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A longtime Miami community leader, human rights advocate, architect and urban planner, Jesús Permuy was awarded the City of Miami’s highest honors — the Key to the City of Miami and a Proclamation — in a July 24 ceremony at City Hall ahead of his 90th birthday.
A pivotal figure in Cuban exile history, Permuy rose to early prominence in the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution as a leading member of the resistance to Fidel Castro. Recruited in 1959 by Rogelio Gonzalez Corzo into the Movement for Revolutionary Recovery (MRR), he ultimately succeeded Corzo as National Coordinator in 1961 after Corzo’s execution following the Bay of Pigs invasion.
Permuy also helped organize a 1960 protest of over 100 students against Soviet Minister Anastas Mikoyan’s visit — ultimately resulting in his arrest. He promoted the arts as the last director of Espacio, the University of Havana’s student design publication, and by spearheading Operación Cultura, a major pro-democracy project attended by over 50,000 people that featured multidisciplinary contributions from Cuban cultural luminaries across painting, writing, and other fields that was inaugurated by Cuban President Manuel Urrutia Lleó.
After arriving in the U.S. in 1962, Permuy continued promoting Cuban art by initiating the influential Permuy Gallery in 1972 — one of the earliest Cuban art galleries in the United States. He reached new levels of impact, however, through the field of human rights.
In 1974 he established the Human Rights Center of Miami, which would become a significant force in global human rights advocacy. The City of Miami backed the effort by offering the Manuel Artime Community Center as its headquarters. In 1978, Permuy secured NGO Consultative Status for Christian Democratic International (CDI) at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR), allowing the Center to present evidence and coordinate efforts with foreign delegations and the global press through its affiliation with CDI.
Permuy is credited with having created the strategy to reveal the Castro regime’s human rights abuses on the world stage and turn the diplomatic tide turning against Cuba by the end of the Cold War. He met several times with Pope John Paul II in the 1980s and 1990s to report on the conditions in Cuba, and had collaborated with Amnesty International which, although initially hesitant, eventually endorsed his efforts by the 1990s and spotlighted Cuban political prisoners through their campaigns. Permuy also gave televised testimonies on C-SPAN before Congress, speaking about conditions in Cuba and Latin America.
Permuy’s activities often intersected historical events. During the 1994 Balsero Crisis, he was the first to brief U.S. Ambassador to the UN Geraldine Ferraro on the unfolding humanitarian emergency in Guantanamo Bay. Permuy also traveled to Panama at the end of the year during Operations Safe Haven and Safe Passage, where he was personally thanked by General Barry McCaffrey for helping resolve a hunger strike among Cuban refugees.
Another highlight was his delegation’s meeting with cultural icon and “Queen of Salsa” Celia Cruz in a 1993 event in Geneva organized by Cuban-Swiss gallerist Orlando Blanco, during which Cruz expressed enthusiastic support for Permuy’s work, particularly in aiding political prisoners. Permuy’s reach would ultimately extend far beyond Cuba as he advocated for human rights causes across Latin America, Africa, Asia and Europe.
In urban planning and architecture, Permuy left an indelible mark on Miami. Among his most celebrated projects is José Martí Park, developed to provide a safe space for children during the drug epidemic as well as a community space honoring Cuban exile identity.
Permuy played a key role in shaping Miami’s socio-economic infrastructure across several neighborhoods with Mayor Maurice Ferré appointing him chair of the Little Havana Task Force after the Mariel Crisis, and vice president of the Allapattah Advisory Board.
Permuy also contributed internationally, appointed by President José Napoleón Duarte to El Salvador’s Earthquake Reconstruction Committee following the 1986 disaster. Through his organization United Schools of America Inc., he partnered with USAID to lead the Municipalities in Action program, training mayors and officials in El Salvador and Guatemala on democratic governance from 1986 to 1988.
Having never fully retired, Permuy has continued to engage with meaningful projects well into the 21st Century. In 2014, he helped establish a memorial to Cuban priest and patriot Félix Varela at St. Augustine’s Tolomato Cemetery, creating a pilgrimage site for the Cuban diaspora. This past May he was interviewed for the Freedom Tower Centennial Oral History Project, and now is set to be interviewed for the FIU Maurice A. Ferré Institute for Civic Leadership’s Archival Video Series.
The Proclamation honoring Permuy was introduced by Miami Commissioner Damian Pardo and was the first in recent memory to be read in full during its presentation. It recognized Permuy as a “community leader whose steadfast service, moral integrity, and selfless dedication have earned him respect across political, cultural, and international spheres,” and celebrated his “transformative legacy in Miami and beyond.”
Mayor Francis Suarez then presented the Key to the City, adding Permuy to the slate of recent high-profile recipients in the final stretch of Suarez’s term, including Emilio Estefan, soccer star Ronaldinho, and gallerist Gary Nader.
In his remarks, Permuy spoke emotionally of his gratitude for being able to start and raise his family in this country, and also thanked the City of Miami for its early support of the Human Rights Center.
Having turned 90 on Aug. 30, Jesús Permuy has proved to be an enduring force in the civic and cultural life of Miami, and for freedom around the world.
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