364 Chapter 15
The Tuskegee Experience
Washington, Serra, and Gómez all had in common their interest in the
economic progress and socioeconomic status of former slaves. This
emphasis on their part has not been discussed enough by historians,
who instead give more attention to the political efforts of these black
leaders. Focusing on the efforts for economic and educational
improvements of blacks across the diaspora, however, allows us to
uncover more of the work of these black leaders, even in times of
political oppression. It also allows us to more closely examine the edu-
cational and economic situation of former slaves and black people as
this region underwent a transition from slave labor to free labor. But
the economic and work situation of Afro-Cubans and Afro-Puerto
Ricans was not the same as that of African Americans. Moreover, the
class differences within the black population in these locations led to
different approaches by different leaders, and different experiences
between the Cuban students and the Puerto Rican students at Tuske-
gee.
Historians of Afro-Cubans have observed a fragmentation of this
group along class lines beginning in the period after independence.
Afro-Cuban leaders, not surprisingly, belonged to a higher social class
than the masses they often wrote about. In particular, historians have
found in these writers’ calls for an improvement of culture and a ban-
ishment of African traditions, evidence for a disdain of the lower
classes (De la Fuente, 2001: 139- 160). There was clearly a difference
between the Afro-Cuban intellectuals and leaders whose records we
have and the lower classes, particularly the mass of workers who
remained in the countryside as agricultural workers. Though Rafael
Serra and Juan Gualberto Gómez purported to speak on behalf of the
entire clase de color, they worked mostly in Havana or other cities and
focused on education, job access, and socioeconomic improvement in
the urban context. Thus their concern was mostly for black job access
to public sector jobs.