Simon Hall - Ten Days in Harlem: Fidel Castro and the Making of the 1960s
Professor of Modern History Simon Hall delves into the events of September 1960 when Cuba’s communist leader Fidel Castro arrived in New York for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly.
After storming out of his plush mid-town hotel following a row about money, Fidel relocated to the Hotel Theresa, the so-called ‘Waldorf of Harlem’. Greeted enthusiastically by the local African American community, he proceeded to hold court with a succession of world leaders, black freedom fighters and counter-cultural luminaries, and promoted the politics of anti-imperialism with a fervour, and an audacity, that made him an icon of the 1960s.
Entertaining and wildly unpredictable, Fidel’s trip to New York proved to be a foundational moment in the trajectory of the Cold War, a turning point in the history of anti-colonial struggle, and a launching pad for the social, cultural and political tumult of the decade that followed. Have a listen to ‘Ten Days in Harlem’ to find out more about this historic event.
Further reading:
Steven Cohen, ‘When Castro Came to Harlem’, The New Republic, 21 March 2016.
Simon Hall, Ten Days in Harlem: Fidel Castro and the Making of the 1960s (Faber and Faber, 2020).
Simon Hall, ‘Fidel Castro Stayed in Harlem 60 Years Ago to Highlight Racial Injustice in the U.S.’, Smithsonian Magazine, 18 September 2020.
David Smith, ‘Fidel Castro in the US: cars, cigars and a meeting with Malcolm X’, The Guardian, 27 November 2016.
About the speaker:
Simon Hall studied history at Sheffield and Cambridge, and held a Fox International Fellowship at Yale, before moving to the University of Leeds, where he is currently Professor of Modern History. His books include 1956: The World in Revolt and Ten Days in Harlem: Fidel Castro and the Making of the 1960s.
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