Conversations with CUBA by C. Peter Ripley (Excerpt)
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Cuba is literate, has national health care, has food and housing for her people, has an infant mortality rate lower than most industrial countries and a life expectancy for HIV patients unrivaled in the world. Judgments about politics aside, Cuba tried to care for her citizens equally and fairly, and did a remarkable job of it until the economy crumbled after the loss of Russian aid in 1989. As I reflected on those accomplishments, I reflected on a bit of history. I was in a city where emanicipated blacks had been dispossessed and despised, until came the Revolution, which forged a racial harmony known to only a few of the world's countries, a social transformation worthy of being acknowledged as a revolutionary triumph.
