On March 10, 1910, Pío Coronel informed his readers that he was abandoning his home in the western province of Pinar del Río and saddling up his horse to set out on an important journalistic and political assignment. The black press journalist noted that once he got wind of Cuban president José Miguel Gómez's plans to set off from the presidential palace on a political campaign across the island, he kissed his wife goodbye and took off in pursuit with little more than a pen and a shoulder bag. In the following weeks, Pío galloped hundreds of miles across the Cuban countryside, or, as he called it, the “ill-fated American Colony,” to report on how black communities from Havana to Guantánamo received President Gómez. In other words, Pío showcased Cuba's black public sphere, which despite its effervescent political and civic life was outside the purview of Cuba's mainstream reporters. As this article argues, it was also largely neglected by subsequent generations of historians.