Juan Almeida Bosque - Early Life and Revolution

Early Life and Revolution

Almeida was born in a poor area of Havana. He left school at the age of eleven and became a bricklayer. Whilst studying law at the University of Havana in 1952, he became close friends with the revolutionary Fidel Castro and in March of that year joined the Cuban Revolution. In 1953 he joined Fidel and his brother Raúl Castro in the assault on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago, and was arrested and imprisoned with the Castro brothers in the Isle of Pines Prison. During the amnesty of May 15, 1955, he was released and transferred to Mexico.

Almeida returned to Cuba with the Castro brothers, Che Guevara and 78 other revolutionaries on the Granma expedition, and was one of just 12 who survived the initial landing, during which Cuban government forces killed most of the rebels. During the battle, Almeida shouted "No one here gives up!" (alternatively "here, nobody surrenders") to Guevara, which would become a long-lived slogan of the Cuban revolution. Almeida was also reputed to be a good marksman. Following the landing, Almeida continued to fight Fulgencio Batista's government forces in the guerilla war in the Sierra Maestra mountain range. In 1958, he was promoted to Commander and head of the Santiago Column of the Revolutionary Army. During the revolution, as a black man in a prominent position, he served as a symbol to Afro-Cubans of change from Cuba's discriminatory past.