VERO BEACH –– Xi Van Fleet, who lived under the Chinese Communist Party and later escaped to the United States as a student at age 26, will speak in Vero Beach on April 23.
Van Fleet said she grew up during China’s Cultural Revolution, the decade-long upheaval that began in 1966 and ended in 1976 with the death of Mao Tse Tung (now spelled Mao Zedong). She said she was too young to join the Red Guards — the youth movement that carried out some of the most violent campaigns early in the revolution — but old enough to witness what she described as widespread destruction.
“The worst part” ran from 1966 to 1969, she said, when mobilized young people attacked those in authority and targeted elements of traditional Chinese culture…