Ricardo Alarcón on Gerald Horne and Race to Revolution

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada has served as Cuba’s Ambassador to the United Nations and, from 1993 to 2013, was president of Cuba’s National Assembly.

“…an important intellectual event is taking place this year in the United States. Gerald Horne, Professor of History and African American studies at the University of Houston, has just added two new texts to his long and brilliant bibliography on these subjects. Last April, New York University published The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America. And now, in late June, Monthly Review Press began distributing Race to Revolution: The U.S. and Cuba During Slavery and Jim Crow.

“The fruit of thorough and painstaking research, both books belie the legend of the revolutionary character of the 4th of July. The landowners revolted to prevent the emancipation of the slaves and to unleash an aggressive expansionism for the exclusive benefit of the plutocracy in the Thirteen Colonies. But they also encountered unwavering resistance.

“Their victims, who were the same in North America and in the Caribbean islands, persisted in their quest for freedom; a struggle that united them beyond language differences and is—despite the lying propaganda which tries in vain to separate them—the foundation of their deep solidarity. Hopefully, someone will discover over there, in the capital of the Empire, these works by Professor Horne. And may they find time to read them…”

From “The Fourth of July and American Exceptionalism” by Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada, a CubaNews translation, edited by Walter Lippmann. Read the entire article here.