Sixty-Five Years On, Brigade 2506 Opens a New Museum in Little Havana
What happened
On the sixty fifth anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Museo de la Brigada 2506 de Bahía de Cochinos opened in Miami's Little Havana at 1821 SW 9th Street. The new two story, 11,000 square foot building was constructed on the site that had housed the Brigade's headquarters since 1988, and was funded with a combination of state, county and city funds together with private support. Mother Jones reported a cost of more than $8 million after five years of planning.
The history the museum records
Approximately 1,500 Cuban exiles, backed by the Central Intelligence Agency, landed at the Bay of Pigs on April 17, 1961. The Miami Herald reports that 102 brigade members were killed. Roughly 1,200 were captured after running out of ammunition and spent about twenty months in captivity before their release was negotiated, with the Kennedy administration supplying $53 million worth of baby food and medicine. Approximately 200 veterans are living today, all of them over eighty.
The exhibits are organized chronologically: pre-1959 Cuba, the training in Central America, the landings, the battles, the capture, the trial, the imprisonment and the release. One exhibit records La Rastra de la Muerte, the trailer truck in which nine captured men died of asphyxiation. A wall carries enlarged portraits of the men killed in the invasion, lit at night. Another carries the photograph of the Brigade's flag being presented to President Kennedy at the Orange Bowl on December 29, 1962, reproduced at a scale that lets a visitor stand within the scene.
The Brigade's historian, Professor Victor Triay, compiled the interviews underlying the displays. Carmen Valdivia is the curator, Carlos Luis the museum president, and Dr. Yuleisy Mena the executive director. Eduardo Zayas-Bazán, who was among the first to land and who assumed the presidency of the Brigade 2506 Veterans Association that weekend, is on the museum board.
Why we are noting it
This firm has long maintained a section on Cuban legal and civic history, and this is the most significant addition to the physical record of that history in decades. The museum's stated purpose is educational. As its executive director put it, it is "a space built with the future in mind."
That purpose has a legal dimension our practice touches directly. The property confiscations that began in 1959 and 1960 are not only history. They are the subject of active litigation in the federal courts of this district, under a 1996 statute that the Supreme Court construed twice this year. The families in those cases and the men in this museum left the same island in the same years for the same reasons.
Sources
● Associated Press, Bay of Pigs veterans mark 65 years with a Miami museum reopening (April 15, 2026)
● Local 10, Bay of Pigs veterans open Miami museum marking failed 1961 invasion (April 18, 2026)
● Miami Herald editorial board, Miami honors Bay of Pigs veterans (April 13, 2023)
Disclaimer
This post discusses publicly reported legal developments for general informational purposes. It is not legal advice, it does not create an attorney client relationship, and it does not reflect the firm's position in any pending matter. Outcomes depend on the specific facts and the governing law of the relevant jurisdiction.