“Yes, it has great significance,” said Ramón Colas, a black anti-Castro activist who sought political asylum in 2001 and now lives in Mississippi. “The Cuban revolution has historically been white, and seen from the outside as a revolution by white men, where black people were part of the crowd, spectators who were silent or applauded, but never participated.”

Mr. Colas said the election, a process in which Mr. Castro and the Communist Party had full control, showed that the former Cuban leader has “big ears” and was willing to listen to the outcry from black civic and arts organizations. But he noted it would be even more noteworthy if the three black people on the council used their positions to push for racial equality.

“Wouldn’t it be great if they used those positions to say, ‘As a black Cuban, I am against injustice against black people in Cuba?’ ” he said. “I doubt that they can do that. They are not allowed. Fidel declared that racism is a problem that ended.”

If anything, Raúl Castro’s move to shift high-ranking positions to black leaders was an acknowledgment that racism and discrimination had not, in fact, been solved by the revolution.

In his remarks on Thursday, Mr. Castro said the struggle to move beyond percentages continued.

“We still have the battle of proportions, not just in numerical aspects, but qualitative — in decision-making slots,” he said. “Three women were elected vice president of the Council of State, two of them black — not only for being black, but for their virtues and qualities.”

While inequality persists in the country, the Castro revolution did make important strides for black people.