Debates on Racial Inequality and Afro-Cuban Culture in Adelante

Abstract

Adelante was a black Cuban journal that sought to defend black rights and promote racial harmony in 1930s' Cuba. This article contributes to the incipient body of research on Adelante with the longest analysis to-date of the journal's role in debates on racial inequality and Afro-Cuban culture in the 1930s, shedding light on little studied Cuban black intellectual discourses of the time. The article starts by discussing the emphasis by several Adelante contributors on the historical roots of Cuban blacks' subalternity. Black middle-class attitudes to Afro-Cuban culture are then analysed on the basis of writings on race and culture published in the journal. Taking into account the ideological elements from black discourses in the first two sections, the last part revisits the comparsas' controversy in Adelante. Whereas previous studies have at times promoted the impression that Adelante tended to convey the black middle classes' disapproval of Afro-Cuban culture, the present analysis highlights its revalorization of Afro-Cuban cultural forms. It concludes that Adelante succeeded in reflecting conflicting views within the 1930s' black Cuban intellectual community.