Milwaukee’s sixth monthly caravan to end the US economic blockade of Cuba, on Sunday, September 26 will welcome home to Wisconsin and hear from two new doctors who just graduated from Cuba’s acclaimed international medical school. The car and bike caravan will go through Milwaukee’s near southside after a 1 PM send off rally at the Mitchell Park domes parking lot, 524 S. Layton Boulevard.

Cuba has provided free medical school education to over 20,000 dedicated students from around the world, especially from developing countries and US students of color or of limited means.  Cuba offered this full scholarship to students who promised to return to their home country and serve in poor communities.  Drs. Alexandra Skeeter and Olive Albanese were raised by single mothers on the north and south sides of Milwaukee, respectively, and could not have fulfilled their dreams to become doctors without this offer from what United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hailed as one of the “most advanced medical schools in the world.”

Cuban-Americans in Miami began these monthly caravans over a year ago, to protest increased US restrictions on their ability to visit their relatives in Cuba or to send assistance to them. The caravans on the last Sunday of each month have spread to many other cities, given President Biden‘s failure to fulfill his campaign promise to relax restrictions and return to President Obama’s policy of reconciliation with Cuba. 

“President Biden is not only inflicting great harm on the Cuban people by continuing over 50 new restrictions added during the pandemic, but is also risking a new immigration crisis by continuing a policy which was deliberately designed to ‘starve” our neighbors,” stated Atty. Art Heitzer from the Wisconsin Coalition to Normalize Relations with Cuba, who has represented Milwaukee travelers prosecuted for visiting their sister church in Cuba.

The facebook event for this caravan is here and flyer is below.