THE ORGANIZER Celia Sánchez

Celia Sánchez sits outside, smiling at someone to the right of the camera. She is a thin woman with olive skin, and is wearing a khaki shirt and red beret, and wears dark lipstick and earrings. — Celia Sánchez during the Cuban revolution
public domain

Celia Sánchez Manduley was probably the most important woman in the Cuban Revolution – yet outside of Cuba, almost nobody knows her name. The first woman to fire a shot in the revolution, and the brains behind the revolution’s complex logistics, she is known in Cuba as the powerful heart of a movement to “make people’s lives better.” Discover this astonishing story with our guest, Tiffany Sippial.

Celia Sánchez with other resistance fighters in the 26th of July movement
public domain

The first picture of Fidel Castro and Celia Sanchez together, photographed in Oriente, eastern Cuba in February 1957
public domain

Celia Sánchez and Che Guevara – the two became close friends during the revolution.
public domain

Celia Sánchez and Fidel Castro in Oriente, eastern Cuba in February 1958
Wisconsin Historical Society

Celia Sánchez, unknown date
public domain

Celia as an older woman, attending a conference or meeting
Tiffany Sippial’s private collection

Celia Sánchez’s crypt with the mausoleum dedicated to the Armed Revolutionary Forces in Colon Cemetery in Havana
photo by Tiffany Sippial

Celia Sánchez’s childhood home in Media Luna
photo by Tiffany Sippial

Monument/Fountain dedicated to Celia Sánchez in Media Luna
photo by Tiffany Sippial

Billboard to Celia Sánchez in Media Luna
photo by Tiffany Sippial

Cuban coins featuring Celia Sánchez
public domain

Director of the Honors College and Professor of History at Auburn University, Dr. Tiffany Sippial received her Ph.D. in Latin American History with distinction from the University of New Mexico in 2007. Dr. Sippial has completed prestigious fellowships with the Southeastern Conference’s Academic Leadership Development Program, the HERS Leadership Institute, and was the university’s Presidential Administrative Fellow in 2017. She has secured several prestigious research grants and awards, including a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Grant, a CCWH Berkshire Conference of Women Historians Award, and an American Historical Association Albert J. Beveridge Grant for Research in the History of the Western Hemisphere. A strong advocate for student international experiences, Dr. Sippial leads the Honors College study and travel courses to Cuba. Dr. Sippial published an award-winning book on Cuba in 2013 with the University of North Carolina Press and published a second book on Cuban revolutionary leader Celia Sanchez Manduley with that press in January 2020. Sippial also served as president of the Latin American and Caribbean Section of the Southern Historical Association in 2018-2019.

THE ORGANIZER Celia Sánchez

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