Part One
"We didn't drop from the sky: Our
people's struggles created the Young Lords."
Did we fail? Did we succeed? How do we
evaluate? How do we judge/evaluate generations (or the progressive
sectors within each generation)? And how do we evaluate OURSELVES?
 |
Richie Pérez
at rally against police brutality this spring.
(Photo by Herb Boyd) |
Did they advance the starting point for
the next generation? Did they connect the next generation to the
freedom struggle—that EVERY generation must wage? Did they
create organizational structures to do this?
Did they build the fighting capacity of
our community by contributing to the preservation and strengthening
of existing, or development of new grassroots leader
09/29/2004
they raise the ideological/political education level of the community?
Did they simultaneously preserve our culture
and ADVANCE our culture? (i.e., HIP HOP as continuation of the
oral tradition, centrality of dance ...) Did they pay special
attention to the political development of women and youth (and
thereby challenge male dominance/patriarchy in our movement)?
Did they fight racism within our own community?
Did they build ties (however fragile) to other communities of color—so
that we didn't have to start from zero? Did they fight accommodationism
(co-optation) or did they accommodate? Did they abandon the worst
off, the most oppressed and marginalized (i.e., prisoners, people
with AIDS, victims of the drug plague, victims of domestic violence
...) or did they say and act on the principle that "we must all
rise together?"
Did they maintain a generally anti-capitalist
perspective or did they buy into "Latino capitalism," the IMPORTANCE
OF "Latino representation in Corporate America," "It's no use fighting
it," "I got to get mine," or any other of the many variations that
reflect the capitalist ("I" above "we") ethic. Did they set an
example in their practice (how they lived their lives) (observable,
measurable behavior) about what really matters in life, about what
is worth living and dying for? What it means to commit yourself
for life to your people's survival and advancement, in this context—what
it means to be a "man?"
1969. Almost 35 years had passed since the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 ended legal segregation and outlawed many forms
of discrimination based on a person's race or ethnic background,
the country they came from, and the language they spoke. The situation
of the Puerto Rican people, however, did not improve qualitatively
despite new laws on the books outlawing discrimination.
Puerto Ricans played an active role in the social
movement that shook America to its foundations and led to the 1964
Civil Rights Act and other advances. Young Puerto Ricans coming
of age in the 1960s, however, did not know this—we had been
robbed of our history. It was not taught in school, and the only
books that addressed our history and reality honestly were in academic
Spanish—and were thus inaccessible for the majority of us,
who were not college graduates and had also been robbed of our
language.
The Young Lords Party was made up primarily of
young Puerto Ricans who were born in the U.S. or who had spent
most of their lives here. Our primary frame of reference was our
people's experience in the urban ghettos of America. Like all young
people of that era, we were profoundly affected by the Black Liberation
Movement: the struggle to end the Vietnam War: and the "cultural
revolution" in values and lifestyle that occurred in the 1960s.
We experienced these events, however, as oppressed people who were
struggling to reconnect to our own history, determine our own priorities,
and chart our own course for the future.
Who were we? We were the sons and daughters of
the Puerto Rican pioneers. If we were college students, we were
the first in our families. Most got in through the first special
admissions programs our communities fought for and won in the mid-
and late-60s. We were high school students; community youth, mostly
unemployed; people who had come out of the gang experience of the
late '50s and '60s; people who had done time; Vietnam veterans;
former and still-practicing junkies; people who had been politicized
(and disillusioned with the "system") while working in the anti-poverty
programs created to divert and co-opt the community's anger during
the mid- and late-60s. A few of us had worked in America's factories,
as automobile workers in Tarrytown, many more as factory workers
in the city.
Although many of us could not recognize it at
the time, our elders continued to lead us; and in the mid-60s they
paved the way for us once again. They created an organizational
base of grassroots groups and connected us to the militant movement
that was rocking America—so that we, their children, could
continue the struggles they began.
1961: ASPIRA founded
The Young Lords Party was a product of the Puerto
Rican experience in America and the movements of the 1960s. It
was an organizational response of second-generation Puerto Ricans
who had consciously aligned themselves with the radical tradition
in Puerto Rican history, an organizational alternative for Puerto
Ricans who rejected assimilation and reformism. We developed a
code of behavior to which we held ourselves and each other accountable.
The 13-Point Program which united us and guided us was our response
to real events and problems confronting our people.
