Afro-Cuban History & Culture Reading List
Compiled by by Otis Cunningham
Otis Cunningham is an activist, health worker, and life-long Chicagoan. He supported numerous liberation movements in Africa, Cuba, Nicaragua, and other countries during the 1960s and 1970s, served on the African American Solidarity Committee editorial board, and was co-editor for the magazine African Agenda. He is married to Dr. Lisa Brock. He has since retired and continues his activism in several causes.
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Benson, Devyn Spence
2016. Anti-Racism in Cuba: The Unfinished Revolution, UNC Press
2013. “Cuba Calls: African American Tourism, Race, and the Cuban Revolution, 1959-1961,”
Hispanic Historical Review 93 (2): 239-71.
2018. Representations of Black Women in Cuba
https://www.aaihs.org/representations-of-black-women-in-cuba/
2017. Fears of Black Political Activism In Cuba and Beyond, 1912-2017
https://www.aaihs.org/fears-of-black-political-activism-in-cuba-and-beyond-1912-2017/
2018. Sara Gómez: Afrocubana (Afro-Cuban Women’s) Activism after 1961
Cuban Studies, Volume 46, 2018, 134-158, University of Pittsburgh Press
2021. Redefining Mestizaje: How Trans- Caribbean Exchanges Solidified Black Consciousness in Cuba, Small Axe 65,
91-108, July 2021
2020. AfroCubanas: History, Thought, and Cultural Practices, Rowman & Littlefield (Editor English Edition)
Brock, Lisa and Digna Castañeda Fuertes, Eds.
1998. Between Race and Empire: African-Americans and Cubans Before the Revolution, Temple University Press.
Chase, Michelle
2015. Revolution Within the Revolution: Women and Gender Politics in Cuba, 1952-1962, UNC Press.
Fernandes, Sujatha
2016. “Afro-Cuba Activist Fight Racism Between Two Fires,” The Nation, May 24.
2006. Cuba Represente! Cuban Arts, State Power and the Making of New Revolutionary Cultures, Duke.
2020. The Cuban Hustle: Culture, Politics, Everyday Life, Duke University Press
Fernandez, Nadine
2010. Revolutionizing Romance: Interracial Couples in Contemporary Cuba, Rutgers University Press.
Guridy, Frank Andre
2010. Forging Diaspora: Afro-Cubans and African Americans in a World of Empire and Jim Crow, UNC Press.
2003. From Solidarity to Cross-Fertilization: Afro-Cuban/African American Interaction during the 1930s and 1940s,
Radical History Review Issue 87 (fall 2003): 19–48. Read more
2009. “ The War on the Negro’: Race and the Revolution of 1933.” Cuban Studies 40, 49-73
2009. “Feeling Diaspora in Harlem and Havana.” Social Text 27 (Spring 2009 ): 115-40
2003. “Enemies of the White Race “: The Machadista State and the UNIA in Cuba.” Caribbean Studies 31 ( 2003 ): 117-39
Casal, Lourdes
1979. Revolution and Race: Blacks in Contemporary Cuba, 1-25
Read more
Lomas, Laura
2022. Afro-Latina Disidentification and Bridging: Lourdes Casal’s Critical Race Theory
Meridians, 21(1), 123-154. https://doi.org/10.1215/15366936-9554101
Afro-Latina Disidentification and Bridging: Lourdes Casal’s Critical Race Theory Read more
Hamilton, Carrie
2014. Sexual Revolutions in Cuba: Passion, Politics and Memory, UNC Press.
Hudson, Anne Hicking
2012. The Capacity to Share: A Study of Cuban International Cooperation in Educational Development, Palgrave Press.
Perez Sarduy, Pedro and Jean Stubbs, Eds.
2000. Afro-Cuban Voices: On Race, Identity in Contemporary Cuba, University Press of Florida.
Perry, Marc
2016. Negro Soy Yo: Hip Hop and Race, Citizenship in Neoliberal Cuba, Duke University Press.
2009. “Hip Hop’s Diasporic Landscape of Blackness “, In From Toussaint to Tupac: The Black International since the Age of
Revolution, edited by Michael O. West, William G. Martin, & Fanon Che Wilkins, UNC Press, 232-258
Queeley, Andrea
2015. Rescuing our Roots: The African Anglo-Caribbean Diaspora in Contemporary Cuba, University Press of Florida.
Roland, L. Kaifa.
