Jose Marti was a poet, essayist, and journalist who spent most of his adult life in exile, building the political movement that would free Cuba from Spain — using nothing but words. He organized the Cuban independence movement from New York City, wrote the poetry that gave Cuban national identity its voice, and was killed in his first battle just weeks after finally returning to fight. The pen built the revolution; the sword took its author.

This episode traces Marti from his Havana childhood through the political imprisonment, the New York exile years, the literary output that defined Cuban culture, and the death in battle at Dos Rios that turned a poet into a national martyr.

• Marti’s childhood political awakening and the imprisonment at sixteen that radicalized him
• The New York exile years — organizing the independence movement through journalism and oratory
• The poetry and essays that gave Cuba its literary voice and national identity
• The return to Cuba, the first battle at Dos Rios, and the death that made him Cuba’s founding martyr