IN: Buena Vista Social Club is an ensemble of Cuban musicians established in 1996 to revive the music of pre-revolutionary Cuba. The project was organized by World Circuit executive Nick Gold, produced by American guitarist Ry Cooder and directed by Juan de Marcos Gonzalez. They named the group after the homonymous members' club in the Buenavista quarter of Havana, a popular music venue in the 1940s. To showcase the popular styles of the time, such as son, bolero and danzon, they recruited a dozen veteran musicians, many of whom had been retired for years.

Shortly after the Cuban Revolution of 1959, newly elected Cuban President Manuel Urrutia Lleo, a devout Christian, began a program of closing gambling outlets, nightclubs, and other establishments associated with Havana's hedonistic lifestyle. This had an immediate impact on the livelihoods of local entertainers. As the Cuban government rapidly shifted towards the left in an effort to build a "classless and colourblind society", it struggled to define policy toward forms of cultural expression in the black community; expressions which had implicitly emphasized cultural differences. Consequently, the cultural and social centers were abolished, including the Afro-Cuban mutual aid Sociedades de Color in 1962, to make way for racially integrated societies. Private festivities were limited to weekend parties and organizers' funds were confiscated. The measures meant the closure of the Buena Vista Social Club. Although the Cuban government continued to support traditional music after the revolution, certain favor was given to the politically charged nueva trova, and poetic singer-songwriters such as Silvio Rodriguez and Pablo Milanes. The emergence of pop music and salsa, a style derived from Cuban music but developed in the United States, meant that son music became even less common. Cuban music experienced quite a radical change in the 1960s, as National Geographic notes: Cuban dance music also witnessed dramatic change beginning in the late 1960s, as groups explored the fusion of Cuban son with American rock, jazz and funk styles. Groups such as Los Van Van and Irakere established modern forms of Cuban music, paving the way for new rhythms and dances to emerge as well as fresh concepts in instrumentation. ... Cuba's dance music had already inspired a change from the older son-style dances, as younger Cubans broke free of step-oriented dances... The occurrence of these closures and the change in traditions is the simplest explanation of why many musicians were out of work, and why their style of music had declined before the Buena Vista Social Club made it popular again.

Was the program to close these establishments successful?

OUT: This had an immediate impact on the livelihoods of local entertainers.

IN: Mary Elizabeth Jenkins was born to Archibald and Elizabeth Anne (nee Webster) Jenkins on a tobacco plantation near the southern Maryland town of Waterloo (now known as Clinton). Sources differ as to whether she was born in 1820 or 1823. There is uncertainty as to the month as well, but most sources say May.

Louis J. Weichmann moved into Surratt's boarding house on November 1, 1864. On December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Surratt, Jr. to John Wilkes Booth. Booth recruited John Jr. into his conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln. Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request. George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell boarded at the townhouse for short periods. Atzerodt, a friend of both John Jr. and Booth and a co-conspirator in the plot to kidnap Lincoln, visited the boarding house several times in the first two months of 1865. He stayed at the Surratt boarding house in February 1865 (for one night or several, sources differ), but he proved to be a heavy drinker, and Surratt evicted him after just a few days. He continued to visit the townhouse frequently afterward, however. Powell posed as a Baptist preacher and stayed at the boarding house for three days in March 1865. David Herold also called at the home several times. As part of the plot to kidnap Lincoln in March 1865, John, Atzerodt, and Herold hid two Spencer carbines, ammunition, and some other supplies at the Surratt tavern in Surrattsville. On April 11, Mary Surratt rented a carriage and drove to the Surratt tavern. She said that she made the trip to collect a debt owed her by a former neighbor. However, according to her tenant, John Lloyd, Surratt told him to get the "shooting irons" ready to be picked up. On April 14, Surratt said that she would once again visit the family tavern in Surrattsville to collect a debt. Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package, later found to contain binoculars, for Lloyd to pick up later that evening. Surratt did so and, according to Lloyd, again told Lloyd to have the "shooting irons" ready for pickup and handed him a wrapped package from Booth. (Booth and Herold would pick up the rifles and binoculars that evening, as they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination.) Lloyd repaired a broken spring on Surratt's wagon before she left.

what conspiracy was she involved in

OUT:
She said that she made the trip to collect a debt owed her