ABSTRACT
For several decades, the Cuban Revolution has influenced the political thought of an entire generation of intellectuals across the Black Diaspora. For Frantz Fanon, Cuba represented the first decisive defeat of Western imperialism in his native Caribbean region. For LeRoi Jones, then a "beat" poet traveling to the island in July 1960, Cuba represented the militant vanguard of the world youth in revolt against the old order. Harold Cruse was also inspired by the Cuban revolutionary experience. In 1962 he noted that "the effects of the colonial revolutions are reaching the American Negro and arousing his nationalist impulses."
