From Havana to Harlem: Cuban minister says island needs support from African-American leaders

Cuban minister recalls NY Malcolm X-Castro meeting

NEW YORK — Cuba’s foreign minister says 50 years after Malcolm X met with Fidel Castro in New York City in the midst of the Cold War the Cuban people still rely on the support of African-Americans.

Bruno Rodriguez spoke Sunday at an event commemorating the black civil rights leader’s September 1960 encounter with Castro in Harlem.

Rodriguez says the first communist Cuban delegation to the United Nations received support from Malcolm X and other black leaders and forged a lasting bond between “Cuban revolutionaries and the African-American progressive people.”

A panel of Cuban supporters asked for help freeing five Cubans imprisoned for espionage in the United States. They also remembered the legacy of the Rev. Lucius Walker, who directed a program to send Americans to study medicine in Cuba.