CubaPLUS Magazine

For Cubans and many foreign travelers, the Museum of Literacy is a very special institution, since in a certain way it crystallizes the memory of a historical and cultural feat in which hundreds of thousands of Cubans participated, especially young people. And so It has an incredible mystique.

This place that honors the before and after marked by the great Literacy Campaign, which brought the light of education to more than 700,000 illiterate Cubans, is located in areas formerly occupied by the Columbia Barracks, at the service of the Batista dictatorship ousted in 1959.

There they talk about the great cultural crusade against ignorance, the first of this magnitude in America and in the world, but also about other historical events of the nation, within that context. Valuable materials and objects testify to those events carried out with great heart and heroism by the Cubans.

Inaugurated on December 29, 1964 in what is now called Ciudad Libertad, it treasures the merit of having housed the National Literacy Commission in its premises and having been the starting point of the Conrado Benítez Brigades, the most enthusiastic contingent of volunteer teachers and young people worldwide.

The name of that beautiful vanguard force honored a humble teacher killed by bandits at the beginning of the campaign. A great effort has been made to preserve in this museum all the heritage of what today is also considered a very patriotic feat. Documents, photos, testimonies, material and files of participants, between October 1960 and February 1962, as well as letters from newly literate students, photos, recordings, municipal and provincial memories, documentaries and press releases... It is invaluable material and moral heritage contained and displayed there.

For example, in the Press and Statistics Room, the documentation of the Technical, Propaganda, Coordination and Statistics Sections is carefully guarded, as well as the Memories of each municipality, shown in photos, press clippings, writings of the time and statistical murals.

The closing room exhibits photos related to the organizational activities: reception, stay, parade and return of the brigade members who attended the colossal concentration of December 22, 1961, when the triumph of the campaign was voiced by Fidel Castro himself.

No one knows better than Cubans the enormous value that event had for the life that followed, with the emergence of schools and vast education programs that made us a cultured people and showed many achievements. A very pleasant experience is to visit the Museum of Literacy, in the Ciudad Libertad in Havana, Cuba. We advise doing it.