In the course of our existence, the Young Lords
learned a lot about our people's history and contributed to that
history, advancing the starting point for future struggles. Let
me share some of that history with you. We didn't drop from the
sky — we were born out of our people's reality.
This description of life in New York's Puerto
Rican community was written in 1964 by the Puerto Rican activists
who created the first Puerto Rican community-based anti-poverty
programs.
"The Puerto Rican New Yorker is caught today
in a poverty trap. His low occupational status dictates low family
income; his low income condemns his children to limited educational
opportunities and achievement, which in turn sentence him to a
low occupational status with low pay, and so on and on." (The Puerto
Rican Community Development Project: A Proposal for a Self-Help
Project to Development the Community by Strengthening the Family,
Opening Opportunities for Youth and Making Full Use of Education).
In 1960, unemployment for Puerto Ricans was 10%
compared to 7% for African Americans and 4% for whites. Only 13%
of the Puerto Ricans 25 and older had completed high school compared
to 40% of the white population. (I graduated from Morris High School
in the Bronx in 1961. The first in my family to go to college,
I went to Hunter-Uptown/today, called Lehman College. I lived through
these statistics.) In 1963, 21,000 academic diplomas were granted
to high school graduates. Only 331 went to Puerto Ricans (1.6%);
and 762 went to African Americans (3.7%). However, when it came
to vocational programs, we did "better" — Puerto Ricans received
7.4% of the diplomas and African Americans 15.2%. Obviously, it
follows from all of this, that very few Puerto Ricans were going
to ever make it to college - let alone graduate.
Add to this: high levels of Puerto Rican students
reading way below grade level (and being punished for this, by
being tracked into classes that led nowhere, except maybe the armed
forces or prison.), the glaring lack of any bilingual programs,
and a prevailing attitude that Puerto Ricans, like African Americans,
were "dumb," Puerto Ricans had to confront the institutions of
education — and we did. Education struggles took place throughout
the 1960s in our communities; and they took place against a backdrop
of increasing militancy among oppressed people throughout the nation.
(I graduated from Morris HS in the Bronx in 1961 and taught in
James Monroe HS in the Bronx from 1965 to 1970. I was fortunate
to have been able to learn from these struggles and participate
in some of them, as did many of those who later joined the Young
Lords.)
1964, for example, was marked by both the first
of a long series of urban rebellions (what came to be know as the "long,
hot summers") breaking out first in Harlem when a white policeman
shot and killed an unarmed Black high school student - and the
passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and a highly publicized declaration
of a national "War on Poverty."
At the same time, the same year -1964, in the
South, "Freedom Summer" ended with over 1,000 civil rights demonstrators
arrested, 37 Black churches bombed or damaged, and 15 people murdered
by racists (including civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew
Goodman, and Michael Schwerner).
That same year, Malcolm X founded the Organization
of Afro-American Unity, calling for "freedom by any means necessary," and
urging African Americans to unite and struggle for control of the
institutions that effected the community, including the schools,
the police, and local government. (Malcolm X, speech at the founding
rally of the OAAU, June 28, 1964).
New York City that year was the scene of a series
of public school boycotts and protest against segregated and inferior
education. These actions were historic, because of both their mass
character, their impact, and their implications. Puerto Ricans
played an important role in these events.
Coordinated by the Citywide Committee for Integrated
Schools and Rev. Milton Galamison, the first boycott in February
1964 resulted in a 45% absentee rate in the public schools. 460,000
students out of an enrollment of 1,037,757 stayed out of school.
At Benjamin Franklin HS in East Harlem only 350 students showed
up for school — out of an enrollment of 2,300. 75% of the
students in Bedford-Stuyvesant boycotted. Heavy absence were also
reported on the lower East Side, the West Side, and the South Bronx. "Freedom
Schools," improvised classrooms in churches and community centers
drew thousands. There were pickets at 300 of the city's 860 schools;
and 3.500 demonstrated at the Board of Education in Brooklyn. The
media saw the school boycotts as the "birth of the civil rights
movement in New York City," drew the link between this movement
and the rent strike movement that had begun a few years earlier,
and speculated that the close cooperation and coordination among
Black and Puerto Rican boycotters represented the establishment
of an "apparently permanent link" between the two communities.
