On July 11, demonstrators launched an anti-government protest in San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba, a small town 22 miles from Havana, that quickly spread to almost every city in Cuba. The uprisings, Cuba’s largest protests in decades, continued for days, even after the Cuban government called on “true revolutionaries” to take action against protesters and police and special forces responded with a severe crackdown.
The protests were sparked by a recent economic downturn and a surge in COVID-19 cases amid a slow vaccine rollout, but discontent about life under the dictatorship has been building for years—creating mass exoduses every decade. Among those most likely to flee are Cubans of African descent, starting with the 1980 Mariel boatlift, when approximately 18,000 Cubans of African descent fled the island. Afro-Cubans in San Antonio de los Baños and across the island, especially young people, have been at the forefront of this summer’s movement.
