Cuban revolutionary leader Olga Morgan Goodwin, best known for defying Fidel Castro, passed away in her home in Florida this week after suffering a stroke at the age of 87.
She said her mother, who suffered a stroke about 8 a.m. in the farm home they shared about 10 miles from Lake Okeechobee, was an example of someone who never wavered in her beliefs.
“Freedom,” she said. “She believed in freedom,” and in the end, “she did what was in her heart.”
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
After Goodwin was imprisoned for attempting to overthrow Fidel Castro, she later fled to the United States, where she became a revered figure and an outspoken critic of the communist regime.
While Olga was in prison, she led hunger strikes and protests against the poor treatment of inmates. Goodwin left her native country in 1980 when she fled to the United States.
After arriving in the United States, Goodwin settled in Toledo, Ohio. She tried to repatriate the body of her American husband, who had been buried after being killed in Castro’s revolution, to have him interred in his hometown.
After her campaign to make it happen, members of the United States House of Representatives took a congressional trip to Olga’s native country to meet with Castro and negotiate the release of the remains. Catsro eventually agreed; however, the remains were never moved.
Despite having made the agreement, Olga continued her campaign to bring her husband home. She wrote numerous letters to Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, as well as Pope Francis, pleading with them to assist with the relocation.
Although Olga eventually remarried and settled down, she never stopped fighting to bring her first husband back home.
Mitch Weiss, co-author of the book, Yankee Comandante: The Untold Story of Courage, Passion and One American’s Fight to Liberate Cuba, said despite the tragedies Ms. Goodwin encountered, “she never lost faith, even after her husband was executed, even after being imprisoned for years, she kept going, fighting to keep her husband’s memory alive.”
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Rest in peace!
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