TEN DAYS IN HARLEM

A sharply focused study of Fidel Castro’s significant visit to New York City for the opening session of the U.N. in September 1960.

Although Castro was only in New York for 10 days, Hall, a professor of modern history, argues that his stay had a powerful effect in terms of galvanizing the forces of black civil rights, promoting the politics of anti-imperialism, and freezing the already icy relations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Moreover, the visit "all but guaranteed a decisive and fateful rupture in US–Cuban relations." After a wide-ranging scene-setter in which the author marshals the seismic historical events occurring at the time—e.g., the last months of Dwight Eisenhower's presidential tenure, the “crisis” in Belgian Congo that led to independence, the Soviet downing of an American U-2 spy plane, the beginning of the sit-ins at Woolworth's lunch counters and elsewhere to protest segregation—Hall moves chronologically, organizing his work by each day's activities in the Cuban delegation's schedule. Especially illuminating is the author’s account of the delegation's stunning move from the midtown Shelburne Hotel, where they felt unwelcome, to the Hotel Theresa in Harlem, where the entire neighborhood turned out rapturously and Castro held court with such luminaries as Malcolm X, Nikita Khrushchev, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and Jawaharlal Nehru. On Sept. 26, Castro's nearly five-hour speech to the General Assembly—which, “according to one wag…covered everything except the dispute between Britain and Iceland over the sardine harvest”—upstaged those by Eisenhower and Khrushchev and memorably gave his young country a voice and the "people's revolution" the attention of the world. In a narrative packed with fascinating historical detail and terrific photos, Hall makes an engaging argument that Castro's trip established his reputation as "hero for the oppressed peoples of the world"—and spurred leftist movements everywhere.

A highly readable, engaging, astute microhistory of an overlooked event.