The Young Lords, later Young Lords Organization and in New York (notably Spanish Harlem), Young Lords Party, was a Puerto Rican Hispanic nationalist group in several United States cities, notably New York City and Chicago. 125th Street between Park Avenue and Madison Avenue Spanish Harlem, also known as El Barrio, is a neighborhood in the East Harlem area of New York City, in the north-eastern part of the borough of Manhattan. ... Flag of Hispanic Heritage. ... New York, New York and NYC redirect here. ... Nickname: Motto: Urbs in Horto (Latin: City in a Garden), I Will Location in the Chicago metro area and Illinois Coordinates: , Country State Counties Cook, DuPage Settled 1770s Incorporated March 4, 1837 Government  - Mayor Richard M. Daley (D) Area  - City 234. ...

Founding

The Young Lords began as a Chicago turf gang in the 1960s in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. When they realized that urban renewal was evicting their families and saw police abuses, they also became involved in the Division Street Riots in June 1966. For other uses, see Gang (disambiguation). ... This article, image, template or category should belong in one or more categories. ...

While incarcerated, the President and one of 7 founding gang members, Jose ("Cha-Cha") Jimenez began to read everything from Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X to Lenin and Mao. In September 1968, Jimenez reorganized the now defunct gang into a political human rights movement. Jimenez was then approached by Illinois Black Panther Party chairman Fred Hampton, who was still officially underground organizing and founding the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party. The meeting took place in January 1969, right after the Young Lords took over the Chicago Avenue Police Station's Workshop Meeting. Jose Jimenez was a fictional character created and performed by comedian Bill Dana on the Steve Allen Show in 1959 and who became increasingly popular during the 1960s. ... Martin Luther King redirects here. ... Malcolm X, born Malcolm Little, also known as Detroit Red and Al-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Omaha, Nebraska, May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965 in New York City) was a Muslim Minister and National Spokesman for the Nation of Islam. ... Vladimir Ilyich Lenin ( Russian: Влади́мир Ильи́ч Ле́нин  listen?), original surname Ulyanov (Улья́нов) ( April 22 (April 10 ( O.S.)), 1870 – January 21, 1924), was a... Mao could refer to: Mao Zedong, (Mao Tse-Tung in Wade-Giles) leader of the Communist Party of China from 1935 to 1976. ... The Black Panther Party (originally called the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was an African American organization founded to promote civil rights and self-defense. ... Fred Hampton Fred Hampton (August 30, 1948 – December 4, 1969) was an American activist and deputy chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP). ...

Soon after, the Young Lords were restructured into ministries in an attempt to build better organization and a Puerto Rican equivalent of the Black Panthers; which became the Young Lords Organization (YLO).Later in July,1969,the New York regional chapter became independent from the national headquarters,in Chicago,and became known as the Young Lords Party.The Young Lords Party in New York,led by Gloria Gonzalez,soon became the Puerto Rican Revolutionary Workers Party, after only a few months of its existence.

On June 7, 1969, the Black Panther newspaper announced an alliance in Chicago called the Rainbow Coalition (no relation to the later organization of that name associated with Jesse Jackson). is the 158th day of the year (159th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Also: 1969 (number) 1969 (movie) 1969 (Stargate SG-1) episode. ... Rainbow Coalition may refer to any of the following groups: The ruling Kenyan political party National Rainbow Coalition The second coalition of the Government of the 27th Dáil in Ireland. ... The Rev. ... Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. ...

Besides the Black Panthers, and what was then the Young Lords Organization, the alliance also included the Young Patriots Organization, an organization of poor white youths that had turned political. The Coalition sent representatives to the annual convention of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which was spliting apart as a national student organization. After asking for permission from national headquarters in Chicago, the New York chapter of the Young Lords Organization was officially founded on July 26, 1969.Founding members included Juan Gonzalez (now, in 2006, a New York Daily News columnist), Felipe Luciano (now a TV news reporter, poet, and radio personality), Denise Oliver-Velez,"Fi" Ortiz,David Perez,Pablo(Yoruba)Guzman and Iris Morales.Felipe Luciano served as the organization's first chair. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... SDS logo The Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was, historically, a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations of the countrys New Left. ... is the 207th day of the year (208th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Also: 1969 (number) 1969 (movie) 1969 (Stargate SG-1) episode. ... Juan Gonzalez is an American investigative journalist. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Felipe Luciano (b. ...

