Belly of The Beast presents the first part of the "Lessons from Cuba" speaker series – re-energizing the political relationship between Cuba and the U.S.

James Early has spent forty five years traveling to Socialist Cuba in solidarity with the Cuban Ministry of Culture, traditional and plastic artists and intellectuals. He is the Former Director of Cultural Heritage Policy, Center for Folklife Programs and Cultural Studies, Smithsonian Institution. His applied research explores participatory museology, cultural democracy statecraft policy, capitalist and socialist discourses in cultural policy, and Afro-Latin politics, history, and cultural democracy.

Devyn Springer is a community organizer, writer, cultural worker, and independent researcher who studies African and African Diaspora history and Art History. As a community organizer they have worked with various groups in Atlanta, across the U.S. South and Global South and in 2018 they helped form ASERE, a diaspora group which organizes community education around Blackness, race, and racism in Cuba. They are the Digital Outreach Coordinator for the Walter Rodney Foundation, led by the family of the late revolutionary Walter Rodney, which Devyn passionately refers to as their “intellectual, activism, and radical awakening home.”