"You take your rights, you do not beg for
them;
you do not buy them with tears but with blood."
- José
Martí
José Martí: Apostle of Cuban Independence
Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
by Jerry A. Sierra
WHILE PREPARING HIS DEFENSE for the 1953 attack on the Moncada
barracks, the first act of unified rebellion against Cuban dictator Fulgencio
Batista, Fidel Castro requested the writings of his idol,
José Martí. In the now famous "History Will Absolve Me"
defense speech, the young Castro cited, from memory, ten references to the
works of Martí.
Almost thirty years later, when Ronald Reagan and the U.S. government started broadcasting state-funded, anti-Castro radio programs at the island, they named their station after the long lost Cuban hero. RADIO MARTÍ has since developed a television counterpart, called TV MARTÍ.
Who was José Martí, and why does everyone use his name so freely to promote and excuse their vastly contrasting philosophies?
Martí/Apostle - Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
Articles by José Martí
Our America |
Antonio
Maceo | My Race |
Montecristi Manifesto |
Our Ideas |
Cuban Revolutionary Party |
Platform of the Cuban Revolutionary
Party (CRP) | Secret Statutes of the
CRP | Order to Revolt
Letters José Martí
Letter to Maximo Gomez, 1884 (in which
he resigns from the revolutionary movement) | Last letter
to his mother, March 25 1895 |
Unfinished letter to his friend Manuel
Mercado, May 18 1895 | To Antonio Maceo:
July 20 1882 /
June 18 1894 /
June 22 1894 /
January 19 1895