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Berta Barreto de los Heros was born in Camaguey, Cuba, in 1914. She was most prominently known for her role as the Coordinator of the Cuban Families Committee for the Liberation of the Bay of Pigs Prisoners of War, Inc. She was married to Dr. Guy Pérez Cisneros Bonnel, Cuban diplomat, professor, and art critic, from 1937 until their divorce in 1943. She and Pérez Cisneros had three children: Guy, Francisco, and Pablo. Barreto de los Heros’ son, Pablo Pérez-Cisneros, finished and published Barreto de los Heros’ book, After the Bay of Pigs: Lives and Liberty on the Line, in 2007, which was sold exclusively by the popular Miami pharmacy, Navarro.

In a 2012 article her son, Pablo, writes: “My mother, who lived in Havana at the time, became involved because my late brother was among the captured fighters. She was instrumental in initiating negotiations with Castro and inviting the Miami committee members to meet with the new Cuban leader at her home on the island — with the promise that millions would be paid for the men.”

Working from her home in Havana, Cuba, Barreto de los Heros was instrumental in negotiating, along with American attorney James B. Donovan, Milan C. Miskovsky of the CIA, and others, the release of 1,113 political prisoners in exchange for food and medicine given to the Cuban government. Her son from her first marriage, Alberto Oms Barreto, was one of the 1,400 men who participated in the failed Bays of Pigs invasion and also one of the 1,200 captured. It was reported that the Cuban Families Committee knew Barreto de los Heros well and asked her to take charge of the committee and to meet with Castro through his secretary, Conchita Fernández. On April 10, 1962, Barreto de los Heros met with Castro in her home, and shortly after, the first group of prisoners consisting of 60 wounded and sick men were released and flown back to Miami. It is said that Attorney Donovan set up a secret code for her to use since her phone was being tapped. After days of tense negotiations involving many lawyers, private American companies, and the Red Cross, two days before Christmas of 1962, 484 prisoners were released back to Miami and the remaining 719 prisoners returned the next day, on Christmas Eve. Barreto de los Heros left Cuba for Miami on one of the last planes out. It is reported that she refused to shake Castro’s extended hand, and he remarked: "Pride has the face of a woman."

After her arrival in Miami, she continued to devote herself to service to others, including serving on the Hispanic Committee of Dade County Mental Health Association and helping to achieve community construction projects. One of the fellow committee members recalls that Barreto de los Heros arranged a productive interview with then mayor of Miami, Xavier Suarez. Her daughter-in-law also mentions Barreto de los Heros’ efforts to help the elderly vote by absentee ballot to make sure they could exercise their right to vote.

Barreto de los Heros died in 1993. "She cared and made an effort to get us out of the quagmire. She gave us our great freedom," said Modesto Castaner, former president of Brigade 2506. "It is a pain for the brigade members that will be in our hearts."

Esmond Grenard Barnhill was a photographer active during the early 1900s. Born March 4, 1894 in Saludi, North Carolina, he became interested in photography at an early age and established his own business in St. Petersburg at age 19. Barnhill specialized in publishing postcards, greeting cards and pictorial photography from 1914 to 1932. Many of these were designed by using "goldtoning," a method of dyeing photos using uranium dyes. Barnhill passed away in 1987. Barnhill was particularly famous for his hand-colored photographs and paintings that depict the old Florida landscape.

Very little is known of Mr. Barnette and even less is known with certainty. Robert E. McNicoll, Ph.D, former professor of Hispanic-American History at the University of Miami wrote the forewords for the two book-length manuscripts in this collection. Dr. McNicoll believes that Mr. Barnette lived in Miami, Florida for a period of about one year prior to World War II.

Germane Barnes’ research and design practice investigates the connection between architecture and identity. Mining architecture’s social and political agency, he examines how the built environment influences black domesticity. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor and Director of the Community Housing Identity Lab (CHIL) at the University Of Miami School Of Architecture. He is the 2021 Harvard GSD Wheelwright Prize winner, Rome Prize Fellow and winner of the Architectural League Prize. His design and research contributions have been published and exhibited in several international institutions. Most notably, The Museum of Modern Art, Pin-Up Magazine, The Graham Foundation, The New York Times, Architect Magazine, DesignMIAMI/ Art Basel, The Swiss Institute, Metropolis Magazine, Curbed, and The National Museum of African American History where he was identified as one of the future designers on the rise.

Art critic and historian, Virgil Barker was born in Abingdon, Virginia in 1889. He attended the Bordentown Military Institute, Harvard University and the Corcoran School of Art. Barker began his professional career in 1919, serving as special assistant for the biennial exhibitions at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington D.C. At the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, he held the position of Curator of Paintings, and in 1920, he became director of the Kansas City Art Institute. Following this period of museum work, Barker began writing art history and criticism. He joined the Editorial Board of the Arts, serving as associate editor and later as contributing editor. Working as an art critic in New York during the 1920s, Barker "came to know well many of the many important American painters who gravitated toward Alfred Stieglitz and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and whose works dominated American painting between the two wars."

During 1925-26, Barker acted as foreign editor, travelling through Europe to cover exhibitions. The Arts, which ceased publication in the late 1930s, remains a significant record of the art and art criticism of this period. In 1931, Barker joined the University of Miami as a professor of art. Praised as a great scholar and superb lecturer, he became a popular teacher. Barker remained at the University for twenty-eight years and promoted the visual arts in greater Miami and the University. Barker wrote several reviews for the Miami Herald as well an article on the art of Vizcaya. In addition to teaching, he served as a trustee at the University of Miami and played an instrumental role in the establishment of the Lowe Art Gallery, serving as its first director in 1950. In 1951 the University recognized Barker's scholarship awarding him the honorary Doctor of Letters degree. Barker's reputation as a scholar and teacher also led to his appointment by the Carnegie Foundation to an American Studies committee in 1956. Barker's responsibilities included selecting slides and writing text on colonial American painting for art history courses.

Barker also contributed to the knowledge and interpretation of American art through his writings. Barker served on the editorial boards of The Arts and The Art Bulletin, Art and Archaeology, The Magazine of Art, and Art in America. He contributed articles and reviews to Art in America, The Magazine of Art, The Yale Review, Saturday Review, and other magazines. Barker's first book Pieter Bruegel, the Elder, published in 1926, was the first work on Bruegel written in English. In 1931 Barker published a monograph on Henry Lee McFee as well as A Critical Introduction to American Painting.

Barker travelled throughout the United States for ten years, surveying paintings in museums and private homes for his next book, American Painting: History and Interpretation, published in 1950. The work, which presents American painting within its historical context and includes original interpretations, received favorable reviews. Author, critic, and museum director Lloyd Goodrich described the work as "...the best history of American painting so far written...it will be the definitive work in its field for a long time to come."

Barker's final work, From Realism to Reality in Recent American Painting (1959) contains a series of Barker's lectures. He also wrote numerous biographies of American painters for the Dictionary of American Biography, and Arts of the United States, as well as articles on Colonial American painting and John Singleton Copley for the Encyclopedia of World Art. Barker was a member of the College Art Association, and Association Internationale D'Art. The University of Miami Lowe Art Museum organized the Virgil Barker Memorial Collection of American Paintings following Barker's death in 1965, and numerous friends and colleagues donated to the collection.