Vol. 74/No. 13      April 5, 2010

The tour stop in Atlanta is sponsored by academic departments and programs at Clark Atlanta University, Spelman College, Morehouse School of Medicine, and Georgia State University. In December, 115 professors from around the country extended invitations to the students to speak. The breadth of support for the tour was instrumental in getting visas granted by the State Department. It is the first such exchange in nine years.

The students were greeted at the airport by Michele Reid Vazquez, professor of history at Georgia State University and co-treasurer of the tour; Sobukwe Shukura, cochair of the National Network On Cuba, southern region; Vladimir Cadet, president of the Masters of Public Health Program and Student Government Association at Morehouse School of Medicine; Kendal Lotze, a Georgia State University student who is helping to organize the Cuban students’ visit to his campus; and others.

Yenaivis Fuentes Ascencio, 23, was born in Guantánamo, Cuba. Fuentes completed five years of study at the School of Medical Sciences in Guantánamo and is finishing her sixth and final year of undergraduate medical studies in Havana. Fuentes is serving as the National Public Health Education Coordinator of the Federation of University Students.

Aníbal Ramos Socarrás, 30, was born in Manzanillo, Cuba. Ramos is a third-year graduate student in surgery at the Manzanillo School of Medical Sciences at the University of Granma where he finished his undergraduate medical studies with honors. Ramos served one year in Haiti with a volunteer medical brigade. He is a leader of the Federation of University Students at the School of Medical Sciences in Manzanillo.

The first public event in Atlanta was a dinner and lively reception at Spelman College, hosted by the Women’s Research and Resource Center. Twenty-six people, including more than half a dozen from the Caribbean American Student Association, participated in a three-hour-long discussion with the two Cuban students.

Professors from several departments on the campus were at the event, including Dr. Alma Jean Billingslea Brown, chair of the African Diaspora and the World program; Dr. Frederick Langhorst, chair of the World Languages and Literature Department; and Dr. Bahati Kuumba, of the Women’s Research and Resource Center. Eleanor Hunter, on the staff of the Atlanta Auburn Avenue African American Research Library, also participated in the reception.

Ramos thanked those present, saying, “It’s a great victory to be here. It’s your victory.” He said that such direct exchanges make it possible for youth in the United States to learn about the Cuban Revolution. The Cuban students will in turn learn about struggles in the United States.

Ascencio described how the consciousness of young people in Cuba has been a product of the revolution. She said, “We are free youth who were formed in the revolution. Because of this, and in my case being Black and a woman, we owe what we are to the revolution.”

Ramos and Ascencio used their presentations to talk about the fight to free the Cuban Five, who have been unjustly held in U.S. jails for 11 years. The five were informing the Cuban government about violent actions being planned against Cuba by counterrevolutionary groups in the United States.

Camille Creary, a Spelman student and member of the Caribbean American Student Association, said in the discussion that the exchange is “opening my eyes to the Cuban Revolution.”

Public meetings during their week in the Atlanta area are set for Spelman College and Georgia State University. A community meeting is also being organized for students, farmers, and others in Valdosta, Georgia, at the Serenity Christian Church, sponsored by the Valdosta chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the South Health District. That meeting will be followed by a visit to the farm of Willie Head, who has been part of the fight of Black farmers to keep their land and win compensation for decades of discrimination by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Lisa Potash contributed to this article.
 
 
Related articles:
Cuban youth arrive for U.S. tour
Cuban artists, writers answer slander campaign
‘Cuban Revolution carries out course of proletarian internationalism’
Cuba aids Chile quake victims  
 
 
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