Residents of the Havanamunicipality of Cotorro joyfully welcome the Freedom Caravan to the capital, commemorating Fidel’s arrival with combatants of the Rebel Army, January 8, 1959.
At the Julio Antonio Mella tire factory, located on the outskirts of Cotorro, workers greeted the Caravan as their predecessors did 56 years ago, accompanied this year by students of all ages who pledged to continue the work of the Revolution.
Traveling with the Caravan was Hugo Pérez Silva, a veteran of the Rebel Army who recalled how residents of Cotorro gathered around the factory in 1959 and ran alongside the caravan, cheering and embracing the combatants and Fidel.
At the very spot where Fidel addressed the people - at the former Columbia cuartel now the Freedom Educational Complex in the western part of the city – students, including Aymara Guzmán Carrazana, a leader of the Union of Young Communists (UJC) recalled how the 1959 Caravan opened the way across the island, from East to West, for justice, equality and freedom in Cuba.
