Trump administration revives conspiracy theories about Cuba’s alleged manipulation of activism in the US
Aaron Coy Moulton
A new State Department report blames Cuba for Black Lives Matter and Standing Rock — recycling the same claims made about civil rights protesters in 1960s Alabama.
ScapegoatingRed ScareAttribution ErrorConspiracy Theory
Theory Briefing
- The State Department's 2025 report cites a 1960s Senate subcommittee hearing as its only evidence that the Fair Play for Cuba Committee was subversive — no new evidence in 65 years.
- Conspiracy theories blaming Cuba for U.S. civil rights protests peaked in the late 1960s, when groups like the John Birch Society claimed communists directed protests in Alabama.
- Robert F. Williams, a Black veteran who fled KKK threats to Cuba in 1961, became the most-cited 'proof' of Cuban control over civil rights — his newsletter urged self-defense, not revolution.
- The report links Standing Rock pipeline protests to Cuba through a chain of organizational connections so indirect the author calls them hard to follow.
- Cuba's economy cannot currently afford to import oil, yet the report asserts it is 'extraordinarily influential over left-wing politics in the United States today' without explaining how.