AFRO-CUBAN TEACHERS AT HARVARD
While the trip was being organized in Cuba, the Harvard students had to sign a permit for the men of the expedition to stay in their dormitories. It must be taken into account that there was no specific information on which Cuban teacher would stay in a certain residence, so these permits were "blind approvals" at a time when the enrollment of black students at Harvard was minimal. Permits currently on file at the University indicate that some students offered everything in their apartments, but others specified, for example, that Cubans could use their beds, but not the mattresses, sheets, or pillows. .
However, the granting of those furloughs broke down important racial barriers at Harvard. Although Cubans were seen as banners of the Hispanic cultural heritage, it was also known that slavery and the presence of native peoples on the Island during the colonization period had caused an ethnic mix, which at that time some academics seemed to ignore, or tried to ignore. by accepting all the teachers into the Summer School.
And it is that many Cubans who on the island considered themselves white-skinned, were people of color by American standards for the simple fact of having "mixed blood." And it was all happening at Harvard, where Louis Agassiz, one of the fathers of scientific racism, had been on the faculty decades before. According to Agassiz, black individuals were inherently inferior. However, Agassiz's own daughter, Pauline Agassiz Shaw, and his widow, Elizabeth Cabot Cary, were some of the main donors to make the teachers' visit possible. Pauline not only limited herself to donating money, but also hosted gatherings and receptions at her home for dozens of teachers.
The logistical challenge was overcome thanks to the efforts of the Cuban Superintendent of Schools, Alexis Frye, the president of Harvard, Charles Eliot, and the administrator of the Summer School, Clarence Churchill Mann.
Eliot publicly thanked the fact that the American students had donated their beds. He did so through a letter published in the Harvard Crimson newspaper, and later reproduced in the Cambridge Tribune, on June 23, 1900, but days before he had had to deal with the concerns of some Cambridge residents who wanted to know if the Cubans they were black. At a meeting held at the Cambridge Congregational Club, Eliot, citing Frye, asserted that the Cubans were of Spanish blood, that "feeling about the Negro" was as strong in Cuba as in Massachusetts, and that the delegation could only find “a small amount of black blood” in eight men and two women.
The group photos said the opposite.
The truth is that all those worries and insecurities were smoothed over as the days went by, and it became a fashion to hold gatherings in the homes of wealthy Cambridge families to invite Cubans, regardless of race. In Mann's correspondence there are no letters that discriminate against any teacher when inviting him to any reception.
In the second week of August 1900, 973 Cubans were offered cards – green for men and pink for women – containing a form where they had to write their number, their date of birth, their nationality and that of their parents, and finally, the date of a "measurement" that took place in the Hemenway Gymnasium. The ages chosen for the study ranged from 16 to 60 years.
CHARLES W. ELIOT
My observations among the Cubans have led me to believe that they are not so far behind the Americans in point of mental ability and acumen as they are in lack of physical vigor, and some moral aim or purpose to strive for._cc781905-5cde-3194 -bb3b-136bad5cf58d_
This condition is partly due to the effects of a tropical climate, and the corrupting influence of an effete civilization like that maintained in the Island of Cuba so many years by the Spanish Government.
Dudley Allen Sargent
The Popular Science Monthly, March 1901
The author of this experiment was the American doctor Dudley Allen Sargent, who in 1901 published the results in the Popular Science Monthly magazine. According to Sargent, 2% of males descended from parents with blood mixed with remnants of black blood. In the women, he claimed, there were no traces of said blood.
The Harvard Summer School for Cuban teachers not only had a significant influence on the desegregation of the University at the beginning of the 20th century, but also created a certain level of tolerance among an essentially white community that came from the founding fathers of the United States and inhabited the grounds. Boston and Cambridge in the months of July and August, 1900.
DUDLEY ALLEN SARGENT
Among the black and mestizo teachers that we have been able to identify are Eloisa Piñeiro, Asunción Guzmán, Rosa María Rendón, Teodoro Prior Lamothe and Regino Boti, just to give a few examples. They all had a great career in and out of teaching.
ASSUMPTION GUZMAN
THEODORE PRIOR
ROSE MARIA RENDON
For Cubans, Harvard offered the opportunity that at that time was rarely granted to people of humble origin, and in many cases, black or mixed-race. What began as a logistical challenge culminated in grouping thousands of people in one destination common that had a very positive impact on the development of the Cuban Public School at the beginning of the 20th century.