The Young Lords movement focused most of their activity around self-determination for Puerto Rico and local community issues such as gentrification, health, and Police Injustice. Gentrification became a primary focus early in Chicago,because Mayor Daley's patronage machine was ruthless and the entire Puerto Rican community of that city was being evicted from the downtown and lakefront areas. The Young Lords People's movement also used direct action, political education, and "survival programs" to bring their concerns to mainstream public attention. Self-determination is a principle in international law that a people ought to be able to determine their own governmental forms and structure free from outside influence. ... For the Canadian urban guerrilla group Direct Action, see Squamish Five. ...

Expansion

After the founding of the second chapter in New York, subsequent branches were also organized in Philadelphia, Connecticut, New Jersey, Boston, Milwaukee, Hayward, California, San Diego, Los Angeles, and Puerto Rico. The Young Lords set up many community projects similar to those of the Black Panthers but with a Latino flavor, such as the free breakfast program for children,Emeterio Betances free health clinic, community testing for tuberculosis and lead poisoning, free clothing drives, cultural events and Puerto Rican history classes.In Chicago,they set up a free day care center.There was also work on prison solidarity for incarcerated Puerto Ricans and for the rights of Vietnam War veterans.The female leadership in New York pushed the Young Lords to fight for women's rights.In Chicago,it was a sub-group within the Young Lords led by Hilda Ignatin,Judy Cordero and Angela Adorno called Mothers And Others that organized around women's rights and helped to educate the male members and the community at large. For other uses, see Philadelphia (disambiguation) and Philly. ... Official language(s) English Capital Hartford Largest city Bridgeport[3] Largest metro area Hartford Metro Area[2] Area  Ranked 48th  - Total 5,543[4] sq mi (14,356 km²)  - Width 70 miles (113 km)  - Length 110 miles (177 km)  - % water 12. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ... Nickname: City on the Hill, Beantown, The Hub (of the Universe)1, Athens of America, The Cradle of Revolution, Puritan City, Americas Walking City Location in Massachusetts, USA Counties Suffolk County Mayor Thomas M. Menino(D) Area    - City 232. ... This article is about Milwaukee in Wisconsin. ... Hayward is a city located in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area in Alameda County. ... Flag Seal Nickname: Americas Finest City Location Location of San Diego within San Diego County Coordinates , Government County San Diego Mayor City Attorney         City Council District One District Two District Three District Four District Five District Six District Seven District Eight Jerry Sanders (R) Michael Aguirre Scott Peters Kevin... Flag Seal Nickname: City of Angels Location Location within Los Angeles County in the state of California Coordinates , Government State County California Los Angeles County Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) Geographical characteristics Area     City 1,290. ... Combatants Republic of Vietnam United States Republic of Korea Thailand Australia New Zealand The Philippines National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam Democratic Republic of Vietnam People’s Republic of China Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea Strength US 1,000,000 South Korea 300,000 Australia 48,000...

Their newspapers, The Young Lord, Pitirre, and Palante (a contraction of "Para adelante", "Forward"), reported on their increasingly militant activities. The Young Lords carried out many direct action occupations of vacant land, hospitals, churches and other institutions to demand that they operate programs for the poor. This included a campaign to force the City of New York to increase garbage pick-up in Spanish Harlem.In Chicago,the seven dayMcCormick Theological Seminary take-over, won the Lincoln Park residents $650,000 to be used for low income housing.The four month People's Park camp out/take over, at Halsted and Armitage Ave. by 350 community residents, prevented the construction of a for profit tennis court, where low income persons once lived. In New York, much of their health care activism was carried out by a mass organization they formed with the Black Panthers known as the Health Revolutionary Unity Movement (HRUM).While,in Chicago,the Young Lords health program was coordinated by Dr.Jack Johns,Dr.Quentin Young,Ana Lucas,and Alberto and Marta Chavarria whom also worked with a Black Panther led coalition to recruit medical student organizations, and to advocate for health care for the poor. 125th Street between Park Avenue and Madison Avenue Spanish Harlem, also known as El Barrio, is a neighborhood in the East Harlem area of New York City, in the north-eastern part of the borough of Manhattan. ... McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago educates ministers of the Presbyterian Church USA. After serving as pastoral intern at Edgewater Presbyterian Church, Mamie Broadhurst receives her Master of Divinity degree on May 7, 2005. ...

