He meets Abel Santamaría Cuadrado through Jesus Montané. Abel Santamaria would become the second in command during the actions of July 26th, 1953. This first meeting takes place at the Cemetery of Colon.
Chronology
He travels with Abel Santamaría and Jesús Montané to Matanzas province to unite and organize the revolutionaries in the area.
The newspaper El Acusador (The Accuser) publishes two articles by Fidel signed under the alias of Alejandro. The first article is entitled "I Accuse", denouncing Cubas situation and exposing Fulgencio Batista maneuvers. The other article, "Critical analysis Party of the Cuban People PPC Spanish Language acronym (Orthodox)", analyzes the events after the death of Eduardo Chibás, where the party leadership did not defend and adhered to the party lines.
He is arrested along with Abel Santamaría when they were traveling by car in El Vedado neighborhood, since the lice had a BOLO on Abel's car. As nothing suspicious is found, they are booked and then released. During those days, many young revolutionaries led by Fidel carried out military training in the Hall of the Martyrs of the University Students Federation and other locations at the University of Havana, under the instructions of Pedro Miret
- Fidel heads the youths called the Centenary Generation in a Torchlight March commemorating the 100th anniversary of the birth of the national hero of Cuba, José Martí; thousands of Cubans took part in the march, from the University of Havana stairs to the Fragua Martiana, the former San Lázaro Quarries, where Martí had been sentenced to forced labour as a political prisoner under the Spanish colonial rule.
The Moncadistas sentenced to prison leave from Santiago de Cuba to Isle of Pines Prison. Fidel remains in jail in Santiago awaiting trial.
- Fidel acts as his own defence in the trial he is made to stand by the dictatorship and he delivers his historic speech “History will absolve me”, in which he condemns the crimes committed against the attackers on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes Barracks, and the illegalities of the Batista regime, justifying the armed fight to overthrow it; he explains his political and revolutionary programme. He is condemned to 15 years in prison.
- He leaves from Santiago de Cuba to the Isle of Pines Penitentiary, where other moncadistas are also imprisoned.
- He sends a telegram to his father in which he says: "Today I leave for the Isle of Pines. I'm fine. Love. Fidel. "
- Fidel and Raúl send brief telegram to his mother in Birán: “We are O.K. Fidel and Raúl."
He writes a new letter to his parents trying to ease their minds about his and Raul’s conditions in prison.
- Struck by the indifference of the so-called leaders of the opposition to the crimes committed in the Moncada aftermath, while they are preparing another futile electoral contest, he wrote from prison a letter to Luis Conte Agüero, which would be circulated weeks later clandestinely denouncing the events under the title " Manifest to the Nation ".
- In one of its segments it reads: "Will there be less awareness of freedom today than there was at dawn on October 10, 1868? What is measured in the hour of the quest for freedom is not the number of enemy weapons, but the number of virtues possessed by a people".
- He writes a letter from prison in which he states: "For me the happiest moment of 1953, the happiest moment in my entire life, was the moment I rushed to combat, as it was the hardest when I had to face the tremendous adversity of defeat with its sequel to infamy, slander, ingratitude, disbelief and envy. "