2010. Cuban Color in Tourism and the La Lucha: An Ethnography of Racial Meaning, Oxford University Press.
Saunders, Tanya
2015. Cuban Underground Hip Hop: Black Thoughts, Black Revolution, Black Modernity, University. of Texas Press.
Pappademos, Melina
2011. Black Political Activism and the Cuban Republic, UNC Press
2017. Centering the Voices of Black Activists in Post-Revolutionary Cuba. Read more
Pettway, Matthew
2020. Cuban Literature in the Age of Black Insurrection: Manzano, Placido, and Afro-Latino Religion, University Press of
Mississippi
Bolles, A. Lynn
1999. “Ellen Irene Diggs: Coming of Age in Atlanta, Havana and Baltimore” In African American Pioneers in Anthropology,
edited by Ira E. Harrison and Faye V. Harrison, 154-67, University of Illinois Press, 1999
1995. McGarrity, Gayle and Osvaldo Cardenas
Cuba, Afro-Latin Americans Today: No Longer Invisible, edited by Minority Rights Group, 77-108
Cobb, Martha
1979. Harlem, Haiti, and Havana: A Comparative Critical Study of Langston Hughes, Jacques Roumain, Nicolas Guillen,
Three Continents
Gatewood, Willard
1971. “Smoked Yankees” and the Struggle for Empire: Letters from Negro Soldiers 1898-1902, University of Illinois Press
Lucero, Bonnie
2018. Revolutionary Masculinity & Racial Inequality: Gendering War and Politics in Cuba, University of New Mexico Press
2019. A Cuban City, Segregated: Race and Urbanization in Nineteenth Century, University of Alabama Press
Ferrer, Ada
1999. Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868-1898, UNC Press
2014. Freedom’s Mirror: Cuba and Haiti in The Age of Revolution, Cambridge University Press
Guerra, Lilian
2012. Visions of Power in Cuba: Revolution, Redemption, and Resistance, 1959-1971, UNC Press
2005. The Myth of Jose Marti: Conflicting Nationalisms In Early Twentieth-Century Cuba, UNC Press
Lambe, Mae Ariel
2019. “Support the Brother People of Ethiopia, The Italo-Ethiopia War and Development of Antifascism in Cuba,
1935-1936”. In No Barrier Can Contain it Cuban AntiFascism And The Spanish Civil War, UNC Press, 54-75
Stock, Marie Ann
2009. “Documenting Tumultuous Times: “ New Cultural Organizations Proffer Alternatives”, In On Location in Cuba:
Street Filmmaking during Times of Transition, UNC Press, 35-76
2009. “Filming in the Margins: Esteban Insausti Explores Life and Art amidst Chaos”, In On Location in Cuba: Street
Filmmaking during Times of Transition, UNC Press, 206-236
Redmond, L. Shana
2014. “From Race to Nation: “ Ethiopia “ and Pan-African Pageantry in the UNIA. In Anthem: Social Movements and the
Sound of Solidarity in the African Diaspora, NYU Press, 21-62
2023. Black Women, Violence, and the Territory of Global Anti-blackness
https://www.aaihs.org/black-women-violence-and-the-territory-of-global-antiblackness/
Clealand Pilar Danielle
2017. The Power of Race in Cuba: Racial Ideology and Black Consciousness During the Revolution, Oxford University Press
2019. Who Are the Black Revolutionaries?: Resistance in Cuba and the State Boundaries that Endure, 323-338
Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society, Volume 21, Number 4, October-December 2019, Black Cuban Revolutionaries
Mealy, Rosemari
1993. Fidel & Malcolm X: Memories of a Meeting, Black Classic Books
Latner, Teishan
2018. Cuban Revolution in America: Havana and the Making of a United States Left, 1968-1992, UNC Press
Hicks, Anasa
2022. Hierarchies at Home: Domestic Service in Cuba from Abolition to Revolution, Cambridge University Press
Hynson, Rachel
2019. Laboring For The State: Women, Family, and Work in Revolutionary Cuba, 1959-1971, Cambridge University Press
Helg, Aline
1995. Our Rightful Share: The Afro-Cuban Struggle for Equality, 1886-1912, UNC Press
2000. “Black Men, Racial Stereotyping, and Violence in U.S. South and Cuba at Turn of the Century.”