A month later, in March 1964, the Puerto Ricans
that were active in the boycotts organized a protest to demand: "more
effective integrated and better educational facilities for Puerto
Rican children," more Puerto Rican teachers, and a Puerto Rican
on the Board of Education. 1,800 people marched across the Brooklyn
Bridge to the Board of Education in what the NY Times called "the
first citywide civil rights demonstration sponsored by the Puerto
Rican community." Those providing leadership to our community during
this period included Gilberto Gerena Valentin of the National Association
for Puerto Rican Civil Rights and Evelina Antonnetty of United
Bronx Parents. (Evelina Antonnetty mentored some of the activists
who later founded the NCPRR. Gerena Valentin was part of the organizing
group that worked for two years to found the NCPRR.)
In reaction to the challenge of the Black
and Puerto Rican struggle, a white backlash emerged, spearheaded
by organizations like Parents and Taxpayers. This group organized
a boycott to oppose school integration, resulting in a 27% absentee
rate. Later, many of the forces involved with Parents and Taxpayers
would oppose our challenge to housing discrimination (and the residential
segregation it led to and protected) and the establishment of an
independent civilian review board.
http://www.tbwt.com/views/specialrpt/special%20report-1_11-03-99.asp
Part Two
In 1965, as urban rebellions exploded
in Watts and Chicago, as television audiences saw civil rights
marchers attacked in Selma, Alabama, John Lindsay was elected mayor
of New York City. Lindsay, acting on a campaign commitment to address
housing segregation, proposed a program to build low-income housing
in predominantly white sections of the city — what became
known as the "scatter-site housing" controversy. White
opposition to allowing the people who would occupy "low income
housing" — poor Blacks and Puerto Ricans — to
live in their communities grew. Italians in Corona, Jews in Forest
Hills and Riverdale, white residents of Lindenwood and Howard Beach
in Queens were among the most organized of the neighborhood segregationists.
Harrison Goldin, then a State Senator, was one of the elected officials
who supported the movement to oppose scatter-site housing. Eventually,
the scatter-site program was blocked.
**1965 - Manchild in the Promised
Land. Also Baldwin
New York's intensifying racial polarization
was starkly exposed in 1966 when a referendum for a civilian review
board for the police department was put on the ballot. Sides on
the issue lined up primarily along racial lines, with the majority
of African Americans, Puerto Ricans, and liberal whites supporting
the establishment of the board — but the overwhelming majority
of white New Yorkers opposed it. The Policemen's Benevolent Association
(PBA), the Conservative Party, and local groups that had emerged
to fight against scatter-site housing formed the core of the anti-civil
review forces. The PBA waged a racist fear campaign and put out
a poster that showed a white woman coming out of a dark subway
station alone. The caption read: "The Civilian Review Board
must be stopped!...Your life may depend on it." The Civilian
Review Board proposal was defeated at the polls.
1966- Rebellion in Puerto Rican community
in Chicago. Intense infiltration, surveillance, and disruption
are part of government response. This is documented in: Puerto
Rican Chicago (Padilla, 1987); Protectors of Privilege: Red Squads & Police
Repression in Urban America (Donner, 1990). Donner also documents
infiltration of NYC Young Lords in 1969.)
In 1967, "racial disorders" rocked
more than 160 U.S. cities. More than 30,000 national guard troops
were deployed in 18 separate cities. In July, 11 died in Newark.
In Detroit, 43 were killed, 1,000 injured, and 7,000 arrested.
That summer, Puerto Ricans rioted in El Barrio after a police killing.
During the rebellion two more community residents were shot to
death by police. In New Haven, Puerto Ricans rioted after a white
restaurant owner killed a Puerto Rican.
Puerto Ricans and The Long Hot
Summers
Between 1965 and 1971, riots broke out
in the following Puerto Rican communities, indicating the growing
anger among our people: 1965: Chicago; 1966:Chicago, Perth Amboy;
1967: El Barrio, New Haven; 1969: Passaic, Hartford; 1970: El Barrio,
South Bronx, Hartford; 1971: Camden, Hoboken, Long Branch-NJ.)
RESEARCH NEEDED ON EACH OF THESE.
**1967 - Down These Mean Streets
By 1968 then, national and local developments
had resulted in both an intensified racial polarization in the
country and an increased awareness and militancy among people of
color. For many activists, the assassinations of Malcolm X (19
), Martin Luther King Jr. (19 ), and Robert Kennedy (19 ) were
only the most current events that confirmed and underscored Rap
Brown's message that "Violence was an American as Cherry Pie." The
widespread belief among activists of government infiltration, set
ups, and subversion of civil rights organizations was supported
by the highly visible nationwide program of destruction that the
FBI launched against the Black Panther Party and Native American
and Chicano revolutionary activists.
