It was a revolution that forced Florentino Fernández, who died of a heart attack on January 28, 2013, at age 76, to chase his dreams at the grimy Fifth Street Gym in Miami.

With the battle of Sierra Maestra all but decided by August 1958, Fidel Castro sent forces led by Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos to Las Villas, where the guerrillas succeeded in dividing Cuba in two. Fulgencio Batista, facing certain defeat and, perhaps, a firing squad, fled Havana for the Dominican Republic on January 1, 1959, but over the next few months and years he would be followed by thousands of Cubans who sailed to Florida amid the upheavals of the era Che hailed as that of the “New Man.” Elections were suspended, President Urrutia resigned, newspapers were shut down or censored, show trials and summary executions took place, and a mass land expropriation program was announced. To many Cubans—particularly middle-class professionals—the pandemonium was untenable. Continue reading “One Shot At Glory: Florentino Fernández and The Middleweights of the 1960s” →