Racism in Cuba - Anti-discrimination Laws

Anti-discrimination Laws

Cuba's leader Fidel Castro was quoted as saying: “One of the most just battles that must be fought, a battle that must be emphasized more and more, which I might call the fourth battle—the battle to end racial discrimination at work centers. I repeat: the battle to end racial discrimination at work centers. Of all the forms of racial discrimination the worst is the one that limits the colored Cuban's access to jobs.“ Castro pointed to the distinction between social segregation and employment, while placing great emphasis on correcting the latter.

In response to the large degree of racism in the job market, Castro issued anti-discrimination laws. In addition, he attempted to close the class gap between wealthy white Cubans and Afro-Cubans with a massive literacy campaign, among other egalitarian reforms in the early and mid-1960s. Two years after his 1959 speech at the Havana Labor Rally, Castro declared that the age of racism and discrimination was over. In a speech given at the Confederation of Cuban Workers in observance of May Day, Castro declared that the “just laws of the Revolution ended unemployment, put an end to villages without hospitals and schools, enacted laws which ended discrimination, control by monopolies, humiliation, and the suffering of the people.” Some sources consider the claim to be premature.