Why read Our Rightful Share?

Book cover of Our Rightful Share: The Afro-Cuban Struggle for Equality, 1886-1912

Book description

In Our Rightful Share , Aline Helg examines the issue of race in Cuban society, politics, and ideology during the island's transition from a Spanish colony to an independent state. She challenges Cuba's well-established myth of racial equality and shows that racism is deeply rooted in Cuban creole society. Helg…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Our Rightful Share as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Ilan Ehrlich

Author

This is only a biography in the loosest sense, one of Afro-Cubans from the year slavery was abolished until an ugly racial massacre that claimed thousands of innocent victims. In 1892, José Martí famously declared that “There is no racial hatred because there are no races.” The following year he wrongly predicted that “In Cuba, there will never be a racial war.” Cuba’s independence myth was founded on the idea that there would be no white or black Cubans, only Cubans. Yet in 1912, two Afro-Cuban politicians, Pedro Ivonet and Evaristo Estenoz, both veterans of Cuba’s independence struggle, some of…

From Ilan's list on The best biographies that peek behind Cuban myths.