Expanding Perspectives: An Interview with Professor Fannie Rushing
Beatrice Figueroa

Fannie Rushing earned her doctorate in History at the University of Chicago. The title of her dissertation work is Cabildos de Nación, Sociedades de la Raza de Color: Afro-Cuban Participation in Slave Emancipation and Cuban Independence 1865-1895. Professor Rushing teaches courses at DePaul University; course titles are “The African Diaspora in Latin America, 1492-1895”, “Social and Political Movements in Latin America”, “The African Diaspora in Latin America, 1895-1995. “Class, Race and Power in Brazil”.

Dr. Rushing currently holds the honor of Visiting Scholar at DePaul University in the Center for the History and Culture of the Black Diaspora. She recently presented her work titled, “Identity in the Diaspora: A Tale of Two Cities, Havana and Chicago.” She is a frequent Book Reviewer for the Hispanic American Historical Review and has presented at a number of conferences about Afro-Cubans in Nineteenth Century Cuba.

This is a conversation with commentaries about the article, “Afro-Cubans in Cuban Society: Past, Present and Future” (see Defendiendo Lo Nuestro). The conversation also addresses the expanding historical, critical perspectives of social relations in the United States.

Beatrice Figueroa: You read the summary and symposium notes of the Afro-Cuban Conference and mentioned a concern in attributing the idea of racial equality to Martí and Maceo. Would you like to elaborate?

Fannie Rushing: Yes, because to reduce the fight for social equality to Maceo and Martí ignores the fact that the first people to be concerned with freedom and social equality were the slaves and free people of color in Cuba. The slaves who began the first slave rebellion in Cuba in 1533 initiated a tradition of fighting for freedom and equality. A tradition carried on by Nicolas Morales, Jose Antonio Aponte and many slaves and free people of color who fought for social equality long before Maceo and Martí.

BF: You have mentioned the African Diaspora in other parts of the Caribbean; can you say more about this?

FR: The African Diaspora is important throughout Latin America but it is often thought of only in relation to slavery. While slavery was the major venue through which Africans came to Latin America not all did so in that way. When you look at African slavery in Latin America you have a skewed understanding of the significance of the presence of Africans and their descendants. For example, for many years it was said that slavery was not important in Puerto Rico; therefore, you did not have a large African presence and it was confined to only small areas of the country. In 1830, there were only 34,240 slaves (10.6% of the total population). However, there were 127,287 free people of African descent (39.3% of the total population). Slaves and free people of African descent then accounted for 49.9% of the population. I do not need to comment on the possible origins of the population considered to be “white” especially after it became possible to buy “certificates of whiteness” from the financially troubled Spanish colonial government. It is important that we remember that throughout the long period of slavery in Latin America there were free people of African descent. They were well aware that freedom meant nothing without equality.

BF: Also in a previous conversation, you made reference to José Aponte and the emancipation and independence of Cubans. How significant was his contribution?

FR: In Cuba, the free population of African descendants many of them small landowners, were opposed to slavery. They did everything they could to prevent its further development. They fought as allies with the slaves to end slavery. José Antonio Aponte organized the largest slave conspiracy in Cuba. However, Aponte was not a slave, and not only was he free, he was a skilled free man. He incorporated not only slaves, but also free people of African descent throughout the island. When the uprising was to take place, he even made contact with leaders of the new Haitian government for aid and arms. Not only did he want freedom and equality for the slaves but he was also committed to the independence of Cuba from Spain. These were linked and interrelated goals in the conspiracy in 1811. As you can see, Martí and Maceo picked up a torch already lit for abolition, independence and equality.

BF: When you say the free people, do you mean the free African community?

FR: In the Afro-Cuban communities there were three categories of people who were free. There were those who were never enslaved, people who achieved their freedom in various ways during slavery such as self-emancipation through escape, coartaciÛn, a process of purchasing freedom from an owner, as a reward for some extraordinary service or manumission at the death of an owner and an emancipado. Emancipados were people who were freed by Britain because of their enslavement by Spain after the date agreed upon by Spain and Britain for the ending of the slave trade. For most people in the Afro-Cuban community there was a link between slavery and independence because they saw Spain as the country that initiated, fostered and maintained slavery. They saw the best hope for eliminating slavery as the creation of an independent Cuba.

BF: Early in the Fall Quarter you gave a lecture about “Identity In The Diaspora: A Tale of Two Cities, Havana and Chicago.” You discussed regions in Cuba and how the eastern part had similar views to the abolitionists in the United States. You gave an example of Abraham Lincoln—mentioning he was antislavery, but not pro-equality. Is this what you are referring to when describing the difference of activities toward freedom?

FR: Yes, and in the case of the two portions of Cuba—Oriente (the East) and El Occidente (the West). In the East there were small plantations, small planters and many free Afro-Cuban landowners that were antislavery and pro-equality. However, many of the smaller planters were antislavery because slavery disadvantaged them greatly, but they were not pro-equality. They were very fearful of alienating the large planters in the West by indicating that they favored social equality or political/economic equality. Of course, this is why much of the strategy for winning the war failed.

BF: Do you have any thoughts or comments about the activism from people of African descent? I am particularly interested in the activism that relates to expanding the historical perspective—not only in Cuba—but also in other parts of Latin America and the Caribbean. So much of the history continues to be marginalized. Do you have any comments or thoughts about what has evolved or how history has been expanded in Cuba? What impact does it have today?

