350 Chapter 15
in the new colonies. For Afro- Cubans and Afro-Puerto Ricans, this
economic change came on the heels of abolition, which had radically
redefined their working experience. While Afro-Cuban leaders worked
to prevent a permanent imperial relationship and secure indepen-
dence for Cuba, they were also thinking about how the new realities
might affect the socioeconomic status of blacks, and acting to
improve it.
In order to illuminate these intersections, I will examine the writ-
ings of Rafael Serra that are housed at the Schomburg Center for
Research in Black Culture, which point to the accomplishments of
African-Americans, including Booker T. Washington, as a model for
Afro-Cubans. Based on archival research at the Tuskegee University
Archives, I will then study the case of Juan Gualberto Gómez sending
his son and a group of Afro-Cuban students to Booker T. Washing-
ton’s Tuskegee Institute. Their experience will be compared to that of
the Puerto Rican students at Tuskegee, who were sent there by the
US-instituted civil government in Puerto Rico as part of their imperial
strategy.
Historical and Historiographical Context
Race relations in the United States, Cuba and Puerto Rico have had
different historical trajectories, but at the turn of the last century the
areas were undergoing remarkably similar transformations that would
forever alter the place of people of African descent. Slavery in these
societies ended roughly around the same time period, from the 1860s
to the 1880s. In the construction of the post-emancipation societies
that were starting to develop, former slaves and their descendents
raised their voices and worked to effect change that would ensure that
African Americans, Afro-Cubans, and Afro-Puerto Ricans would have
a place in these new social arrangements. In addition to advocating for
political rights, particularly that of suffrage, freed people in each of
these areas re-doubled their interest in a tradition of schooling from
the days of slavery, and struggled with the radical changes in their role