DOCUMENTARY

ON HBO