FR: I try not to go too far into this since my work is primarily about the 19th century. The Cuban Revolution has provided access to equality that was unprecedented in Cuba before the revolution. Afro-Cubans gained access to education they never had before. For the first time, they gained entry into many professions that had been closed to them. The Cuban Revolution determined that the poorest people in the society should have new and better housing before anyone else. This was a tremendous benefit to Afro-Cubans since they were a large percentage of the poorest. As a result of the revolution, many people of African descent have better housing than they have ever had. The Cuban Revolution’s Literacy Campaign has virtually eliminated illiteracy that was very high among Afro-Cubans as part of the legacy of racial slavery. Certainly, Afro-Cubans, poor people of Latin America and the world have benefited from the free healthcare system established by the Cuban Revolution. We hear a lot in this country about the presence of Cuban troops fighting in Angola against the then-minority government of South Africa backed by the Portuguese colonial government. We do not hear that the Cuban government has taken many orphans of that long war, brought them to Cuba and educated them from elementary through post secondary schools. Those children can now return to Angola and fill the crucial need for skilled professionals to aid the reconstruction of the country caused by the devastation of Portuguese colonialism and the hard fought war for independence. The Cuban Revolution has unquestionably paid a debt owed to people of African descent whose ancestors provided the labor that made Cuba one of the wealthiest societies in the Caribbean. The Cuban Revolution has addressed and provided access to socioeconomic equality. What has not been resolved and takes more years than the duration of the revolution is the elimination of racist ideology that still informs the thinking of people throughout the society. Eliminating racism is very difficult because it is so embedded in all the ideological structures. That is a battle that still has to be fought. At first, when the Cuban Government was trying to consolidate the revolution and build a unified revolutionary state, they were concerned about issues that might prove divisive. They were very fearful about addressing questions of “race.” It is something they still have to do. Unfortunately, given all the external constraints such as living within the sights of United States’ Cold War policy, the United States’ Embargo against Cuba and the collapse of the Soviet Union—questions of survival take precedence.

BF: You mentioned two particular points about the paper and we discussed the first—Aponte and expanding the impetus of freedom and equality. Did you want to discuss other aspects of the Afro-Cuban conference?

FR: Although it is very important to talk about music and religion because they are major Afro-Cuban contributions to Cuba’s distinctive identity, what continues to be lacking is any serious attention to other major contributions of Afro-Cubans to Cuban identity. One of those contributions has to be the role of Afro-Cubans in fighting for independence and developing the idea of an independent Cuban nation. Long before Saco, the Euro-Cuban patriot credited with being the father of Cubanidad, there was Aponte. Someone asked me if in Cuba, as in other Latin American countries, Hispanidad was important. Cuba is a country where Hispanidad is the least developed. In Cuba the movement for independence from Spain developed over many years. The first war for independence was declared in 1868. By the time independence came in 1898, some sectors within Cuba had been at war for thirty years. During this thirty years of fighting for independence from Spain, a very strong Antillean identity developed. Central to that development were the populations of African descent. They were really some of the first people within Cuba to see the importance of gaining independence from Spain because they connected their enslavement with Spain. When we want to understand Cubanidad we need to look for its roots within the Afro-Cuban community.

BF: I would like to address another topic. In reference to the aforementioned lecture on “Identity in the Diaspora: A Tale of Two Cities, Havana and Chicago”; I appreciated hearing you speak about the value-driven paradigm. You mentioned there was criticism for being emotive in your scholarly work. Your passion was evident when you stated “my value-driven paradigm came once I heard the voices that were not heard.” We spoke about your political activism and how from it emanated your value-driven paradigm. You thought picketing the lunch counter in Woolworth and Walgreen’s and having the lines become longer would solve the problems. Then you realized the need for a Freedom Democratic Party to form in Mississippi. Soon after you realized it went beyond that—it’s about Africans and African Americans in other parts of the world. Can you please tell me more about this?

FR: One of the things that starts to happen when you are involved in social movements over time is that you start to see relationships. One of the things that is wrong with the academy in North America and much of its version of the nineteenth century scientific method is that it teaches us to look at things in isolation. We take things apart to study them in isolation but then we forget to put them back together. As a result of this notion of studying things in isolation, we think we can study United States history without understanding the histories of Native Americans, African Americans, Latin Americans or Asian Americans and vice versa. For my own thinking it has been very important to understand the relationships of parts to the whole. Gradually, I came to understand that no matter how profound your understanding of isolated phenomena was, unless you understood how it was related to other things you did not realize its full importance. Understanding relationships and linkages are threats to structures of power and oppression. Oppressive systems can and do accommodate the inclusion of those with an elite status from oppressed groups. This is particularly true when including them precludes their own understanding of their relationship to other parts of the system. It fosters the belief that the inclusion of the few has solved the problems of the many. If we are content to understand the issues of one community well without understanding how those issues relate to other communities, oppressive systems can and do remain in control. Let us take the issue of immigration; for some this is a Latino issue. Yet, when you have a situation like the one in New York where the immigrant (Amadou Diallo) was shot 47 times or some astronomical figure and he was an African, you can see immigration is not just a Latino issue. It touches us all. Just immigration laws and treatment of immigrants are issues for everyone who believes in social justice. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, for some, offered provision of access to voting rights for African-Americans in the South of the United States, but also the opening and provision of access to women and other communities of color that had previously been excluded from U.S. society. A belief in human dignity and a commitment to social justice for me has to provide the values that drive my work inside and outside the academy. I am not nor do I want to be value free. I have a responsibility to state what those values are but I do not want to pretend, as many do, that their values do not determine what they see and do. As an African American woman within the academy I have a commitment to an agenda that speaks to inclusion and not exclusion and toward relationship not isolation. One of my goals in my research and in my teaching is to explore the ways in which human social histories evolve in the context of others, Native Americans, African Americans, European Americans, Latin Americans and Asian Americans.

As an African American woman within the academy I have a commitment to an agenda that speaks to inclusion and not exclusion and toward relationship not isolation.