Influential Puerto Rican Activist Group the Young Lords Marks 4. Anniversary. Guests. Juan Gonz! He served as the group’s first Minister of Education. Luis Garden Acostaformer member of the Young Lords. He is the founder, president and CEO of El Puente, a community human rights institution in Brooklyn, New York. Mickey Melendezformer member of the Young Lords and author of the book We Took the Streets: Fighting for Latino Rights with the Young Lords. This is viewer supported news. Donate. This weekend marks the fortieth anniversary of the founding of the revolutionary community organizing group the Young Lords. The group called for self- determination for all Puerto Ricans, community control of institutions and land, freedom for all political prisoners and the withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam, Puerto Rico and other areas. The Young Lords would also play a pivotal role in spreading awareness of Puerto Rican culture and history, leaving a legacy still felt today. We play excerpts of the documentary Palante, Siempre Palante!: The Young Lords and speak to three of the group’s original members: Luis Garden Acosta, Mickey Melendez, and Democracy Now! Copy may not be in its final form. Young Lords Party 13-Point Program and Platform. We want equality for women. AMYGOODMAN: The year was 1. Woodstock and the Apollo 1. It was also the year when a group of young Puerto Rican activists formed the New York chapter of the Young Lords Organization. The Young Lords were a revolutionary group modeled on the Black Panther Party. In late July 1. 96.
Point 5 of the YOUNG LORDS PARTY 13-Point Program and Platform states “We want community control of. From: The Young Lords. In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content. The New York Chapter In June 7, 1969, the Black Panther. The New York Young Lords. Responding to oppressive approaches to the health. The Young Lords advanced a thirteen-point political program that demanded community control of their institutions. The most comprehensive Internet resource on the New York Young Lords. This site makes available to students, activists, and researchers a wide array of resources on the Young Lords' operations in New York from 1969-1972. The Young Lords: Its Origins and Convergences with the Black Panther Party. Young Lords was one of numerous inner-city gangs. At a certain point, after the Young Lords had developed and we were beginning to become known, Pablo started saying, “We need a program.”. The Young Lords and the Health Revolutionary Unity Movement. City of New York to increase garbage pick- up in East Harlem. The Young Lords would go on to inspire activists around the country as they occupied churches and hospitals in an attempt to open the spaces to community projects. JUANGONZALEZ: The group called for self- determination for all Puerto Ricans; for independence for the island of Puerto Rico; community control of institutions and land; freedom for all political prisoners; and the withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam, Puerto Rico and other areas. The Young Lords would also play a pivotal role in spreading awareness of Puerto Rican culture and history. While the group disintegrated in the mid- 1. AMYGOODMAN: Well, this Sunday, members of the Young Lords are planning to come together to mark the fortieth anniversary of the group’s founding. The event will take place at the First Spanish Methodist Church in East Harlem, the same church on East 1. Street that the group took over in late 1. The occupation ended in January 1. Young Lords. Attendees on Sunday will include Democracy Now! We’ll speak with Juan and two other former members of the Young Lords in a few minutes, but first we want to turn to excerpts of a documentary called . MICKEYMELENDEZ: I was one of the original five or six people in New York City that started the Sociedad de Albizu Campos, that eventually became the Young Lords organization and then the Young Lords Party. JUANGONZALEZ: The Sociedad had been meeting since the winter of ’6. Puerto Ricans. DENISEOLIVER: Around about that time, the Panthers were in existence in New York, and we were all reading The Black Panther paper. We were sort of fascinated with what they were doing. In that issue of the Panther paper was a very interesting article about this group of Puerto Ricans in Chicago, the Young Lords. PATRICIARODRIGUEZ: The Chicago Young Lords pressured institutions to respond to concerns of the surrounding Latino community. Led by Cha Cha Jimenez, they occupied a local church in the fall of 1. CHACHAJIMENEZ: We’re starting opening up a daycare center for welfare mothers, mothers that are on welfare that want to work, or just mothers whether they’re on welfare or not and want to work, you know, something like that. So we take care of the children. We go out — we’re planning to go out in the morning and pick them up, you know, because of the wintertime, the snow and that, and take them back. PATRICIARODRIGUEZ: In New York, young Latinos were inspired by the Chicago Young Lords. DENISEOLIVER: And a decision was made by some of the guys to hop in a car and drive to Chicago and go and meet Cha Cha. And when they got back from Chicago, they were very excited. They were very impressed with him. And they had made an agreement to start an East Coast branch of the Young Lords organization at that time. PATRICIARODRIGUEZ: The organization followed a military structure. JUANGONZALEZ: We then chose a central committee of five people, which at that time was Felipe Luciano was Chairman, Pablo Guzman as the