# Antonio Medina Céspedes **Date of birth:** June 13, 1824 **Date of death:** April 17, 1865 **Categories:** Society, educator, translator, professor The first Black teacher in Cuba. Precursor of Cuban pedagogy, he founded the Colegio de Nuestra Señora de los Desamparados. He collaborated in various prestigious publications, as an author and as a translator of works from French. During the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the colony, still laden with prejudices and imposed taboos, divided Creole society based on the color of skin of its members. In the case of people of African origin, they were marked by the terms of "ingenuous" or free, born without the stigma of slavery, and "freed" for those who at some point managed to achieve emancipation from the enslaving regime. Into a humble family of "ingenuous" people came into the world the boy Antonio Medina y Céspedes, in the residence marked with the number 34 on Jesús María Street, in the very heart of La Habana. After a childhood full of social and economic limitations given his condition, in his early years the future "Don Pepe de la raza negra," as he would be called years later by a well-known Cuban writer, was, until the age of five, educated and protected by his father, becoming an orphan at that early age when his father died. Then his mother, María del Rosario Céspedes, began to sew for the street, in order to support the poor household, now without a paternal figure, all the weight of the child's upbringing falling upon her. Two years after this family event, at seven years of age, Antonio began to take his first steps in education in a little school of first letters where by "special grace" of the Spanish colonial regime, Black children from the neighborhood could attend, and where he remained for two terms. At nine years old he entered the primary education school that the Order of the Belmite Fathers possessed in the Convent of Belén, remaining in that building for three years. Upon turning twelve years old, given his economic hardships, the boy Antonio Medina y Céspedes was forced to leave the educational center governed by the clergy and begin to learn the tailor's trade. As part of the daily work routine; first as a messenger and later as an apprentice, the now adolescent came to know and befriend figures of the stature of poets Juan Francisco Manzano and Gabriel de la Concepción Valdés, Plácido, Black like him, who knew how to awaken in his spirit a love for letters. Two years later, having turned fourteen, with mastery of the tailor's trade, he began to work as a laborer in the then sumptuous and novel Tacón theater, today home of the Gran Teatro de La Habana, at the cosmopolitan corner of Paseo de Extramuros or del Prado Street and San Rafael Street, performing his stagehand duties which he alternated, through force of will and determination, with studies at a night academy where grammar, arithmetic, rhetoric, Latin and French were taught. At sixteen years old he became motherless. Alone, consumed with grief, with what he had learned alongside his poet friends and at the academy, he wrote his first poem, dedicated to his dead mother, whose final verses sang… Women ¡ay! I will find without number Who will offer me their love and tenderness; But another Mother caring and pure Only thought can create. At eighteen, Antonio Medina y Céspedes was already editor and writer of the first newspaper directed by a Black person in Cuba. The appearance of El Faro in 1842 opened the doors to a journalism that in the midst of the colony, raised its own voice and gave space in its pages to intellectuals without distinction of race or economic power, talent and shame being sufficient for this. Antonio Medina y Céspedes closed his eyes forever on April 17, 1885 leaving unfinished the drama La hija del pueblo and a fruitful life of devoted dedication to literature and teaching. In the year 1850 Antonio Medina y Céspedes successfully took the examination that made him officially a Teacher of Elementary Instruction. From then on he prepares the conditions to found his own educational institution. Shortly thereafter the doors of the Colegio de Nuestra Señora de los Desamparados opened, the name with which its inspirer christened it, located at the address marked with the number 35 on Empedrado Street, a place where it remained until the year 1878. During the years it remained active, the school changed locations on two other occasions. First to number 28 on Compostela Street and then to Chacón Street 16. From its opening the educational institution founded by Antonio Medina y Céspedes had an enrollment that was predominantly Black, although it welcomed with equal love Creole students and those of Spanish origin from low-income backgrounds, who received equally the benefits of the study program that existed there, conscious of his duty and of the importance of the work he performed in aid to the poorest of Cuban society at that time… "…in the most venerable and pleasant employment, in that sweet employment of teacher in which one better serves men and suffers less