Havana: Cuba today celebrates the 60th anniversary of being officially proclaimed a territory free of illiteracy, an epic of the nascent Revolution and the popular participation, Prensa Latina publishes.
It was the prelude to the transformations by which the Cuban archipelago was full with schools, institutes, polytechnics, centers for special education, sports, pedagogy, universities.
It was the third and difficult year of the Cuban Revolution, in which its socialist character would be proclaimed and the mercenary invasion by Playa Girón defeated.
A census carried out in 1960 revealed a harsh reality. A good part of the Cuban population was illiterate. Fidel Castro promised then that in a year that scourge would be eradicated.
The leader of the Revolution predicted “a truly epic battle, in which all the people must participate.”
And he detailed: We must begin to organize that army and we are going to organize 100,000 young literacy workers who are at least sixth grade and older and at least 13 years old.
On January 1, 1961, the literacy feat officially began in the midst of the first popular mobilization in defense of the revolutionary process, while the United States prepared the invasion and planted criminal and armed gangs in the mountainous areas.
On January 23, during the graduation of the second contingent of volunteer teachers, Fidel Castro reported the murder of the young teacher Conrado Benítez, the first of other victims among literacy teachers and peasants.
Those crimes did not discourage the massive participation and in many cases of adolescents who had never been separated from their homes and families.
The powerful pedagogical and voluntary force was constituted by 121 thousand Popular Literacy Teachers; 100 thousand Conrado Benítez brigade members; 15 thousand Patria o Muerte brigade members; and 35 thousand volunteer teachers.
The number of educators exceeded 300 thousand with the sum of leading cadres and administrative workers.
On December 20, the campaign was officially terminated. Thousands of literacy teachers attended the Cuban capital and were accommodated in family homes. Two days later the flag that considered Cuba a Territory Free of Illiteracy was raised.
They had learned to read 707 thousand Cubans. The illiterate rate was reduced to 3.9 percent of the total population declared unliterable for various reasons, including some 25 thousand Haitian residents who did not speak the Spanish language.
In this way, and in record time, Cuba was among the countries with the lowest illiteracy rate in the world.
That December 22, 1961, in what is now known as the Revolution Square of this capital, full of literacy teachers and the people, Fidel Castro proclaimed: That is Socialism!
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