Keep in mind that all this occurred alongside
a growing anti-Vietnam war movement and almost daily reports of
brutal police attacks and beatings, tear-gassings, and shootings
of anti-war and civil rights demonstrators across the nation. (The
impact of the church bombing in the South that Spike Lee has recently
re-engaged: I lived through this and it influenced my political
thinking deeply.)
It was in this context that the historic
struggles for community control of the schools and access to the
universities came to maturity. Responding to growing militancy
in communities of color, a plan to "decentralize" the
NY City school system was drafted by the Lindsay administration;
it called for the establishment of local community school boards
with limited powers. This was not the "community control" that
our communities had fought for; and ultimate power remained in
the hands of the central Board of Education, and the teachers'
and supervisor's unions. Despite this, the United Federation of
Teachers, led by Albert Shanker, bitterly opposed any "civilian
interference" in the running of the schools. The UFT called
a teacher's strike which lasted 90 days. During this time, the
city was polarized even further with charges of "anti-Semitism" being
launched against Black and Puerto Rican community control advocates
and "white racism" being charged against the teacher's
union. Centers of community control activism were located in Ocean
Hill-Brownsville, Harlem, El Barrio, the Lower East Side, and the
South Bronx, where United Bronx Parents (led by Evelina Antonetty,
Dona Rosa Escobar, and others whose roles must be documented) played
a pivotal role in organizing parents and students.
By 1968, struggles on the nation's campuses
had also intensified, with students of color demanding autonomous
departments and curriculum, more Third World faculty, and changes
in admissions standards. (This is a good example of how each struggle
advances the starting point for future struggles.) These struggles
were organized by the hundreds of minority students that had entered
the universities through smaller, special admissions programs in
the 1960s (i.e., the SEEK Program in the City University of New
York). Finding themselves in institutions that were hostile to
their language, culture, and history, they maintained their ties
to their communities and became the backbone of the Open Admissions
movement.
The first major struggle for Open Admissions
and ethnic studies occurred in San Francisco State College. Spearheaded
by the campus Black Student Union, a student strike shut the campus
down. Ronald Reagan, who was then governor of California, ignored
the educational concerns raised by the students and dismissed them
as "militants determined to substitute violence and coercion
for orderly grievance procedures available to all." A hardliner
replacement, S.I. Hayakawa, was put in as college president to
supervise the "restoration of order." With Governor Reagan's
very public support, he supervised the police occupation of the
campus and the violent repression of demonstrators. Hayakawa defended
the police occupation of the campus, banned rallies, and condemned
Black and Chicano community leaders who supported the strike. He
said Open Admissions represented giving preference to "unqualified" minority
students over more qualified applicants. Hayakawa later reemerged
on the national scene as one of the founders and representative
of the English-only movement.
By the end of the Fall 1969 semester at
San Francisco State: 731 students, faculty and community supporters
had been arrested; 80 students and 32 policemen had been injured;
and there were scores of fires and two bombings of campus buildings.
Finally, the college administration agreed to waive entrance requirements
for 10% of the freshmen applicants and to immediately recruit 1,000
Third World students. This raised the number of students of color
to 4,750 (out of a total enrollment of 17,700 - 26%). A hard won
and partial victory.
As the San Francisco State struggle was
winding down, the fight over Open Admissions in New York was heating
up. In 1968, 54% of New York's public school enrollment was Black
and Puerto Rican. 55 out of every 100 of these students would drop
out before graduation; and only 13% would graduate with an academic
diploma.
At the time, a high school average in
the mid- to upper 80s was required for admission to one of the
City University of New York's senior colleges. While 45% of white
high school students graduated with over 80s average, just about
15% of the Black and Puerto Rican students did. In 1969, before
Open Admissions, first-time entering freshmen to all CUNY schools
were 13.8% Black, 5.9% Puerto Rican, and 80.3% white. Black and
Puerto Rican campus groups, along with community supporters, charged
the university officials with maintaining segregated, racially-exclusionary
institutions.
Challenging Institutional Racial
Exclusion in NY's Colleges
At City College in Harlem, where Black
and Puerto Rican students made up only 3% of the total student
body, campus groups united to demand: (1) A separate school of
Black and Puerto Rican studies; (2) A separate freshman orientation
program for Black and Puerto Rican freshmen; (30 A voice for SEEK
students in the governance of the SEEK program, including the hiring
and firing of personnel; (4) A requirement that all education majors
take Black and Puerto Rican history and Spanish; (5) An admissions
policy that would ensure that the racial composition of all entering
classes reflect the Black and Puerto Rican population of the New
York City high schools. The demands were signed by the "Black
and Puerto Rican Student Community."
