Many different resistance struggles grew from the fertile ground of the 1960’s. The need for change and systematic reckoning led to the development of numerous action groups rallying around and against causes like the Vietnam War, women’s liberation, civil rights, and more. However, one truly astonishing story of these liberation struggles is that of the Young Lords Organization (YLO), a civil and human rights association for the liberation and self-determination of Puerto Rican and Latinx people stateside and on the island. The Lords were young, they were intersectional, and they were fired up about the issues impacting their communities– racism, systemic poverty, violence, and fractured communities. So, they made a change.
The Lords have their roots in a Chicago turf gang, but were officially formed in 1968 under the leadership of Jose Cha Cha Jiminez. Chapters of the organization began to crop up all over the country, with a particularly prominent and engaged group in New York City. This group later broke away from the Chicago chapter, prefering to be called the Young Lords Party rather than Organization. These groups led not only resistance actions, but made community safety and improvement a priority. The YLO served free breakfasts to children, started free clinics, tested for tuberculosis and lead water, and cleaned up garbage– all with liberation in mind. They also had numerous publications, the most prominent being Palante, which we had the privilege of checking out during class. They were a Marxist organization, and believed in the principles of communism and socialism, with capitalism being the oppressor of POC worldwide.
An issue of Palante.
Some of the groups’ many actions included garbage protests, or “Garbage Offensives”. When city sanitation departments failed diasporican communities, they first cleaned up themselves– however, growing tired of this, groups in New York dragged the garbage into the street and set it on fire, so that something had to be done. In 1977, the Lords took over the Statue of Liberty, ejecting tourists and hanging the PR flag from her pedestal. They also fought for land rights, against the use of forced sterilization and birth control on Puerto Rican peoples, and aligned themselves with the Black Panthers in the fight against racism.
The principles of the YLO can be summed up rather succinctly with their thirteen point program, thought to be modeled after the Black Panther’s ten point program. These are as follows-
- We want self-determination for Puerto Ricans—Liberation on the island and inside the United States.
- We want self-determination for all Latinos.
- We want liberation for all third world people.
- We are revolutionary nationalists and oppose racism.
- We want community control of our institutions and land.
- We want true education of our creole culture.
- We oppose capitalists and alliances with traitors.
- We oppose the amerikkkan military.
- We want freedom for all political prisoners.
- We want equality for women. Machismo must be revolutionary … not oppressive.
- We fight anti-Communism with international unity.
- We believe armed self-defense and armed struggle are the only means to liberation.
- We want a socialist society.
Some of these points were later modified to be more inclusive, especially with regards to women. Intersectionality was an ever-evolving discourse for the party, while turmoil brewed over traditional senses of machismo and notions of race were constantly changing. The Lords recognized the “Third-World Woman” as the most oppressed of any group, that they were “the revolution within the revolution.” In this respect, though there was a lot of revolutionary machismo within the movement, it seemed to have been recognized and called out pretty quickly. Denise Oliver-Velez, who taught at New Paltz for a time, was actually a Young Lord!
Denise!
Lady Lords. However, in Dylan’s and my own research, one thing we struggled to find was information about queer people in the movement. We were only able to find information about one gay activist within the Young Lords, the legendary Sylvia Rivera.
(Legend)
Dylan and I chose to present on this subject because their interest was really piqued featuring our class presentation on Puerto Rican nationalism and Lolita Lebron, and I was happy to study it further as well. We can learn so much from looking into the motives and actions of the Lords, from revolutionary tactics to how to care for our communities. Puerto Ricans/Boricuas/other Latinx and POC folks continue to be oppressed today, and racism will likely always be a problem; however, liberation groups like the Young Lords show us how to combat these forces and spur change. By studying the actions of the Lords, we can learn how to better our own communities and discourses.
our slideshow: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1j-6mMI-g_iY5RG4pp3PZ18h-Rx3cYCJTY8z1FhtKG0A/edit?ts=5cbf179e#slide=id.p
https://libcom.org/library/palante-brief-history-young-lords>
https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/the-young-lords-legacy-of-puerto-rican-activism/
http://younglordsproject.com/?p=29
