That time Malcolm X met Fidel Castro in Harlem 62 years ago on this day.
A year after the Cuban Revolution, Castro came to attend the UN General Assembly in New York, but the management of the Manhattan hotel his delegation had booked refused to house them after the U.S. government pressured other hotels to reject the Cubans. Upon learning of their situation, Malcolm X invited them to come uptown to Harlem, to stay at the Black-owned Hotel Theresa, where Malcolm X said they would be greeted with open arms.
Harlemites received the 34-year-old Cuban revolutionary leader by the thousands, with masses huddling round-the-clock in front of the hotel. Castro was to them that bearded revolutionary who had told white America to go to hell and his stay there was an important acknowledgment of the struggle African Americans shared with the rest of the Global South in resisting racism, colonialism and imperialism.
“As long as Uncle Sam is against you, you know you’re a good man,” Malcolm X told Castro.