Comparative Studies in Society and History ,Volume 42 , Issue 3 , July 2000 , pp. 576 – 604
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0010417500002942
Rushing, Fannie and Aisha Finch (Editors)
2019. Breaking The Chains Forging The Nation: The Afro-Cuban Fight For Freedom and Equality, 1812-1912, LSU Press
De La Fuente, Alejandro
2001. A Nation For All: Race, Inequality, and Politics in Twentieth-Century Cuba, UNC Press
Saney, Isaac, 2023. Cuba, Africa, And Apartheid’s End: Africa’s Children Return, Lexington Books
Peters, Christabell
2012. Cuban Identity and the Angolan Experience, Palgrave Mcmillan
Moore, D. Robin
1997. Nationalizing Blackness: Afrocubanismo and Artistic Revolution in Havana, 1920-1940, University of Pittsburgh Press
Scott, J. Rebecca
1985. Slave Emancipation In Cuba: The Transition to Free Labor, 1860-1899, Princeton University Press
Reid-Vazquez, Michele
2011. The Year of the Lash: Free People of Color in Cuba and the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World, University of Georgia Press
Varella, Claudia and Manuel Barcia
2020. Wage-Earning Slaves: Coartacion in Nineteenth -Century Cuba, University of Florida Press
Perez, Louis A. (Editor)
1992. Slaves, Sugar, & Colonial Society: Travel Accounts of Cuba, 1801-1899, Scholarly Resources Inc.
Garcia, Rodriguez Gloria
2011. Voices of the Enslaved in Nineteenth-Century Cuba, UNC Press
Childs, Matt D.
2006. The 1812 Aponte Rebellion In Cuba and the Struggle against Atlantic Slavery, UNC Press
2013. “ Re-creating African Ethnic Identities in Cuba”, In The Black Urban Atlantic in the Age of the Slave Trade, University
of Pennsylvania Press, Canizares-Esguerra ( Editor), 85-100
Finch, Aisha
2015. Rethinking Slave Rebellion In Cuba: La Escalera and the Insurgencies of 1841-44, UNC Press
2017. Raceless Nationalism in Revolutionary Cuba: Rethinking Racial Politics https://www.aaihs.org/raceless-nationalism-in-revolutionary-cuba-rethinking-racial-politics/
Garcia, Guadalupe
2016. Beyond The Walled City: Colonial Exclusion in Havana, University of California Press
Hall, Simon
2020. Ten Days in Harlem: Fidel Castro and The Making of The 1960’s, Faber & Faber Ltd
Schwall, Elizabeth
2021. Dancing with The Revolution: Power, Politics, Privilege in Cuba, UNC Press
Andrews, Reid George ( Editors )
2022. Voices Of The Race: Black Newspapers in Latin America, 1870-1960, Cambridge University Press
Brunson, Takkara
2021. Black Women, Citizenship, And The Making Of Modern Cuba, UF Press
2022. Historicizing Black Left Feminism in Pre-Revolutionary Cuba, September 21, 2022
https://www.aaihs.org/historicizing-black-left-feminism-in-prerevolutionary-cuba/
Mirabal, Raquel Nancy
2017. Suspect Freedoms: The Racial and Sexual Politics of Cubanidad in New York, 1823-1957, NYU Press
2017. The Cuban Revolution and the Myth of Racial Inclusivity
https://www.aaihs.org/the-cuban-revolution-and-the-myth-of-racial-inclusivity/
Blum, Denise
2011. Cuban Youth & Revolutionary Values: Educating The New Socialist Citizen, University of Texas Press
Dominguez, Morales Esteban
2013. Race in Cuba: Essays on the Revolution and Racial Inequality, MR Press
Gonzales, Roberto Echevarria
1999. The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball, Oxford University Press
Kelly, Robin D.G.
1994. “ This Ain’t Ethiopia, But It’ll Do: African Americans and the Spanish Civil War, In Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and
the Black Working Class, The Free Press, 123-160
1994. “ Afric’Sons With Banner Red”: African American Communists and the Politics of Culture, 1919-1934, 103-122
2023. Deprovincializing Black Studies and Translating Blackness’s Beyond Borders
https://www.aaihs.org/deprovincializing-black-studies-and-translating-blackness-beyond-borders/
Baraka, Amiri
2016. Cuba Libre ( 1960), November 28, 2016
Viewpoint Magazine
https://viewpointmag.com/2016/11/28/cuba-libre-1960/
Fleming, M. Crystal
2023.Translating Blackness and Transcending Hierarchies of Belonging
https://www.aaihs.org/translating-blackness-and-transcending-hierarchies-of-belonging/
Garcia-Peña, Lorgia
2023. Translating Global Anti-blackness: An Author’s Response
https://www.aaihs.org/translating-global-antiblackness-an-authors-response/
Plummer, Brenda Gayle
1996. “A New Era” In Rising Wind: Black Americans and U.S. Foreign Affairs, 1935-1960, UNC Press, 285-297
McLeod, Marc C .
