Mimi Whitefield, Miami Herald
Cuba's Ladies in White, a dissident group whose goal is freedom for all Cuban political prisoners, will receive the Cato Institute's $250,000 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty Thursday at a dinner in New York.
The Damas de Blanco group was founded on March 18, 2003, after 75 Cuban dissidents were rounded up and imprisoned in a government crackdown that became known as the Black Spring. Their wives, mothers and other family members and friends, dressed in white and carrying gladiolas, began weekly marches along Havana's Fifth Avenue in support of the release of the prisoners.