After their demands were ignored, 200
Black and Puerto Rican students locked themselves inside the gates
of the college's south campus, cutting off access to 8 of the college's
22 buildings. They renamed the occupied campus "Harlem University." White
radical students seized two more buildings in support of the demands
put forward by the Black and Puerto Rican demonstrators.
Among the groups opposing the CCNY takeover
was the Jewish Defense League. They filed for a court injunction
to end the occupation of the South Campus; and it was at this point
that the JDL coined the term "reverse racism."
During the struggle, violent confrontations
broke out as white students tried to break the strike. Harlem residents
supported the students with food and blankets and joined the fighting.
Puerto Rican students on other campuses
also took action in support of the demands raised at CCNY. At Brooklyn
College, for example, students took over the president's office,
fought off reactionary whites (including the JDL, which was formed
on the Brooklyn College campus), and were attacked by police. 17
Brooklyn College activists were arrested in their homes - at night—for
leading the struggle for Open Admissions. This is an important
story from our history—it should be documented.
And let me tell you, it was like integrating
a previously segregated college. And we weren't like the students
in the South in one important way—WE WEREN'T PACIFISTS. WE
WERE NOT COMMITTED TO A NON-VIOLENT ETHIC, a non-violent code of
behavior. So when we integrated campuses, while our primary tactics
were non-violent, we got to kick some ass too, punch motherfuckers
out, throw racists down the stairs. We did non-violent actions — but
it was a TACTICAL question, not a matter of PRINCIPLE. It was important
that our antagonists knew this.
In 1970, the City University of New York
adopted a policy which guaranteed admission to every graduate of
the city's high schools. As a result of Open Admissions, the number
of Black and Puerto Rican freshmen in CUNY more than doubled in
the first year. Fifty pecent of the Black students and 66% of the
Puerto Rican students would not have qualified for any level of
CUNY without Open Admissions and the replacing of the traditional
admissions requirements (Open Admissions and Equal Access: A Study
of Ethnic Groups in the City University of New York. Harvard Education
Review, 1979.) Another hard won - but still partial victory.
These were just some of the community
struggles that politicized young Puerto Ricans in the 1960s, and
contributed to the development of consciousness, organization and
leadership in our community. The Young Lords Party became the organizational
home for many of the activists that took part in these struggles
and for many more that hungered for an organization that would
enable them to join the struggle.
http://www.tbwt.com/views/specialrpt/special%20report-3_5-22-00.asp
Part Three
A Young Lord's High School Organizing
Story
I want to share with you a story about one of
my first organizing experience as a Young Lord. Because of my background,
I eventually became a youth and student organizer in the YLP. My
first major organizing assignment was among high school students
in the Bronx where I worked very closely with Black Panther cadre
assigned to the same task. At Morris HS, for example, we supported
the formation and development of a student group called WANTU-GENTE
(WANTU is "people" in Swahili; GENTE is "people" in Spanish). It
was a Black and Puerto Rican student group that modeled itself
consciously after the Young Lords and Black Panthers, combining
the principles of the YLP 13-Point Program, the BPP 10-Point Program,
and their own school-related demands—freedom of assembly,
freedom of speech, and freedom of press—as expressed through
student-led discussion groups, assemblies, and newsletters that
were not subject to school administration prior approval.)
We coordinated a series of very militant and
highly organized student walkouts and a huge high school anti-war
demonstration. This demo pulled out more than 1,000 Puerto Rican
and Black high school students from 5 schools. It was infiltrated
by undercover agents, and was eventually attacked by the police
as we prepared to picket the Bronx office of the Selective Service.
Responding to what they saw as a dangerous development, The Wall
Street Journal (!) wrote a front-page article that linked our efforts
to a nationwide threat to educational stability. The article was
headlined: "Pupil Power. Disruptions Trouble Some U.S. High Schools
As Youths Ask Rights . They Demand Officials Share Authority; Black
Panthers Enter New York Dispute. What Happens to Education? (Wall
Street Journal, Nov. 6, 1970, p. 1)
"The confrontation at Morris High isn't just
another racial dispute....The issue at Morris is student demands
for new 'political rights'—demands that would involve fundamental
changes in the basic structure of authority at the school. The
students seek total freedom to distribute all types of political
literature in the school, to invite representatives of all political
persuasions to speak at school assemblies and to use the school
public address system for political purposes. The students say
the principal shouldn't have veto power over any of these activities...
