Introduction
Beginning with Stokely Carmichael’s appearance at the Organization of Latin American Solidarity conference in Havana in 1967, the Introduction traces the relationship between the Cuban Revolution and the multi-ethnic American Left, and the impact of this engagement upon U.S.-Cuba relations within the context of the Cold War, decolonization, and Third World nationalism. Focusing on the 1960s era, when America was engulfed in the social upheaval of Civil Rights and the Vietnam War, and concluding in the early 1990s, the Introduction argues that Cuba became the primary Third World influence on the U.S. Left for more than three decades. The Introduction briefly presents the book’s primary case studies, which include the formation of the Venceremos Brigade, the FBI’s surveillance of pro-Cuba activists, the airplane hijacking surge of 1968-1973, Cuban American leftwing activism, and Cuba’s provision of political asylum to U.S. activists.