Minister of Information, myself as the Minister of Education, David Perez as the Minister of Defense, and Juan Fi Ortiz as the Minister of Finance. To me, the most amazing thing about everything that happened afterwards is that a group of young people, young Puerto Ricans, could have the kind of impact and effect the kind of changes that were done in the city, I think, speaks, one, to the tremendous potential that any young people have, once they decide to do something. At a certain point, after the Young Lords had developed and we were beginning to become known, Pablo started saying, “We need a program.” PABLOGUZMAN: We needed to have something that we could constantly refer to, a point of reference, not only for the people out there that we were organizing around, but for ourselves. PATRICIARODRIGUEZ: The thirteen- point program was written. It called for self- determination, an end to racism, community control of institutions, armed self- defense, and a socialist society. The Young Lords expanded their activities to provide free breakfast programs and free clothing drives. Through serve- the- people programs, they developed a strong relationship with the community. PABLOGUZMAN: We went very innocently looking for space for our breakfast programs and some of our other programs that were beginning to expand, and we needed more space. And there was this building that was empty pretty much most of the time in El Barrio, and we just went knocking on the door, saying, “Excuse me. I mean” — and we figured it’s a church, you know, and they’re going to, you know, greet us with open arms. Felipe found out that there was a Sunday coming up that was a testimonial Sunday. And knowing how this worked in these churches, in Protestant churches, he knew that anybody could get up and testify. FELIPELUCIANO: When I stood up to speak and asked them why they refused, I went to the front of the altar. I remember women trying to hit me with candelabras. One guy, who we now know was an agent, pulled the plug off the organ. I remember I was slipping on my own blood. Thirteen of us, I think, were arrested, handcuffed and thrown into police cars. The police don’t know this, but at that point we already knew that we had won. We literally kidnapped the church. FELIPELUCIANO: Now, we want to make it very clear once again why the Young Lords have occupied the church. One, the First Spanish Methodist Church is empty six days a week. Two, it has the largest space available for community service programs. Let it be understood that we never asked — and these are the myths that must be destroyed right now — we never asked to take over the institution. We never asked to control the church. We only asked for cooperation in terms of running a breakfast program for needy children. We’d like to make it very clear, however, that this is going to happen to any institution in any oppressed community that does not respond to the needs of the people. CROWD: Right on! PATRICIARODRIGUEZ: In New York, the Young Lords continued to grow and directed their efforts to community health issues. They launched a lead poisoning detection program. DENISEOLIVER: Ultimately, we found out that about a third of the children in East Harlem had high levels. And as a result of this program, legislation was passed here in New York City banning the use of lead- based paints in tenements and in apartment buildings, and also a law was put into effect that landlords would have to go back and take that lead paint out of the apartments, which has not been followed up on. MICKEYMELENDEZ: We had been doing TB testing throughout the community, in the projects, in housing and in apartments. And what we found out was that there was a high percentage of people testing positive. The city at the time had this TB truck that it would park in very obscure places, and maybe they would see twenty, thirty, forty people a day. We got into negotiations with the city, of saying, “Why park it there? We’ll get the people that have tested positive the week before,” because we would go out every Saturday and do the TB testing. They wanted to park the car — the truck where they had been parking it, and they were ready to budge from that. We took over the TB truck. MINERVASOLLA: And we brought it into the community, because they were not servicing the committee at that time. They were servicing other areas in the city. The technicians stayed there and were very pleased on how we dealt with the situation. PATRICIARODRIGUEZ: The Young Lords and the Health Revolutionary Unity Movement, a group of hospital workers and doctors, joined forces to organize for decent conditions. They targeted Lincoln Hospital, the sole facility available to the people of the South Bronx. UNIDENTIFIED: That building was condemned twenty- five years ago. Condemned because it was unsafe for human habitation. Condemned for rich people and opened up for poor people. That’s what always happens. PATRICIARODRIGUEZ: The Young Lords took over Lincoln Hospital to address community health issues. MICKEYMELENDEZ: The politicians and the city administration had earmarked monies for a new hospital. It was taking ten or fifteen years. In the South Bronx at the time, in 1. VICENTEALBA: We all took over Lincoln Hospital. And the second time we took it over, we started a drug program called the Lincoln detox. MICKEYMELENDEZ: We would see an average of 6. Lincoln Hospital for those first couple of years that we were doing it. We would put people on a ten- day detox. PATRICIARODRIGUEZ: In 1.
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