On January 5th, 1936, Álvaro Morell Álvarez was born in our city. From an early age, Álvaro’s concern and worry was seen in the face of all injustice and mistreatment that our country was experiencing due to the brutal tyranny headed by Fulgencio Batista.

In 1950 he enrolled at the Second Education Institution and there he socialized with other young people. Establishing dialogue between them, where they coordinate ideas and agree to organize an advanced nucleus. He was one of the main leaders of the Agramontino student body and a member of the July 26th Movement.

Revolutionary work

With the bloody coup d’état of March 10th, 1952, his fight against the tyranny of Fulgencio Batista began. Then in 1953 and 1954 they served to connect more closely with other young students, such as Jesús Suárez Gayol and Cándido González Morales, with whom he shared the leadership in the capital of the province, the July 26th Movement was responsible for assuming the responsibility of the organization’s economic front. When he excelled in these activities, he began to be persecuted and watched by the regime’s hit men. He was detained on different occasions for his protest actions in the streets of our city.

Because of this, he had no other choice than to try to join the guerrilla struggle of in the Sierra Maestra, but he had serious difficulties in his purposes that forced him to return to the city, and due to his militant discipline, he remained firm in his front as one of the provincial leaders of the July 26 Movement.

Relentlessly persecuted by the tyranny, he took the path of exile to the United States, and as a more effective way to continue his fight he moved to Mexico, from where, as he said, it would be easier for him to join one of the groups bound for the Sierra Maestra. In Mexico he makes contact with revolutionaries, but fails to materialize his wishes with the promptness required by his state of mind.

Upon returning to our country he joins an expedition that lacked the best conditions and begins the journey. At Punta de Xacatal, near Veracruz, the expedition ship suffered damage to a propeller. But the brave young man and other colleagues like Ramón Rodríguez were abandoned in the waters of the Gulf on April 26th, 1958.

Currently, as a way of remembering such a courageous young revolutionary, there is a plaque in the Bank Office located on Workers’ Square.

Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García