"School administrators' worry over the rising
discontent is compounded by the nature of the support the students
are getting....The Panthers are enthusiastically schooling the
students on the same uncompromising tactics, rhetoric and discipline
that the radical left has brought to other causes in this country
in the recent years...
"School officials and others in the area say
the Black Panthers and Young Lords have skillfully built up the
students' dissatisfaction with the school. 'The kids talk about
them (the Panthers and Lords) all the time,' says 15 year old Tony
Alers, a Puerto Rican ninth-grader."
Describing the activities of WANTU-GENTE as a
group "whose members have close links with the Panthers and the
Young Lords," the article continued:
"At a prearranged time that Wednesday morning,
Wantu-Gente members ran through the halls calling for students
to leave classes. Most did so and gathered in the street outside.
Several Young Lords and two members of militant tenants' organization
in the area, both with walkie-talkies, appeared to egg the students
on. Scuffles developed between officers and students, and some
of both groups were hurt. Some students threw bottles at the police
from upper floors of the schools. The officers arrested several
demonstrators, and the school was closed for the day.
"Militant students tried to continue the boycott
the following Thursday and Friday, but only a few hundred students
left school those days."
Only a few hundred students are not bad. The
key to the successes of the YLP was the insistence on the building
of mass struggles - for it is only in mass struggle that the community
can develop the political consciousness, organization, and leadership
if needs to survive and advance. The struggle at Morris HS and
at other schools was a good example of this. Many of those young
activists joined the YLP. Some helped form the Third World Student
League years later. Others became part of the Puerto Rican Student
Union. Morris HS sent an impressive contingent to the YLP's UN
March which brought out 10,000 people in 1970 and for years served
as an example for other young people.
Other YLP Offensives and Organizing Campaigns
As a revolutionary group, the Young Lords Party
believed that poverty and discrimination could not be eliminated,
that independence for Puerto Rico and self-determination in the
U.S. could not be achieved without the destruction of monopoly
capitalism (imperialism), a system which routinely generates extremes
of wealth and poverty. Seeing that historically no wealthy ruling
class had ever stepped down voluntarily, the YLP believed that
violent struggle would ultimately be needed for liberation; and
keeping with that, it advocated for and educated the community
about the right of colonized people to armed self-defense and armed
struggle.
In its daily organizing work, this meant that
the YLP and its supporters refused to be limited to tactics there
were defined as "legal" as they intervened in the social issues
of the day. Non-violent tactics predominated; but if confrontation
or breaking the law was necessary to move an issue or campaign
forward, that's what was done. A few examples:
—The garbage offensive. When East Harlem
residents identified uncollected garbage as a major problem, the
Young Lords, joined by the community, began sweeping the streets
and stacking the garbage up on the corners. However, when the Sanitation
Dept. continued to ignore the situation, we burned the garbage
in the streets, blocking major traffic arteries used by commuters
to leave Manhattan for suburbia. When the police came and tried
to arrest people, fighting broke out. Afterwards, garbage started
getting picked up regularly.
—Tuberculosis. Every weekend, teams of
Lords, supporters, and doctors went door to door, testing for tuberculosis
and lead poisoning. High concentrations of people in El Barrio
tested positive (they either had t.b. or had been exposed to t.b.).
After the city refused to station a t.b. testing truck in East
Harlem, the Lords seized the truck, and with the help of doctors
and health care workers, tested hundreds of people. When the police
came to get the truck, the community surrounded it and prevented
the arrest of the Lords and the return of the truck. Afterwards,
the city started assigning truck coverage to poor communities too.
These activities drew public attention and forced city officials
to allocate resources to deal with the problems of tuberculosis
and lead poisoning.
—The old Lincoln Hospital. The Lords, the
Panthers, hospital workers (organized in the Health Revolutionary
Unity Movement), and community people (organized as the Think Lincoln
Committee) set up "patient-worker complaint tables" in Lincoln
and other hospitals. Hundreds of grievances were recorded; but
the hospital administration refused to address them. The old Lincoln
Hospital was in a building that had been condemned and was severely
understaffed and under-financed. After a list of demands and mass
demonstrations were also ignored, the Lords occupied the hospital
in the middle of the night. The next morning the media publicized
the occupation and the issues that led to it. After hundreds of
angry police surrounded the hospital, the Lords slipped out; and
only two people were arrested. The publicity about the terrible
conditions in the old Lincoln Hospital accelerated the building
of the new Hospital that exists today.