1996. “ Garveyism In Cuba, 1920-1940.” Journal of Caribbean History 30 ( 1996 ): 132-68
1998. “ Undesirable Aliens: Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism in the Comparison of Haitian and British West Indian
Immigrant Workers in Cuba, 1912-1939.” Journal of Social History 31, no. 3 (1998): 599-723
1998. “Castro in Harlem: A Cold War Watershed.” In Rethinking the Cold War, edited by Allen Hunter, 133-53, Temple University Press
Nwankwo, Ifeoma Kiddoe
1999. “ Langston Hughes and the Translations of Nicolas Guillen’s Afro-Cuban Culture and Language.” Langston Hughes
Review 16, nos,1and 2 ( 1999-2001 ): 55-72
Alkalimat, Abdul and Kate Williams
2015. Roots and Flowers: The Life and Work of the Afro-Cuban Librarian Marta Terry González, Library Juice Press
Philip, Howard A.
1999. “ Creolization and Integration: The Development Of A Political Culture Among The Pan-Afro-Cuban Benevolent
Societies, 1878-1895”, In Crossing Boundaries: Comparative History of Black People in Diaspora, Edited by Darlene Clark
Hine and Jacqueline, University of Indiana Press, 134-158
Stubbs, Jean
1995. “ Social and Political Motherhood of Cuba: Mariana Grajales Cuello”, In Engendering History: Caribbean Women in
Historical Perspective, editor Verene Shepherd, St. Martin’s Press, 296-317
Castaneda, Digna
1995.”The Female Slave in Cuba during the First half of the Nineteenth Century”, In Engendering History: Caribbean
Women in Historical Perspective, Edited by Verene Shepherd, St. Martin’s Press, 141-154
Johnson, J. john
1993. “ The Republics as Blacks” In Latin America in Caricature, University of Texas Press, 157-209
Howard, A, Philip
1998. Changing History: Afro-Cuban Cabildos and Societies Color in The Nineteenth Century, LSU Press
Bastian, Hope
2018. Everyday Adjustments in Havana: Economic Reforms, Mobility, and Emerging Inequalities, Lexington Books
Grillo, Evelio
2000. Black Cuban, Black American: A Memoir, Arte Publico Press
Morrison, Karen Y.
2015. Cuban’s Racial Crucible: The Sexual Economy of Social Identities, 1750-2000, Indiana University Press
Ibarra, Jorge
1998. Prologue to Revolution: Cuba, 1898-1958, Translated by Marjorie Moore, Lynne Rienner Publishers
Scott, Julius S. 2020. The Common Wind: Afro-American Currents in the Age of the Haitian Revolution
https://www.versobooks.com/products/832-the-common-wind
Fletcher, Bill Jr.2016. Black America and the Passing of Fidel Castro ( November 26, 2016)
https://billfletcherjr.com/2016/black-america-passing-fidel-castro/
2021: Berry, Maya J. “Black Feminist Rumba Pedagogies.”
Dance Journal. 43 (2) (October 2021): 27-48
2001. Young, Cynthia
Havana up in Harlem: LeRoi Jones, Harold Cruse and the Making of a Cultural Revolution
Science & Society, Vol. 65. No. 1. Color, Culture and Gender in the 1960’s ( Spring 2001): 12-38
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40403883
Mislan, Cristina
2019. Transnational Legacies of Slavery and Revolution in ‘ The Black Scholar ‘, September 18, 2019
https://www.aaihs.org/transnational-legacies-of-slavery-and-revolution-in-the-black-scholar/
Preston, Ashley Robertson
2022. “ Looking Beyond the United States,” Mary McLeod Bethune’s Relationships with Afro-Cubans.
Phylon (1960-)
Vol.59.No.2 (Winter 2022) 77-88, Clark Atlanta University
https://www.jstor.org/stable/27180576
2023. Mary McLeod Bethune: The Pan-Africanist, University Press of Florida
