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- Notes:
- Oral history of Luis Neris, interviewed by Jose 'Cha-Cha' Jimenez, on 12/14/2012 about the Young Lords in Lincoln Park.
- Date Created:
- 2012-12-14T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Ada Nivía López was born in Puerto Rico and moved to Chicago with her family in 1956. She describes life in Lincoln Park in those early days, including her Father´s leadership in Latino community and his run for alderman in the early 1960s. She became active in her community at an early age and continued her activism throughout her college years, working closely the Young Lords. Ms. López was a founding member and commissioner of the Mayor´s Advisory Commission on Latino Affairs, which was designed by the Young Lords and created in partnership with Mayor Harold Washington´s office. Ms. López became the first Latina to win a statewide election to the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois where she was instrumental in positioning the university to play a prominent role in addressing urban issues.
- Date Created:
- 2012-08-24T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Oral history of Celso Rivera, interviewed by Jose 'Cha-Cha' Jimenez, on 03/28/2011 about the Young Lords in Lincoln Park.
- Date Created:
- 2011-03-28T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Oral history of Carmen Garcia, interviewed by Jose 'Cha-Cha' Jimenez, on 11/16/2012 about the Young Lords in Lincoln Park.
- Date Created:
- 2012-11-16T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Carlos Flores is a cultural activist who lived at La Salle and Superior in the La Clark barrio, growing up on Armitage Avenue. He takes pride in relating that his family was “the last of the Puerto Ricans to leave Lincoln Park” and recalls life in Lincoln Park which included his share of minor street battles as a teen member of the Continentals Social Club. Mr. Flores also fought for Puerto Ricans as a full fledged member of the Young Lords. Mr. Flores served on the Chicago Mayor’s Advisory Council on Latino Affairs, under Harold Washington. This council was first set up in 1983 by the Young Lords and four other Latino representative organizations city-wide soon after Harold Washington was elected the first African American mayor in Chicago history.
- Date Created:
- 2012-03-29T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Angel “Sal” del Rivero was born in Mexico. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he lived in Lincoln Park on Dayton Street. Later his family moved to the Lakeview Neighborhood near Wrigley Field. Mr. Rivero became one of the original members of the Young Lords in 1959. While the Young Lords were transforming themselves into a human rights movement, Mr. Rivero was serving in the U.S. military. When he came out most Young Lords were opposed to the Vietnam War, although many Young Lords also served on the front lines in that war. Mr. Rivero at first resented those who opposed the war. But after Young Lord Manuel Ramos was killed by an off duty policeman, the entire Young Lords group reunited themselves for human rights.
- Date Created:
- 2012-07-12T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Antonio López grew up in the Logan Square Neighborhood of Chicago and heard about the Young Lords early in life, as his parents are activists. Mr. López is also active in various projects and community organizations. He is of Mexican descent and Logan Square is currently a prime real estate target for developers, who continue to prey on Latinos and the poor, and are supported by city hall and their housing Master Plan. In fact it is not hard to locate many of these developers who readily finance machine loyalists and who have sat and still sit on the many city boards. Mr. López ‘s parents were connected to the land grant struggles in New Mexico that were being led by Reis López Tijerina. Mr. Tijerina was born on September 21, 1926 near Falls City, Texas. He is preacher who founded the Alianza Federal de Pueblos Libres (Federal Alliance of Land Grants) in New Mexico. He is widely credited as launching the early Chicano Civil Rights Movement, although Mr. Tijerina prefers the term “Indo Hispano Movement” because the word “Chicano” can also divide Mexicans. At the time of this oral history, Mr. López was completing his doctoral studies in the Department of History at the University of Texas, El Paso. His doctoral dissertation focuses on the Rainbow Coalition, which originally began with Chairman Fred Hampton and included the Young Patriots and Young Lords. Mr. López has voluntarily assisted the Young Lords on various projects beyond his dissertation.
