Conrado, the Martyr of Cuban Educators
Conrado, a young black man of very humble origins born in Matanzas on January 19th, 1942, was trained as a volunteer teacher in Minas del Frio, Sierra Maestra, after the triumph of the Revolution.
January 5th will always be remembered in Cuba as one of those days of sadness and pain, when in 1961 the first victim of terrorism against the Caribbean island was offered to the world: Conrado Benitez Garcia, a symbol of literacy.
A young 18-year-old volunteer teacher, he was at the San Ambrosio farm in the Trinidadian mountains to teach children during the day and adults at night, in response to Commander Fidel Castro’s call for the National Literacy Campaign.
Osvaldo Ramirez, together with the peasant Eleodoro Rodriguez Linares Conrado led the counterrevolutionary gang that took the life of the teacher.
The death of the «Martyr of the Educators», nickname given to him by the leader of the Cuban Revolution, inspired more than 300 thousand Cubans, who taught one million people to read and write, as he had promised at the UN General Assembly in September 1960.
Education reached the most remote areas of the island. Conrado, a young black man of very humble origins born in Matanzas on January 19th, 1942, was trained as a volunteer teacher in Minas del Frio, Sierra Maestra, after the triumph of the Revolution.
Days after his death, on January 20th, 1961, the undefeated Comandante condemned the crime and highlighted Conrado’s poverty, race and profession as reasons for his assassination by imperialist agents.
Written by Dunia Bermúdez.
