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The José Marti monument in La Havana.

"In a nation as divided as Cuba, only one man, José Martí, a poet and freedom hero, has been able to unite all factions. In his short life, Martí struggled against the dual oppressing forces of Spain and the U.S. to gain independence for his island nation while upholding his beliefs in liberty, freedom and greatness of the human spirit.
Born in La Habana on January 28, 1853, Martí began his political career at the tender age of 15.

In 1892 he formed the Cuban Revolutionary Party, the movement that would lead to the eventual defeat of the Spanish army in 1898 and subsequent establishment of a free Cuba in 1902.

In 1895, in a true act of heroism, Martí left the shores of the U.S. to join the war for Cuban independence which he had so painstakingly organized from exile. He landed in Cuba on April 11 with a party of supporters and took to the mountains to join the ranks of the Revolutionary Army. By all accounts, Martí, a rail-thin 42-year-old intellectual with no military background, found the life of the guerilla fighter unbearable. On May 19 a little more than a month from his arrival in Cuba, Martí rode into battle in one of the first skirmishes of the armed revolt and, to everyone's horror, was shot dead almost immediately.
He will always be ingrained in the hearts, minds and souls of the Cuban people as their greatest hero. "