[2] He was born in a poor family and during part of his youth he was a street vendor of marijuana and a pickpocket for which he was arrested by the police in Havana, and he had the nickname "Caballo Blanco" (White Horse).

Almeida returned to Cuba with the Castro brothers, Che Guevara and 78 other revolutionaries on the Granma expedition and was one of just 12 who survived the initial landing.

[7] Following the landing, Almeida continued to fight Fulgencio Batista's government forces in the guerilla war in the Sierra Maestra mountain range.

[4] During the revolution, as a black man in a prominent position, he served as a symbol for Afro-Cubans of the rebellion's break with Cuba's discriminatory past.

The President of Vietnam, Nguyễn Minh Triết, sent a message describing Almeida as a great friend of the Vietnamese people who contributed to the ties of solidarity between the two nations.

[11] In Moscow, a musical homage was staged and a collection of Almeida's songs entitled "El Bolero Cubano" (Cuban Ballads) was scheduled for release for the first time in Russian.

The sculpture was designed by Enrique Ávila González, creator of the portraits of Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos located in the Plaza de la Revolución in Havana, and includes the quotation "Aqui no se rinde nadie" (Here no one gives up).

A book published in 2005 alleged that the Kennedy administration had Almeida for a key role in a plot run called AMWORLD or C-Day to remove Castro and set to launch on 1 December 1963.

AMWORLD was, according to Waldron, a Mafia-CIA Castro assassination plot run by Richard Helms of the CIA and done without JFK's or RFK's knowledge.