Suspect Freedoms by Nancy Raquel Mirabal

Author:Nancy Raquel Mirabal [Mirabal, Nancy Raquel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS036000 History / United States / General
Publisher: NYU Press

But the colored veteran is not getting justice here, and we have decided to adopt quiet but effective measures to improve this condition. The whites themselves cannot deny that we fought the hardest for Cuban independence. Ten colored soldiers died in the revolution to one of the white. Can you blame us for complaining?70

Furthermore, they argued that their massive participation in the wars made “la patria possible.” This argument, as Alejandro de la Fuente explains, was used by members of the Partido Independiente de Color (PIC) who set black participation in the war “at 85 percent,” and made it a cornerstone of the “radical interpretation of Cubanness.”71

In a disputed election, Estrada Palma defeated the Liberal Party candidate José Miguel Gómez to become president for the second time in 1905. Less than a year later, members of the Liberal Party, which included a large number of Afro-Cubans, rebelled against Estrada Palma, labeling the elections and his presidency corrupt. The insurgency, known as the August Revolution, resulted in a second US military occupation of the island from 1906 to 1909. During the second occupation and under the supervision of the United States, José Miguel Gómez was elected president in 1908. That same year on August 7, the Agrupación Independiente de Color, later known as the Partido Independiente de Color (PIC), was founded under the leadership of Evaristo Estenoz. The PIC was a culmination of almost a decade of struggle, protests, and demands for Afro-Cuban economic and political enfranchisement. Two years later the PIC would be banned as a result of a law authored by the Afro-Cuban exile Martín Morúa Delgado.

Like his colleague Rafael Serra, Morúa Delgado left New York and moved to Havana after the war. Unlike Serra, he did not support Estrada Palma or the Moderate Party. Aligned with Gómez and the Liberal Party, Morúa Delgado had been appointed president of the Senate by Gómez and remained an integral part of his cabinet. This fact was not lost on the New York Times, who reported on Morúa Delgado’s multiple appointments, writing that he was “the first negro to receive a portfolio.”72 While serving as president of the Senate, Morúa Delgado introduced a bill that banned the formation of political parties based on a single race or color. Designed to prohibit any form of racial exclusion and separation, Morúa Delgado justified the amendment as one that promoted inclusion at all costs. Yet, as historians have argued, the Morúa Amendment had more to do with preventing the PIC from taking votes away from President Gómez and the Liberal Party than insuring racial equality.73 Ironically, the Gómez administration was now confronting many of the same criticisms leveled at Estrada Palma and the Moderate Party, including the lack of jobs and government appointments for Afro-Cubans.

On October 24, 1909, Rafael Serra died. Although he lived most of his adult life in exile, he was officially mourned by the Cuban nation. The vice president of the Republic, Alfredo Zayas, led his funeral procession. A year later the newspaper Minerva honored his legacy: “Today Cubans cry in remembrance of this sad anniversary.

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