Today we celebrate the birthday of Jose Julian Marti y Perez. He was born on this day in Havana, Cuba in the year 1853.
It is especially fitting that we celebrate his life on these steps. Let me tell you a story...

Jose Marti published his first newspaper, La Patria Libra, at the age of 16. He was already a poet, an intellectual who was dedicated to independence for Cuba and now a publisher.
Being as foolish as he was brave, he openly denounced another student who was pro-Spain, and got himself thrown in jail. This gives us some hint as to the power of his communication.

He went to University in Spain and then to New York City to begin his career in writing and teaching, always continuing his work toward an independent Cuba. Marti says of himself in his subtle yet evocative poem, "A Sincere Man Am I":

I know how to name and class
All strange flowers that grow;
I know every blade of grass,
Fatal lie and sublime woe.

L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology and a poet himself says, "A good poet can cheerfully write a poem gruesome enough to make strong men cringe, or he can write verses happy enough to make the weeping laugh... He can create any reality.... Because the artist deals in future realities, he always seeks improvements or changes in the existing really."

And now we come to the story of these steps, the Jose Marti steps.This is where he would stand to rally his Countrymen. This factory became his headquarters. Marti was incendiary. In 1892 he founded the Cuban Revolutionary Party. He traveled back and forth from New York 20 times in 2 years to stand on these steps and create flames for freedom in the hearts of Cubans, as the Apostle of Cuban Independence. He was in New York when he signed the order of uprising against Spain. He sent it South to Ybor City with his Secretary, to the Mayor of West Tampa, who rolled it into a cigar. That cigar was given, on these steps, to its next courier, who set sale for Cuba, and the revolutionary, Juan Gualberto, Gomez. Gomez unrolled thew cigar and started the war. Jose Julian Marti y Perez joined the fighting soon after, and was killed in battle May 19, 1895. www.unitedforhumanrights.org