Besides the Black Panthers, the Young Lords were also influenced by groups such as the Chicano Brown Berets, Crusade for Justice, Black Berets, Rising Up Angry, SDS, M.P.I., Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, P.I.P., the Communist Party USA, the East Asian-American Red Guards, Damas y Caballeros de San Juan,as well as many local community activists. As for the Puerto Rican island, the Young Lords began organizing conferences and marches calling for Puerto Rican independence, which was always related back to their natural operating bases and the gentrification that they were fighting within it, in the streets of Lincoln Park, Chicago, Manhattan and other cities. For other uses, see Chicano (disambiguation). ... The Brown Berets were a Chicano nationalist activist group of young Mexican Americans during the Chicano Movement. ... The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party was first organized on September 17, 1922. ... The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) is a Marxist-Leninist political party in the United States. ... Red Guards refer to socialist or communist militia formed to instigate, support, or defend communist revolutions. ... In San Francisco, during the mid-1960s, the bohemian center of the city shifted from the old Beat enclave of North Beach to Haight-Ashbury (pictured) as a response to gentrification. ... Lincoln Park, also designated as Community Area 7, is one of the northside Chicago community areas that divide Chicago, Illinois in the United States. ... For other uses, see Manhattan (disambiguation). ...

The Young Lords grew into a national movement, through the leadership of activists like Angela Adorno who met with Vietnamese women, Omar Lopez (currently involved nationally with immigrant rights), and Richie Perez who established the Puerto Rican Student Union (PRSU) in a number of college campuses and high schools. They also became one of the leading targets of the FBI's COINTELPRO, which had long harassed Puerto Rican groups.^[1] The founder and Chairman, Jose(Cha-Cha) Jimenez was indicted 18 times in a six week period ranging from assaults and battery on police to mob actions. He was kept in the county jail, or in court rooms fighting the charges,and lived with constant death threats. While the Young Lords advocated similar armed strategies to those advocated by the Black Panthers, it was as a right of self defense that rarely arose, as it did after the shooting of Manuel Ramos,the supposed suicide of Julio Roldan in the custody of the NYPD and the fatal stabbings in Chicago of the Methodist, Rev.Bruce Johnson and his wife Eugenia who pastored the Lincoln Park Community,at the Young Lord's first People's Church. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a federal criminal investigative, intelligence agency, and the primary investigative arm of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). ... COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) was a program of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at investigating and disrupting dissident political organizations within the United States. ... Manuel Ramos, an attorney who also has taught Chicano literature courses at Metropolitan State College of Denver, is the author of several crime fiction novels. ... The New York City Police Department (NYPD) , the largest police department in the United States, has primary responsibility for law enforcement and investigation within the five boroughs of New York City. ...

Decline and Aftermath

By 1973, the Young Lords had been crippled and had all but been destroyed by the FBI's discreditations and divide and conquer tactics.Still many Young Lords continued to pursue their vision for self determination for Puerto Rico and other nations,as well as neighborhood empowerment. In Chicago, the Young Lords resurfaced after two and a half years of being forced underground by repression from groups like the Gang Intelligiance Unit,the Red Squad and Cointelpro.Jimenez,also turned himself in to police on December 4th 1972,exactly 3 years after the infamous police raid that killed Fred Hampton of the Black Panther Party.He began serving a one year sentence,but not before helping to run an underground training school for Young Lords leadership.Immediately after his release from jail,the Young Lords ran the 1975 aldermanic campaign for Cha-Cha Jimenez which garnered 39% of the vote against Mayor Richard J. Daley's machine candidate. The campaign followed the Bobby Seale Panther example and was viewed only as an organizing vehicle,to bring out the urban renewal displacement concerns of the community. After the aldermanic campaign,Cha-Cha Jimenez was incarcerated again for another nine months awaiting trial,on an alleged hostage charge,to show support for the F.A.L.N. The Young Lords, then in 1982,became the first Latino group to join and organize a major event for the successsful mayoral campaign of Harold Washington.Right after Harold Washington won,Cha-Cha Jimenez introduced the new mayor before a June,1983 crowd of 100,000 Puerto Ricans in Humboldt Park.That day the Young Lords gave out 30,000 buttons with "Tengo Puerto Rico En Mi Corazon" inscribed on them,until they ran out of buttons.In the fall,1995, Young Lords' Tony Baez,Carlos Flores,Angel Del Rivero,Omar Lopez and Angie Adorno were brought together again by Cha-Cha Jimenez,to form the Lincoln Park Project.They began to archive Young Lords history and to document the displaced Latinos and poor of The Lincoln Park.To show support for the Puerto Rican Vieques campers within the continental U.S.;and to continue the struggle for Puerto Rican Independence and the fight against displacement of Puerto Ricans and other poor within the Diaspora; the National Young Lords offices organized Lincoln Park Camp on September 23, 2002. Richard Joseph Daley (May 15, 1902 – December 20, 1976) was the longest-serving mayor of Chicago. ... In this 1899 cartoon from Puck, all of New York City politics revolves around boss Richard Croker A political machine is an unofficial system of a political organization based on patronage, the spoils system, behind-the-scenes control, and longstanding political ties within the structure of a representative democracy. ... Bobby Seale Bobby Seale (born October 22, 1936) is an American civil rights activist, who along with Dr. Huey P. Newton co-founded the Black Panther Party For Self Defense in 1966. ... Harold Washington (April 15, 1922 – November 25, 1987) was an American lawyer and politician who became the first African American Mayor of Chicago, serving from 1983 until his death. ... Boricua Humboldt Park is located on the northwest side of Chicago. ... Vieques is an island-municipality of Puerto Rico. ... Lincoln Park Lincoln Park is a 1,200 acre (4. ... is the 266th day of the year (267th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Also see: 2002 (number). ...

