It’s been 116 years since island nation Cuba formally became an independent republic after thirty years of anti-colonial struggle against Spain and four years of military occupation by the United States.
Cuba’s liberation struggle wouldn’t have fully materialized without the huge representation of Afro-Cubans in the nationalist coalition that fought for independence.
During the US occupation that began at the end of the War of Independence in 1898, blacks and mulattoes were largely kept out of government, and experienced limitations in the areas of education, job access and political representation.
The following Afro-Cubans rejected the system and fought so hard in the struggle for racial equality of the 1900s.
