"The Popular University is an institution for everyone and an open way to have a better future"
Julio Antonio Mella
The existing tyranny hit hard the student body in Cuba, during the twenties of the last century, originating movements to fight against the setbacks of the government.
In 1923, as an immediate response to the situation in the country, the Student Congress was held from October 14 to 26. The meeting was attended by 128 delegates who discussed the reform of secondary education, the modifications of the law study plan, changes in university structure, among other topics related to culture, politics, society and economy.
Because "all future time has to be better", it was decided to found the Confederation of Students of Cuba, the Declaration of Student Rights and Duties, condemn existing ills and create a new reality in order that the generation of Cuban workers be more cultured and ideological.
The education of the popular sectors, based on the unity of these workers, the students and the intelligentsia, was the main premise so that on November 3, 1923, the student leader Julio Antonio Mella founded the José Martí Popular University. His first steps, seventeen days later, were manifested in the evening hours when they taught the law course. In a short time they added other disciplines such as History of Humanity and Cuba, Literature, Grammar, Mathematics, Psychology and Logic, Homiculture, Maternity and Sexual Prophylaxis, Political and Social Economy, Labor Legislation, Antidogmatic Morality and Rudiments of Sciences of Religions . The spaces provided for learning were also intended to explain to the workers the fundamentals of the exploitation system to which they were subjected, exemplified especially in the sugar workers, the majority sector in the country.
When the opening was known, the presidency of Gerardo Machado tried maneuvers and persecuted its members, forcing them to move their headquarters constantly to different places such as the Federation of Torcedores de La Habana, the Bahia Workers' Federation, the Railway Brotherhood and local San Antonio of the Baths, Regla, Guanabacoa, and Marianao.
Despite the fateful persecution, the university served not only the students, but the professors so that they could implant revolutionary values in their souls. This, together with the ideas of Rubén Martínez Villena, gave dynamism to the activities of the university, such as lectures, lectures, artistic evenings, issuance and distribution of manifestos, pamphlets and propaganda media until, in 1927, the magazine América Libre, the official organ of the UPJM.
The history of this university tells that in its classrooms many of the first leaders of the Cuban proletariat were formed and these were the foundation of the cultural and political work that the workers managed to deploy in the following years.
In 1927, the Machado regime initiated case No. 1428 for the offense of rebellion against teachers, causing it to close, together with its disseminating body, on July 12.
"The classrooms have been closed but the pages of the books are opened ... The Popular University José Martí lives. Many heroes have fallen and will fall. But not a single idea or a single principle has been killed yet. "
