It’s been nearly a year since the Cuba freedom protests took over the streets in cities all over the country, and now thousands are preparing to hit them once again to rally for the people of Cuba.

Those protests were the driving force behind Alian Collazo creating his nonprofit organization, Cuban Freedom March.

“What we’ve always advocated for from Cuban Freedom March is first, visibility and providing proper tools that can get the demands of the Cuban people out to the rest of the world,” he said. “This movement started last year, but the end for the regime has to come because we cannot have another 63 years of this type of suffering for an entire nation of people.”

Protests last year shut down Bay Area streets, as people held up Cuban flags and chanted messages of freedom. In Cuba, there were unprecedented protests on the streets, and since then, the momentum has died down, but Collazo said it’s far from over.

“I think that, you know, when things are on the news, everybody’s out, everybody’s active," he said. "But when they spring off of the news, sometimes people forget."

Spectrum News first met with Collazo in 2021, days before his first trip to Washington D.C., during which he worked to compel lawmakers to act. This year, he plans to do the same.

“What we’ve seen with Cuba is that there hasn’t been the follow up from neither republicans nor democrats on Capitol hill," he said. "And we want to remind them about discussions that we had last year."

Those discussions will detail the lack of access to basic needs like food, the extreme poverty and the inability to communicate beyond the island because of the spotty government-controlled internet.

“I have to compel them to care about the Cuba issue, and if I get one more person to care about the Cuba issue, then we’ve done our homework, we’ve done something more,” Collazo said.

It’s an argument that Collazo — who, as an 8-year-old boy, came to the U.S. on a boat with his mother — is prepared to make for his people. It’s also one he’s hoping others will join in on when they march in Washington on Saturday, beginning at 4 p.m.

Collazo said the Washington D.C. march will begin at the Washington Monument and participants will then travel to the Lincoln Memorial. A vigil will follow the march that will take place at the Cuban Embassy from 7-8 p.m.

While the actual date is July 11, Cubans in Tampa Bay plan to mark the anniversary of the 2021 protests on Sunday at the corner of North Dale Mabry and West Columbus Drive starting at 3 p.m. La Casa Cuba de Tampa is hosting the event.

Organizers of the Sunday rally said they planned the rally for that day to accommodate those who work on Mondays.