Originally published in the Winter/Spring 2025 edition of the Virginia Defender, issue 76, printed March 26. Reproduced here for accessibility and archival purposes. To find other stories in the Winter/Spring 2025 issue or to download the full PDF, see this post. For other issues dating back to 2012, see the Full Issues page.

Defenders and friends join with Leima Martinez, center, director of the North American desk of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), after she spoke at the 2025 International U.S.-Cuba Normalization Conference held March 15–16 in New York City.

From left, standing: Defenders Fern Diaz-Castro, Ana Edwards and Phil Wilayto, and Alison Bodine of the Mobilization Against War & Occupation (MAWO) of Vancouver, Canada. Seated in front, a member of the Venceremos Brigade and the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party. (Unfortunately, we didn’t get permission to use her name before she left.)

The two-day conference finished with the unanimous adoption of a multipronged action program designed to oppose the blockade that the U.S. imposed shortly after the 1959 Cuban Revolution.

For more information on the conference, visit the website of the International US-Cuba Normalization Coalition Committee.