Race to revolution : the United States and Cuba during slavery and Jim Crow The histories of Cuba and the United States are tightly intertwined and have been for at least two centuries. In Race to Revolution historian Gerald Horne examines a critical relationship between the two countries by tracing out the typically overlooked interconnections among slavery Jim Crow and revolution. Slavery was central to the economic and political trajectories of Cuba and the United States both in terms of each nations internal political and economic development and in the interactions between the small Caribbean island and the Colossus of the North.