New York, November 28 (RHC)-- Black Lives Matter, the U.S. anti-police brutality group, mourned the death of Cuban Revolution leader Fidel Castro as it issued a statement reflecting on his life and how the movement could learn from his struggle against imperialism.

“We are feeling many things as we awaken to a world without Fidel Castro.  There is an overwhelming sense of loss, complicated by fear and anxiety,” according to the statement by the group Black Lives Matter.

The group stressed that in their own struggle for freedom and justice, they will be using “the lessons that we take from Fidel” to realize their own goals.

“From Fidel, we know that revolution is sparked by an idea, by radical imaginings, which sometimes take root first among just a few dozen people coming together in the mountains.  It can be a tattered group of meager resources, like in the Sierra Maestro mountains in 1956 or St. Elmo Village in 2013.”

The Black Lives Matter movement was born out of a viral hashtag of the same name following a jury’s acquittal of George Zimmerman for the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin in the U.S. state of Florida.

It has since evolved into a movement against police killings of Black people particularly following the high-profile cases of Eric Garner, Michael Brown and Freddie Gray, winning support among progressive and leftist voices in the United States and abroad.

The group highlighted that Fidel succeeded in his revolution because he managed to win “the hearts and minds of the people,” while continually adopting and reshaping the struggle to fit with what the grassroots movement wanted.

“No single revolutionary ever wins or even begins the revolution. The revolution begins only when the whole is fully bought in and committed to it.  And it is never over.”

Another lesson the group is learning from the Cuban leader is how his revolution did not stop at the borders of Cuba.  “Revolution transcends borders; the freedom of oppressed people and people of color is all bound up together wherever we are,” Black Lives Matter said in their statement.

The group concluded with being thankful for Fidel for his support for Black movements and figures in the U.S. at a time when many in the world abandoned them.  “A final lesson is that to be a revolutionary, you must strive to live in integrity,” the group said.