Rosario Guillaume Pérez

She was born in Havana into a wealthy family.

Her first political activities were aimed at the defense of women's rights.

In 1918 she entered the Club Femenino de Cuba, at whose initiative the Federación Nacional de Asociaciones Femeninas was established.

Charito participated in the First National Congress of Women, held in 1923, and in the second, which took place two years later.

In 1922 she joined as a female leader the university reform movement led by Mella. She was a founder of the Liga Antimperialista.

In 1926 she requested admission to the Communist Party, I would have the great honor, she would recall years later, of being presented to the Party by comrade Rubén Martínez Villena. My first work as an activist I carried out on the docks: later I contributed to organizing the Needle Workers Union and I was very involved in the struggle of the sugar workers. Subsequently I went on to work in the unions of the Confederación Nacional Obrera de Cuba.

In 1930 she suffered imprisonment. By that time she was appointed as responsible to the Party for pioneer work. In 1931 the Liga de los Pioneros de Cuba officially emerged, which the party organization directed through the Liga Juvenil Comunista.

When in September 1933 the police repressed the demonstration accompanying the remains of Julio Antonio Mella, Charito was next to the young pioneer Paquito González, but due to the confusion caused by the gunfire, she did not see him fall. She was able, however, to identify the body of the boy, since his family was not allowed to see it.

After the fall of the tyrant Machado, Charito continued fighting. In 1939 she was one of the organizers of the Third National Women's Congress, where important agreements were made aimed at improving the situation of women and children, for peace, against fascism and for the progress of Cuba.

In the 1940s she continued fighting for women's rights, and specifically for the equality of Black women who were doubly discriminated against in that society. Her revolutionary work cost her imprisonment during Batista's tyranny. In those years in the name of the Party, she carried out clandestine tasks such as distributing propaganda and sheltering persecuted revolutionaries.

After the triumph of the revolution, she was a founder of the FMC and member of its National Council. In this new stage she performed teaching functions. One of those she remembered with the greatest pride was the creation in 1960 of a school for cultural advancement in Cubana de Acero, where the first women who began to work in that factory were trained.

That caused quite a stir, she would point out later, because many comrades believed that women should not work there. When I went to see commander Ernesto Che Guevara and presented the problem to him, he immediately authorized the incorporation of the girls to the center.

Charito received for her merits the XX Anniversary medal and the Ana Betancourt order.

She was elected delegate to the I Congress of the Party, but was unable to attend as she passed away days before its sessions began, on December 10, 1975.