At the “Dalquis Sánchez Pupo” semi-boarding school in Holguin. Teacher Ana asks her fourth-grade students: “Does anyone know what we’re commemorating today?” “The attack on Moncada!” one child replies. “And on the Bayamo barracks!” another adds.
The teacher takes out a Cuban flag. Some children imitate gunshots. Others draw in their notebooks. Thus, between crayons and notebooks, the youngest children remember that day when the bravery of a few young people became the cry for freedom for an entire people.
Seventy-two years ago, a group of revolutionaries, led by Fidel Castro, stormed the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba and the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes barracks in Bayamo. The walls of those fortresses, silent witnesses to Batista’s repression, became symbols of resistance.
It didn’t matter that the odds were slim; what mattered was dignity. Although the bullets cut short the assault that day, the ideas could not be captured. “Condemn me, history will absolve me.” Fidel declared in his self-defense, and that phrase became a prophecy.
The vestiges of that feat endure in everyday life: in the doctor who sets out on an internationalist mission with the same spirit as those young people. In the engineer who seeks solutions in the face of limitations. In the farmer who sows with the stubbornness of one who knows that the homeland is also defended with a seed.
In every square, in every neighborhood, it is repeated that this date is not only commemorated, it is lived. Grandparents tell their grandchildren how, decades later, those shots continue to resonate in the resistance against the blockade. In the defense of sovereignty, in solidarity with the peoples who struggle.
Like every year, the streets of Cuba are filled with flags, slogans, and faces who did not know the oppression those young people fought against. But who debate how to honor their legacy in new times. Where the challenges are different, but the enemy remains the same: oblivion, disunity, surrender.
For Cubans, the date is more than an anniversary. It is a reminder that dignity is not negotiable. That just ideas can challenge even the most ironclad power. It is the day we honor the martyrs whose names resonate like a sacred mantra: Abel Santamaría, Haydée Santamaría, Boris Luis Santa Coloma, and so many others.
It is also a call not to forget that freedom is achieved through unity. That rebellion, like history, has no end. And that, as long as there is injustice, there will be a 26th of July in the heart of Cuba.
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