Racism isn’t born, folks, it’s taught.  I have a two-year-old son.  You know what he hates?  Naps!  ~Dennis Leary

One day our descendants will think it incredible that we paid so much attention to things like the amount of melanin in our skin or the shape of our eyes or our gender instead of the unique identities of each of us as complex human beings.  ~Franklin Thomas

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality…. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.  ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

If a white man falls off a chair drunk, it’s just a drunk.  If a Negro does, it’s the whole damn Negro race.  ~Bill Cosby

I got nothing against no Viet Cong.  No Vietnamese ever called me a nigger.  ~Muhammad Ali, 1967, refusing to fight in Vietnam

I think you should defend to the death their right to march, and then go down and meet them with baseball bats.  ~Woody Allen, on the Ku Klux Klan

The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it.  ~Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

I swear to the Lord
I still can’t see
Why Democracy means
Everybody but me.
~Langston Hughes, The Black Man Speaks

To live anywhere in the world today and be against equality because of race or color is like living in Alaska and being against snow.  ~William Faulkner, Essays, Speeches and Public Letters

The African race is a rubber ball.  The harder you dash it to the ground, the higher it will rise.  ~African Proverb

A racially integrated community is a chronological term timed from the entrance of the first black family to the exit of the last white family.  ~Saul Alinsky

When we’re unemployed, we’re called lazy; when the whites are unemployed it’s called a depression.  ~Jesse Jackson

Laundry is the only thing that should be separated by color.  ~Author Unknown

Racial superiority is a mere pigment of the imagination.  ~Author Unknown

I am working for the time when unqualified blacks, browns, and women join the unqualified men in running our government.  ~Cissy Farenthold

Be nice to whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.  ~Desmond Tutu

The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box.  As you grow older, you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don’t you forget it - whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash.  ~Harper Lee,  To kill a mockingbird.
Racism is man’s gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.  ~Abraham Joshua Heschel

They are Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González.

The Five were falsely accused by the U.S. government of committing espionage conspiracy against the United States, and other related charges.

But the Five pointed out vigorously in their defense that they were involved in monitoring the actions of Miami-based terrorist groups, in order to prevent terrorist attacks on their country of Cuba.

The Five’s actions were never directed at the U.S. government. They never harmed anyone nor ever possessed nor used any weapons while in the United States.

Terrorist Miami groups like Comandos F4 and Brothers to the Rescue operate with complete impunity from within the United States to attack Cuba—with the knowledge and support of the FBI and CIA.

Therefore, Cuba made the careful and necessary decision to send the Five Cubans to Miami to monitor the terrorists. The Cuban Five infiltrated the terrorist organizations in Miami to inform Cuba of imminent attacks.

The aim of such a clandestine operation by the Cuban Five—at great personal risk—was to prevent criminal acts, and thus protect the lives of Cubans and other people.

But instead of arresting the terrorists, the FBI arrested the Cuban Five ANTI-terrorists on September 12, 1998. The Five were illegally held in solidarity confinement for 17 months in Miami jail.

The trial began in November 2000. With the seven-month trial based in Miami, a virtual witchhunt atmosphere existed. Defense attorneys’ motions for a change of venue were denied five times by the judge, although it was obvious that a fair trial was impossible in that city.

In a blow to justice, the Cuban Five were convicted June 8, 2001 and sentenced to four life terms and 75 years in December, 2001.

A victory in appeals, then a surprise reversal

On August 9, 2005, after seven years of unjust imprisonment, the Cuban Five won an unprecedented victory on appeal. A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the convictions of the Cuban Five and ordered a new trial outside of Miami.

However, in an unexpected reversal on Oct. 31, the 11th Circuit Court agreed to hear the U.S. prosecutors’ appeal. Therefore the opinion overturning the Cuban Five’s convictions has been set aside while a new appeal is heard.

Who are 5 Cuban Political Prisoners Behind Bars in the U.S.A.?
They are five Cubans who were trying to stop the ultra-right terrorist groups in Miami from carrying out violent actions against the people of Cuba.

Since 1959, these organizations have conducted bombings, assassinations and other sabotage, killing hundreds of innocent Cuban civilians. Groups like Alpha 66, Omega 7, Brothers to the Rescue, and Cuban American National Foundation have terrorized the Cuban people for years with impunity.

The Cuban people have been targets of US policy, including a 43-year economic blockade designed to punish a whole people who have chosen a different road for building their society. They have been victims of terror attacks by the Miami-based mafia, many of whom came from the wealthy class that left Cuba after the popular overthrow of dictator Fulgencio Batista. Others of the ultra-right in Miami were police thugs for the Batista regime.

Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, René González and Fernando González, acting in defense of their people, were living in Miami, monitoring these terrorist groups to prevent future violence.

But because the U.S. government - through the CIA - has played the principal role in funding, training and arming the ultra-right Miami mafia, the FBI targeted the five Cubans instead of arresting the terrorists.

This is the only reason that the five Cubans are in prison. They were framed up in a political witchhunt and railroaded by the U.S. in a 7-month trial in Miami, where it was impossible for them to have an impartial and fair trial.

Falsely charged with espionage on the US, in reality, the five brothers’ mission was to follow the activities of the right-wing to prevent harm to innocent people. After their arrest by the FBI in September 1998, they were convicted June 8, 2001 and sentenced December 2001.

The months-long struggle to free Elián González from the Miami right-wing showed the US people the true nature of these Mafia-type groups in Miami, who so cruelly tried to deny a father and his son their right to live together in their own country, simply because that country is Cuba.

Terrorists like José Basulto and Ramón Saúl Sánchez, who have been convicted of criminal acts, actually became “spokesmen” for the Miami family. They vowed never to let Elián return home and put him at tremendous risk for their political aims.

To all justice-loving people in the U.S. and around the world, we appeal to you to join the struggle to free Fernando, René, Antonio, Ramón and Gerardo. Help us in outreach, education