THE MALCOLM X
COMMEMORATION COMMITTEE
PO BOX 380-122, BROOKLYN,
NEW YORK 11238
718-512-5008 mxcc519@verizon.net
"Once we all realize that we have a common enemy, then we
unite,
on the basis
of what we have in common…"
Malcolm X—Message
to the Grass Roots
January 25, 2017
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE!
FIDEL HONORED IN NY AT HISTORIC SHABAZZ CENTER!
On Saturday, February 4th, Fidel Castro, the late champion
of the Cuban Revolution, will be saluted in a Memorial Tribute at the historic
Malcolm X /Dr. Betty Shabazz Center!
This moving gathering sponsored by
the NY/NJ Cuba Si’ Committee will
begin at 7pm.
“It is profoundly fitting that we
memorialize this great man where Malcolm rallied our people and where he
ultimately sacrificed his life,” said Zayid Muhammad, people’s artist and press
officer for the Malcolm X Commemoration Committee.
Muhammad was referring to the
legendary meeting between Fidel and Malcolm at Harlem’s then famous Hotel
Theresa back in September 1960, when Malcolm invited Fidel to stay there in
Harlem when the city administration and lower Manhattan hotels were hostile to
the young socialist leader because of his political orientation. That landmark
moment, chronicled in Rosemari Mealy’s book Memories
Of A Meeting: Fidel Meets Malcolm X, cemented a bond of solidarity between
African Americans, progressive New Yorkers and the Cuban Revolution at the
height of the Cold War, something the Cuban people have always been deeply
appreciative of.
Fidel came back to Harlem to speak
at Abyssinian Baptist Church in 1995 and at Riverside Church in 2000 to
overflowing crowds reigniting this incredible people to people solidarity.
Fidel Castro, who will go down in
history as one of the most important revolutionaries of the modern era, passed
away at 90 on November 25th.
From critical infrastructure support
to the VietCong during the Vietnam war,
to Operation Carlotta where Cuban troops helped defeat the Apartheid Regime, to
Cuban doctors providing critical care in the aftermath of the Haitian
earthquake, to providing critical care in West Africa to check the dangerous
Ebola epidemic, to free education for young people whose countries had been
destabilized by US sponsored proxy wars, to providing sanctuary to freedom
fighters exiled like Assata Shakur, Guillermo Morales and Nehanda Abiodun, to
the amazing Latin American Medical School in Havana that has already turned out
26,000 doctors from all over the world including 150 from the United States, his
relationship with the international community is well documented and is now the
stuff of legend. His relationship with New York’s progressive community over a
period at least 50 years is very much a part of that legacy.
“Fidel stewarded a proud people from
a poor country on a small island on how to make a lasting and humanizing impact
on the world by being steadfast to principle and willing to share everything,”
Muhammad went on.
“We can not thank him and the great
people of Cuba enough.”
Muhammad, who will close the evening
with a poetic tribute to Fidel, will be among a host of many expressing
profound gratitude to the late revolutionary and to the Cuban people at the
memorial.
Liberation theologian Fr. Luis
Barrios will give salute Fidel on behalf of progressive clergy. Rising
AfroCuban Jazz pianist Dayramiz Gonzalez and violinist Tatiana Ferrer will do a
much anticipated musical tribute. Impact Repertory Theatre, Zenzile Khoisan
from South Africa and Frank Velgara will also do poetic tributes. Representatives
from the UN Missions of Angola, South Africa, Namibia and Venezuela, are
expected to participate. Graduates from ELAM, the international Latin American
Medical School will also express their gratitude. A moving video tribute to
Fidel will close out this amazing evening.
“It will be an evening full with
revolutionary love,” exclaimed Sally O’Brien of WBAI’s Cuba In Focus and Where
We Live…
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