[7] As Fidel Castro put it in 1961 while addressing literacy teachers, “You will teach, and you will learn.”[4] Volunteers from the city were often ignorant of the poor conditions of rural citizens until their experiences during this campaign.

Besides literacy, the campaign aimed to create a collective identity of “unity, [an] attitude of combat, courage, intelligence, and a sense of history.” Politicized educational materials were used to further these ideals.

[12] The first stage consisted of professional educators training the literacy brigade — known as the Alfabetizadores populares — the curriculum and familiarizing them with the text that would be used to teach their students.

He did so in order to allow students to supplement their missed class time by joining the literacy campaign and teach illiterate adults.

[13] In an effort to intensify the campaign, and ensure its success before the end of the year, Castro began to recruit more "educators" from the factories, and those who enlisted formed the Patria o Muerte worker's brigade.

Workers who traveled to rural locations to teach received a standard grey uniform, a warm blanket, a hammock, two textbooks — Alfabeticemos and Venceremos — and a gas-powered lantern, so that lessons could be given at night after work ended.

[20] While much of the rhetoric surrounding the Cuban Literacy Campaign was focused on the creation of a new and better kind of man, it is important to recognize that with this came revolutionary changes in the roles of women in Cuba.

The narrative set forth by Castro himself and the campaign as transforming education, a typically female space, into one that was militarized offered the framework for women to be defiant and participate in the movement.

Ultimately, women were empowered by leaving home, with or without support from their families, able to reach further education opportunities after the campaign, and contribute to the changing Cuban culture.

The volunteers of the campaign were treated much like soldiers, organized into the aforementioned brigades, and were provided clothing resembling military fatigues regardless of their gender.

From such a perspective the campaign is shrouded in hyper-masculinity, hiding the fact that women were a large driving force of the effort under the guise of "masculine ideals".

[23] Supporters of the revolution who were too young or otherwise unable to participate in the downfall of Fulgencio Batista saw the campaign as an opportunity to contribute to the success of the new government and hoped to instill a revolutionary consciousness in their students.

[5] Many of the instructional texts used during the Literacy Campaign focused on the history of the Revolution and had strong political messages, which made the movement a target of opposition.

[28] Additionally, medicine and education became primary pieces of the new society post-Revolution, they were to exemplify the rhetoric of the "New Man" set forth by Che Guevara, a former doctor.

[34] The thank-you letters to Fidel Castro, used by UNESCO to evaluate the success of the campaign in 1964, are kept with photographs and details of all 100,000 volunteers in a museum in La Ciudad Libertad (City of Liberty), which is in Fulgencio Batista's vast former headquarters in the western suburbs of Havana.

[17] Among the other prized possessions of the museum are samples of the manuals for brigadistas and the books meant for their students, the UNESCO report that cemented the success of the literacy campaign, and newspapers from the time as well as video footage of the volunteers work.

The efforts of the museum go beyond conservation and is open to the community, researchers, schools, with a commitment to continue educating on the history of the literacy campaign as it spreads to other parts of the world.