Abstract

This essay examines how gender facilitated the encounters between Angela Y. Davis and the Cuban Revolution in the late 1960s and 1970s. Davis’s multifaceted identity as a black woman and communist shaped both her representation and reception in Cuba. Cubans supported Davis by participating in the global campaign for her freedom and welcoming her to the island several times, often with delegations from the Communist Party, beginning in 1969. The Cuban state propagated an iconography of Davis that cast her as a global signifier for both repression and international solidarity. Furthermore, at a transitional moment when Cuban leadership advocated institutionalization of the revolution, the Federation of Cuban Women provided highly visible opportunities for Davis to speak and be seen not afforded to men in the black liberation movement. Davis’s time in Cuba proved transformative and foundational in shaping her view of global liberation.

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