—Lincoln Detox. During the occupation of
the old Lincoln Hospital, a preventive medicine community clinic
was set up in the auditorium. Afterwards, another demand was met;
and the historic acupuncture-detoxification program was established,
with licensed doctors, acupuncturists, and staff members hired
from the community (including from the YLP and BPP). Ahead of its
time, for years the Lincoln Hospital Detox Program served as an
international model of treating heroin and alcohol addiction with
acupuncture instead of substituting methadone, another addicting
chemical—before it was closed down by Mayor Koch in the '70s.
—Prisons & the 2nd People's Church.
Working with groups of politicized prisoners, the Young Lords successfully
pressured the Dept. of Corrections to institute a series of reforms
(i.e., educational programs, improved health care). After a member
of the organization was found dead in a Rikers Island cell, the
YLP argued that the Corrections Dept. was covering up a killing
by guards by calling it a "suicide." Citing other cases, the YLP
said this was a routine cover-up mechanism used when prisoners
were killed. To further protest the killing, highlight the demands
for prison reform, and to educate the community about the right
to self-defense in the face of government repression, the Young
Lords seized - for a second time - a church in East Harlem. This
time we were armed. The occupation of the church lasted for over
a month. During that time, "serve the people" programs (i.e., breakfast
program, preventive health programs) and the activities of the
Inmates Liberation Front were run out of the church. When the Attica
rebellion occurred, soon after, protesting prisoners requested
a Young Lord participate in the outside negotiating team. Two members
did participate, including one that had recently been released
and had been part of the Young Lords chapter in Attica.
—In the colleges. Many of the activists
who joined the YLP and similar groups in the late '60s had been
politicized in the struggle for Open Admissions and Black and Puerto
Rican Studies. The YLP enjoyed a close working relationship with
many college groups who called upon the organization to support
campus-based struggles and in turn supported community-based campaigns.
Many of these groups came together to form the Puerto Rican Student
Union, which later became part of the Young Lords. Some of the
activities that PRSU, the YLP and campus clubs carried out included:
consistent education and organization for the independence of Puerto
Rico; building takeovers in support of bilingual education and
ethnic studies; protests against ROTC recruiting, the Vietnam War
and the military occupation of Puerto Rico; disruptions of "academic" conferences
that excluded students and community, and organizing a massive
student conference at Columbia University to build "Free Puerto
Rico Committees" on every campus and strengthen the organizing
for Puerto Rico's liberation.
—Police brutality. Community residents
frequently ran into Young Lords' offices to ask for help in stopping
police abuse. The Young Lords were committed to interfering physically
when they witnessed police brutality, unconstitutional street sweeps,
or illegal arrests. This led to constant confrontations, hand-to-hand
combat, arrests, and government surveillance and repression.
The Young Lords were a power resource for the
community. People came to us whenever they needed help. We helped
people who had no voice find their voice. We supported parents
who were fighting racism and the mistreatment of their children
in the public schools. We stood side by side with workers who asked
us to help them to get rid of a gangster-controlled union. We fought
the police after they killed a gypsy cab driver. We utilized every
method at our disposal to educate and unify our people: the Palante
newspaper, the Palante radio show on WBAI, pamphlets, and community
education sessions in basements and community centers. The organization
served as a bridge, a portal, that allowed people, young and old,
to fight for survival and advancement — to connect to the
historic mass struggle for freedom and respect. The consciousness,
self-knowledge, and pride of a generation was profoundly influenced
by the Young Lords.
Conclusion
The young people who formed the YLP saw ourselves
as the continuation of the radical Puerto Rican tradition. We united
around an advanced program that called for the liberation of Puerto
Rican and self-determination in the U.S. We believed that all of
us had to transform, that we had all been infected with the poisons
of imperialism: racism, sexism, classism. We called this "the revolution
within the revolution." The fight against individualism, self-centeredness
and ego was part of this. We stressed self-discipline, collective
leadership and collective decision-making. The "do your own thing" spirit
that many people brought with them weakened our community's ability
to carry out effective political action .
We rejected racism, took a strong stand in recognition
of our African and Taino heritage (at a period when many Boricuas
used to say they were "Spanish") and called for the unity of people
of color. We rejected sexism, machismo and male chauvinism; and
led by the women in the organization, we attempted to remake ourselves—change
our thinking and behavior—while we fought to change the world.