Many Young Lords showed support for the freed Puerto Rican nationalist leaders and urban guerrilla groups like the Macheteros; others moved on to more explicitly Maoist formations like the Puerto Rican Revolutionary Workers Party, and others went on to provide the leadership of the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights (NCPRR). Some became media personalities,such as Juan Gonzalez of the New York Daily News and Democracy Now!, Pablo "Yoruba" Guzman at WCBS-TV New York, Felipe Luciano,Miguel "Mickey" Melendez of WBAI-FM New York and Geraldo Rivera. The documentary PALANTE, SIEMPRE PALANTE! The Young Lords, was produced by Young Lord, Iris Morales, aired on PBS in 1996.A play-El Bloque(The Block)by Jacqueline Lazu, about the initial transformation of the Young Lords gang in Lincoln Park,Chicago into a national human rights movement,premiered in Chicago at De Paul University on April 20,2007. It depicts times of joy and sadness as a Ma and Pa grocery store owner chased fruit thefting Young Lords and the Methodist supporter,Rev.Bruce Johnson and his wife Eugenia were being murdered in their home.The next venue for the play is hoped to be in New York City soon, if enough funding is raised from interested parties. The Boricua Popular Army —or Ejército Popular Boricua in Spanish— is a clandestine political organization based on the island of Puerto Rico, with cells throughout the United States. ... Maoism or Mao Zedong Thought (Chinese: 毛澤東思想, pinyin: Máo Zédōng Sīxiǎng), also called Marxism-Leninism–Mao Zedong Thought or Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (MLM), is a variant of communism derived from the teachings of Mao Zedong (1893&#8211... Emmy winning reporter Pablo Guzmán is a reporter fror WCBS-TV in New York. ... Felipe Luciano (b. ... WBAI, a part of the Pacifica Radio Network, is a non-commercial, listener-supported radio station, broadcasting at 99. ...

See also

• Puerto Rican Independence Party

The Puerto Rican Independence Party (Spanish: Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño, PIP) is a Puerto Rican political party that campaigns for the independence of Puerto Rico from the United States. ...

Further reading

• Miguel "Mickey" Melendez, We Took the Streets: Fighting for Latino Rights with the Young Lords, St. Martin's Press, 2003. ISBN 0-312-26701-0.
  • Donna Hernandez review online

References

1. ^ Origins of the Young Lords, nationalyounglords.com

External links

• Young Lords origins, brief notes on origins of the Young Lords
• Young Lords Internet Resource, comprehensive collection of links for further research and documents for download
• Latino/a Education Network Service, excellent history and explanation of the Young Lords with lots of links and access to a book and documentary about the Young Lords
  • The documentary PALANTE, SIEMPRE PALANTE! The Young Lords
• ¡Palante, Siempre Palante!, an extensive site about the Young Lords
• Young Lords Party 13-Point Program and Platform (original version)
• E-text has numerous articles related to the Young Lords
• "The Young Lords and Early Chicago Puerto Rican Gangs" attempts to place the Young Lords in the context of ethnic Puerto Rican history and youth-gang history.
• http://www.nationalyounglords.com
• Puerto Rican Nationalist
• Young Lords video