A Georgetown University professor emeritus delivered the Hispanic heritage Month keynote at the Library to "separate the true José Martí from the apocryphal."
José M. Hernández spoke Oct. 3 in the Mumford Room, where he was welcomed by Barbara A. Tenenbaum, the Mexican culture specialist in the Hispanic Division.
Deputy Librarian Hiram L. Davis introduced Dr. Hernández, whose speech, "Martí and Democracy: A Factual Approach," sought to clarify whether Martí was a democrat or dictator.
Dr. Hernández reminded the audience that the Spanish-speaking world this year celebrated the centennial of the death of José Martí, who was killed in one of the first battles of the 1895- 1898 Cuban war against Spanish domination.
"Martí, once [Cuba's] foremost hero and its most eminent thinker and man of letters" had fomented the war by reviving the Cuban separatist movement from the United States, where he spent the last 15 years of his life.
Scholars who attempt to define Martí by analyzing his prolific though often ambiguous and contradictory writings frequently fail, according to the speaker. "A Spanish politician once observed that one of Martí's best-known political documents, the Montecristi Manifesto, rather than [being] a rebellion against the Spanish government was a rebellion against Spanish syntax," Dr. Hernández said.
Dr. Hernández summed up what other scholars who focused on Martí's writings have said and concluded that a better approach is to analyze the leader's actions. He focused on Martí's steps in organizing the Cuban Revolutionary Party, which formed the platform that launched the war that took his life.
The Cuban independence movement was already 26 years old when Martí died. The Cubans, led by Creole sugar planters and cattle barons of the eastern part of the island, had fought the Spaniards in the Ten Years' War in 1868-78 and never accepted defeat. The leadership of the landed peoples was then replaced by that of separatist generals -- former civilians who had moved up the ranks during the war. These generals had "taken to the woods" after the war, but as they made plans, their followers began to lose hope.
Meanwhile, Martí established himself as a separatist leader in New York and gained the support of Cuban workers there and in Key West and Tampa, Fla.
Martí's political actions in setting up the separatist party prove that the leader was a "steadfast democrat," Dr. Hernández said. The party was formed of revolutionary clubs in Jamaica, Boston, New Orleans and Philadelphia in addition to Florida and New York.
The leader, or delegate, of the party was elected annually, but could be removed in a process set in motion by a majority vote by any club. The party bylaws, or Bases, could also be changed that way.
The party was officially organized at a meeting in Key West on Jan. 5, 1892. "According to the minutes, all that Martí did as president of the assembly was to read 'slowly and clearly' the Bases of the new organization. ... It was agreed that they would be subsequently submitted to the various clubs for a sort of final approval." The clubs were thus the backbone of the party, Dr. Hernández said.
Additionally, Martí one month earlier had begun publishing a newspaper, Patria, which became the official party organ. When an objector said Martí had set up the bylaws to sanction a dictatorship, the clubs voted to declare the man, also a newspaper publisher, persona non grata and their members quit reading his paper.
Finally, Martí flouted the tradition of the Cuban revolutionary movement and left military leaders out of the plans until they were voted upon by veterans of the Ten Years War assembled by presidents of the clubs.
"He was not a leader of the Machiavellian type, the sort of leader who basically depends on force and cunning. His relationship with his followers was not based on power but on understanding and persuasion, and a leader of this type can only emerge, grow and mature in a democratic environment, in an atmosphere where the word has precedence over the sword, and force is an argument of last resort," concluded Dr. Hernández.
After the lecture a guitarist and mandolin player performed Martí's song "Guantanamera," or "Lady of Guantanamo" as the audience sang along in Spanish by reading from cards provided for the occasion.
