Nine organizers from the state of Michigan attended the 2023 National Network on Cuba’s 16th annual May Day Brigade. We didn’t know Michigan had one of the greatest state representations until we were in the country, so when we returned, we created an organization — Michigan Action for Cuba Committee — to grow Cuba solidarity organizing in Southeast Michigan.
MACC is a coalition member of the National Network on Cuba, organizing under their three main goals:
- return Guantanamo Bay to Cuba
- take Cuba off the State Sponsors of Terrorism List, and
- end the blockade
We mobilize for coordinated days of action, create local campaigns for medicine drives to Cuba, connect with local organizations to organize political education eyewitness reports, and support the NNOC’s goal to grow the brigades to Cuba.
NNOC’s strategy for sending people on Cuba brigades is to bring people from all sectors of work, organizing, and study — from diverse political backgrounds. The aim is to educate people on the current conditions of the socialist project, to have them witness the impacts of the blockade, and to hear from Cubans and Cuban officials directly on the impacts of U.S. policy and propaganda and counterrevolutionary methods. Further, it is to motivate brigadistas to return to the belly of the beast to organize against the blockade and carry out the work in other capacities — passing city council resolutions, forming labor union delegations, joining mass mobilizations, recruiting for future brigades, promoting the gains of the Cuban revolution and defending the socialist project in established organizational work.
MACC’s public facing work since the 16th annual brigade recruited 12 more Michiganders to attend the 17th annual May Day Brigade in 2024. On October 5, Michigan Action for Cuba Committee held a brigade interest meeting – our biggest one yet – and we plan to send at least double the amount of brigadistas this May 2025.
NNOC also has its own organizing structure as a coalition with working groups, coordinating committees, and a May Day Brigade team. Recently, MACC hosted the network in Southwest Detroit for its annual meeting: Juntos, Creamos!
An important part of our political work is to connect the Cuban struggle with other anti-imperialist and liberation struggles; of these, the most historic connections are the Cuban/Boricua solidarity movement and the connection between Cuba and the Black liberation Struggle. Recently Palestine/Cuba solidarity has grown rapidly with a majority of brigadistas from the 2024 brigade citing the Palestine struggle as a reason for wanting to travel to Cuba.
In southeast Michigan, where we closely feel the blows of imperialism, we see the connections between Cuba’s liberation and our own. We work to constantly draw and emphasize these connections, as we know confronting empire at home is our revolutionary duty.
As we saw, on October 29th, when every country besides Israel and the United States voted to condemn the deadly U.S. blockade on Cuba: the world stands with Cuba. The solidarity movement with Cuba is still growing. Michigan stands with Cuba!
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