from them" Educated himself in Belmite schools, Antonio Medina y Céspedes was the fruit, first as a student, and then as a pedagogue, of the best traditions of teaching and instruction imparted in them, while with his educational work, he could now serve the education of his countrymen, in the shadow of the best principles and educational traditions displayed by those who preceded him in that noble task, initiators of Cuban Pedagogy, and patriots since they contributed greatly to making sprout and grow strong and solid the love for the land where they were born and lived… "These initiators contributed in varying degrees to prepare consciences for changes and used education as the most suitable vehicle for this." [1] In the case of Antonio Medina y Céspedes, graduate of the Elementary Normal School for teacher training, sponsored by the school of the Escolapios of Guanabacoa, which included in its studies a practical stage in attached schools during the preparation, which lasted three years and which had been created in November 1857. It was the studious Cuban writer and poetess Angelina Edreiro de Caballero, the only one to write a work referring to the life and work of teacher Medina y Céspedes, in which she affirmed that "…nature endowed Medina with extraordinary gifts: intelligence, kindness, refined virtue, love of study, and above all, a great love for humanity." [2] In his Colegio de Nuestra Señora de los Desamparados, Antonio Medina y Céspedes designed a study program that contemplated, in addition to general teaching subjects such as arithmetic, Latin and others such as physics, subjects that enabled a broader and more complete education of his students. Music, drawing, painting and recitation can perhaps be considered precursors of the current Cuban Artistic Education, while calisthenics exercises were undoubtedly what today are Physical Education classes. This universe of teaching was completed with well-determined ideas about the need for those who taught to be prepared to learn since life always had interesting things to show, in an early attitude clearly open and dialectical as a demonstration that; "Cuban Enlightenment was not simply the spiritual reflection of the new socioeconomic conditions that presented themselves in the period of apogee and crisis of slavery in the country, but the catalyzing element of new political concerns, to transform those conditions and create and consolidate the social consciousness of Cubanness." [3] From the educational fruit of Antonio Medina y Céspedes a series of patriotic Cubans and upright men were nourished during the second half of the nineteenth century, educated in the principles of love for freedom and independence of the homeland as well as artists of worldwide renown who brought high the Cuban culture of the era. A tenacious, demanding and extraordinarily sensitive teacher was this man who knew how to transmit his convictions and knowledge to Cubans of eternal memory such as the Black violinists José White and Brindis de Salas, who with their art dazzled the most luxurious salons of Europe, and the complete patriot that Juan Gualberto Gómez was, and who was present at the funeral of his teacher as a sign of respect and gratitude for the teachings received from one who is known in the history of education and of Cuba in general as "Don Pepe de la Luz de la raza negra." [4] in analogy with the work of that other great Cuban educator of all time. Work In 1843 the already young intellectual, at nineteen years old, published his first poetic work, a book in which he rhymed about life, death and hope, which came to enjoy great popularity in Havana society of the time. But a year later the fury of colonial power fell upon the sad enchained island, intolerant of any manifestation, however small, against despotism and oppression. As an essayist and playwright, Antonio Medina y Céspedes collaborated in various prestigious publications, as an author and as a translator of works from French, while his dramatic work grew, written basically in verses, which were successfully premiered in important theaters such as Albisu, Torrecillas and Payret. One of his pieces, titled Jacobo Girondi earned him the Corona de Laurel for the public success it achieved, a distinction he kept with pride until his death. To an invitation from the renowned Sociedad La caridad of the city of Matanzas, Antonio Medina y Céspedes responded, with his appearance, with his poem El Trabajo, in which he claimed; Found with determination and without it paining you A school in every eighty meters… The rest of his life, alongside pedagogical work, Antonio Medina y Céspedes performed various functions and held different positions within the colonial administration system thanks to his talent, responsibility and seriousness in work. He was Calligraphy Expert for the criminal cases of the Audiencia de La Habana and member of the Abolitionist Society of Madrid, of which he was a vocal member and representative in the Cuban capital, while he was appointed member and vocal of the Atheneum of the city of La Habana itself.