Armando Hart, one of the historic leaders of the Cuban Revolution since the revolutionary war that overthrew Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in the 1950s, opened the conference. To meet “the challenge of carrying out the unpostponable revolutionary transformations that these times demand,” Hart said, “it is necessary to draw on the political and cultural legacy of previous revolutionary struggles.”

Panel discussions took place over the two days, with nearly 50 papers presented by speakers, mainly from Mexico, Cuba, and the United States. They addressed a wide range of topics around politics and culture of the last 150 years in the Americas. Pathfinder president Mary-Alice Waters’s presentation “From Lincoln, Juárez, and Martí to Lenin and Fidel—the Revolutionary Struggle Redeemed,” focused on the popular revolutionary character of post-Civil War Radical Reconstruction and the lasting consequences of its bloody defeat. For the complete presentation given by Mary-Alice Waters at the Conference click here.

More than 200 books and pamphlets published by Pathfinder were purchased during the event. Among the most popular titles were Aldabonazo, Armando Hart’s account of the clandestine struggle in Cuba’s cities and countryside against the Batista dictatorship, Is Socialist Revolution in the U.S. Possible? by Mary-Alice Waters, and The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning by Jack Barnes.

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