Above photo: Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Eduardo Rodríguez Parrilla speaks in at Riverside Church in Harlem Jaylen Strong.
Amid ‘Washington’s Escalated Hostilities’.
Commemoration of the Castro–Malcolm X meeting highlights enduring solidarity amid rising authoritarianism and US hostility toward Cuba.
NOTE: For more information about the historic meeting between Fidel Castro and Malcolm X, read “A Meeting in Harlem,” by Manolo De Los Santos.
Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla and Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Carlos Fernández de Cossío, along with Cuban diplomats from the Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations, gathered in Harlem alongside US-based activists and organizational leaders to commemorate the historic meeting between Fidel Castro and Malcolm X which took place 65 years ago.
“The meeting at the Hotel Theresa was not a photo-op or passing event,” said Manolo De Los Santos, the executive director of New York City-based movement incubator The People’s Forum. De Los Santos addressed the crowd gathered in the Riverside Church in Harlem. “It was a profound act of solidarity that showed the world a different way forward.”
In September 1960, Black leaders, including Malcolm X, invited revolutionary leader Fidel Castro and the rest of the Cuban delegation to stay at the Hotel Theresa in Harlem. This was after the delegation was met with hostility and state repression during their stay at the Shelburne Hotel in downtown Manhattan.
65 years later, the meeting remains significant for Cuban officials today. “The historic meeting in 1960 is a symbol for us of what kind of friendship can exist between the people of Cuba and the people of the United States,” Vice Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío told Peoples Dispatch. “We hope that the people of the US don’t forget Malcolm. That his legacy, his teachings, and his brief life, are an education for those who believe that a better world is possible, and that to achieve it, we need to struggle for it.”
“In 1960, the Cuban revolution was barely two years old, yet already shaking the foundations of empire,” said Ilyasah Shabazz, one of six daughters of Malcolm X and his wife Betty Shabazz. “Manhattan’s luxury hotels slammed the doors of President Fidel Castro and his delegation, but we learned that revolutions are not deterred by locked doors.”
“65 years later, we’re on the verge of fascism,” activist and scholar Dr. Rosemari Mealy, who wrote a book about the Hotel Theresa meeting titled “Fidel & Malcolm X: Memories of a Meeting,” told Peoples Dispatch. “So here we are in 2025, using this moment of history to reflect on [the meeting]. At the same time, it’s a message to us that we have to heighten our struggle against further incursions by this right-wing, rising fascist government.”
“Washington’s escalated hostilities. specifically against Cuba have reached a new and dangerous stage,” Dr. Mealy said in her address to the gathering. “It’s led by Marco Rubio and the extremist and authoritarian administration of Donald Trump. It is despicable.” Dr. Mealy referred to the example of right-wing media and individuals labelling Cuba’s international medical missions as ‘forced labor’.
Reverend Adriene Thorne, the senior minister of Riverside Church, told Peoples Dispatch that she “I walked into the event today very exhausted with all of the things that have been going on in the country over the last several weeks,” but left “fueled to go on for another many months.” For Thorne, Sunday’s gathering was “a really wonderful reminder that there aren’t borders that separate us.”