The YLP had a class analysis. We prepared for
class war, not race war. Our struggle was with the rich, the white
ruling class and corporate America, not with white people.
We did not believe that every Puerto Rican was
on the people's side; we knew that the slave master and the colonialists
always co-opted a strata of the colonized people to use as buffers.
We promoted a value system and rules of discipline
that governed the way we treated each other, our people, our allies,
and our enemies. We identified with the most oppressed and believed
that the whole community must rise together. It was not just about
the most educated or talented; their job was to use their acquired
skills to serve and protect the community.
After the YLP - A living Legacy
Most of the members of the Young Lords found
ways to serve and protect the community even after the organization
ceased to exist. A few became prominent media figures. Some became
lawyers or union organizers. Some became part of the clandestine
Puerto Rican and Black Liberation movements. Many became the backbone
of future organizations and struggles. Throughout the 1970s and
'80s former Young Lords were "presente" in key community movements,
like the struggle to defend the Lincoln Hospital Accupuncture Detoxification
Program (started by the YLP and BPP); the movement to save and
expand Hostos Community College; the survival battles around Puerto
Rican Studies and Open Admissions; the formation of "minority" construction
workers coalitions and challenges to the discriminatory construction
industry; media campaigns like the one that established the Sunday
salsa show on WBAI (still going today), and Realidades on Channel
13; the nationwide campaign against the racist and sexist movie, Fort
Apache, the Bronx. And the movement to free the Puerto Rican
Nationalists.
After the YLP ended, I was able to find ways
to stay involved in militant community struggles that often were
recognized as being in the Young Lords tradition. I, like many
YLP cadre, even after the organization ceased to exist, consciously
tried to act in accordance with the 13-Point Program and Rules
of Discipline. In my heart, and I hope, in my actions, I am still
a Young Lord.
After the YLP, while teaching in the Department
of Puerto Rican Studies at Brooklyn College, I was involved in
the defense of Open Admissions and Puerto Rican Studies, and the
nationwide opposition to the reactionary Bakke Decision. Although
we couldn't turn back the reactionary national tidal wave, we fought
with dignity and earned the respect, and/or fear of our adversaries.
As a result of political activity on the campus,
along with student activists, half of whom were women, I was arrested
three times, and beaten by the police (on the campus, in the police
station, and on an operating table at Kings County Hospital). I
was barred from ever setting foot on the campus (I once escaped
hidden in a car owned and driven by one of my students), put on
trial for two years, and, of course, fired. The jury that fired
me was made up of the presidents of all the colleges in the City
University of New York. Since this was clearly a kangaroo court,
we disrupted the "trial." I wasn't able to work in any college
of the City University for years. (Eventually, some of my college
president "jurors" died and retired; and I snuck back in, teaching
at night at Hunter College. (I left voluntarily in the early 90s.)
Because we were a genuine mass movement with
a cause whose legitimacy was widely recognized by our community,
and we were organized and politically aware, none of the more that
12 people arrested in the Brooklyn College struggle went to jail
- although we were faced with an avalanche of charges, ranging
from trespassing to assault and conspiracy to incite a riot. Of
course, the student activists, who had not yet earned their degrees
suffered the most. Today, the majority of these activists have
found ways to continue serving the people.
While I was teaching at Brooklyn College, I was
also the faculty advisor to the campus-based Puerto Rican Alliance
and a founding member of the Revolutionary Collective (a group
that survived the violent demise of the post-YLP Puerto Rican Revolutionary
Workers Organization and had reunited to struggle together in Brooklyn).
By chance, I reconnected to some old YLP friends who were leaders
in the U.S.-based movement to free the Puerto Rican nationalist
prisoners. Quickly, we all recognized the significant bonds of
unity we still shared, and many of the militants at Brooklyn College
became active in the movement to free the imprisoned Puerto Rican
patriots.
At the peak of our activities, educating our
community and building a base of support for the freedom of the
Nationalists, while simultaneously defending the right of armed
struggle for national liberation, we seized the Statue of Liberty
in October 1977. This was a transcendental political action which
once again put the question of Puerto Rican independence on the
world agenda. One of my best memories is that when the Nationalists
were released, soon after the takeover, we were able to give Lolita
Lebron the flag we hung on the Statue of Liberty. In front of thousands
of ecstatic people, she wrapped it lovingly around her shoulders.
The circle was complete.
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