Partido Independiente de Color - The Early PIC

The Early PIC

The PIC was founded in 1908 by veterans from the Cuban Revolution. The Afro Cuban veterans felt the revolutionary Cuban government was mistreating them. Racist policies were being practiced in Cuba at the time including misrepresentation in the federal government of Afro Cubans. The PIC holds the distinction of being the first black political party in the western hemisphere.(Helg, 60) This is significant due to the amount of African Americans who were politically active at the time in the United States and elsewhere. Alin Helg would suggest that this is because Black people would conform to the white multi party system and support a candidate that didn’t have elitist views. By this logic the PIC was a radical new idea that involved building a new independent party. This had not been tried before due to the risk involved.

The Afro Cubans were experiencing problems of land restructuring. Since the war for independence, United States businesses had been quietly taking up the land in the Oriente. This was on the far eastern side of the island, where most Afro Cubans lived and worked. The peasant land was taken over by the United States, which caused a dramatic shift in the standards of living. With more of their land being taken by US companies the Afro Cubans were becoming disenfranchised.(Perez(3),517)