- Date Created:
- 2012-07-15T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Felícitas Nuñez lives in Bermuda Dunes, California. She and Delia Ravelo are co-founders of Teatro de Las Chicanas. The concept began when women of Movimiento Estudíantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA) brought their mothers to a university setting. There they organized a “Seminario de Chicanas” so that the mothers could understand what their daughters were going through. They wrote and performed “Chicana Goes to College.” And as a result of the audience’s positive response, Ms. Nuñez and Ms. Ravelo formed the Teatro de Las Chicanas. In the beginning years the core group consisted of just Ms. Ravelo and Ms. Nuñez, but many young women participated in the Teatro. Though working in San Diego, they were influenced by the leftist political ideals of the San Francisco Mime Troupe. They also united with the objectives of the Chicano Movement which included, among other things, social justice, bilingual education, and unionization. It also went further to address women’s equality. Several of the plays written and performed by the Teatro as well as the memories of their core members have been published in Teatro Chicana: A Collective Memoir and Selected Plays (2008). Most of the women who joined the Teatro came from farming towns throughout California and most of them were the first of their families to attend college. Around the early part of June 1969, Ms. Nuñez traveled to Chicago and met with the Young Lords who were transforming themselves from a local Puerto Rican gang into a human rights movement. One month earlier, the Young Lords had occupied the administration building of McCormick Theological Seminary (today on the campus of DePaul University) with 350 neighborhood residents and held it for an entire week. The Young Lords won all their demands, including $50,000 seed money for two free health clinics, $25,000 to open up the People’s Law Office which still operates today, and $650,000 to be invested by the seminary in low-income housing. One week earlier, the Young Lords had occupied a huge United Methodist Church on Dayton and Armitage, which they were in the process of transforming to become the Young Lords National Headquarters. The church would also house their Free Community Day Care Center, Free Dental and Health Clinic, and Free Breakfast for Children Program. All these programs were modeled after the Black Panther Party programs, of which the Young Lords had recently also connected via Fred Hampton’s Rainbow Coalition that Field Marshall Bobby Lee had also helped to broker. After the take-over of the church, the Young Lords quickly made amends. They did not want to disrupt any church service. When asked by the press if the Young Lords were going to allow the church to hold service, Mr. Jiménez quickly responded, “that it was not really a take over as the doors were now open to everyone, and that he and other Young Lords were planning on attending the services, being led by Rev. Bruce Johnson.” Some members of the congregation left but the Young Lords started meetings with the rest of the congregation, and together they designed the People’s Church symbol and produced a button that showed chains being broken. The Young Lords were cleaning up the church and adding needed paint when Ms. Nuñez arrived and volunteered to organize a group of muralists. Inside the church, Ron Clark and others were painting a mural of Puerto Rican history in the gymnasium. Outside, Ms. Nuñez’s group painted the Young Lords symbol of ”Tengo Puerto Rico En Mi Corazón” or “I have Puerto Rico in my Heart.” This lettering was in purple, with a green map of Puerto Rico, and a brown fist holding a rifle. (It had been designed by Ralph “Spaghetti” Rivera and Mr. Jiménez. The first buttons were printed at the Green Duc Button Company at Lake Street and Halsted). Other murals that Ms. Nuñez and her volunteers painted on the church walls were images of Adelita, Emiliano Zapata, Lolita Lebrón, and Don Pedro Albizu Campos. Someone else, probably Ron Clark, painted Che Guevara by the side entrance to the office, with the lettering “Young Lords National Headquarters.” These wonderful murals could not be overlooked in Lincoln Park. Not only were they featured in the news, but Lincoln Park residents would drive by and stop in to see the various programs and activities, making People’s Church the center of the Lincoln Park neighborhood. By then most Puerto Ricans had been forced out of Lincoln Park and there was also plenty of room for others to join the Young Lords Movement. Hispanos representing all Latino nations joined the Young Lords, including members of other minorities, middle class individuals, workers, the very poor, and students. The Lincoln Park Poor People’s Coalition was formed and Mr. Jiménez was voted president. The Northside Cooperative Ministry, of which Rev. Bruce Johnson was a prominent member, was also established during this period, and it supported the Poor People’s Coalition and the Young Lords. Just sixty days before Mark Clark and Fred Hampton were shot to death, assassinated in a predawn raid led by State’s attorney Edward Hanrahan, Rev. Bruce Johnson and his wife Eugenia were also discovered in their beds stabbed multiple times, in a cold case that remains unsolved. The Eulogy was given at the church with Young Lords fully participating, providing security and traffic control. There was also a spontaneous march through the Lincoln Park Community where Rev. Bruce Johnson worked with the poor. Ms. Nuñez left Chicago unaware of the impact she had made in the Puerto Rican community and in Lincoln Park. The Teatro Chicana did participate in the impromptu Lincoln Park Camp in Michigan in the 2000 and the Young Lords 40th Anniversary celebration in Chicago in 2008.
- Date Created:
- 2012-08-25T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Cathy Adorno-Centeno is the daughter of Angie Navedo-Rizzo, a Young Lord who also founded “Mothers and Others,” a sub-group within the Young Lords that organized around women’s rights issues. Born in Chicago, Ms. Adorno-Centeno describes growing up surrounded by Young Lords and in a home that was a central gathering for pot luck family dinners for members of the organization and their supporters. Following the brutal death of her Young Lord father Jose “Pancho” Lind, Ms. Adorno-Centeno and her brothers and mother went underground; staying at a rented farm near Tomah, Wisconsin that would become the Young Lords’ Training Camp. Her most vivid childhood memories are of the warmth and support she enjoyed as a member of the Young Lords community. It included block parties, farmworker pickets, demonstrations and social events held near or in the Young Lords headquarters on Wilton and Grace streets. She also spent time at Rico’s Club (which her mother owned) and enjoyed company for the Sunday pasta dinners in her home.
- Date Created:
- 2012-08-04T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Ted Pearson is a long-time resident of Lincoln Park who has been active within the progressive movement all his life. Early on in 1968 and 1969 he would come by the Young Lord’s People’s Church to offer his support for the Young Lords and their programs. For most of the Young Lords who had just stepped out of gang violence in Chicago, it was their first time ever being involved in protests, demonstrations, or sit-in occupations of institutions. It was a difficult beginning for the Young Lords, who lacked role models and reference points. Some people were even afraid of their unrefined meager appearance, though they were creative and dressed in their best with what they had. Nevertheless, the Young Lords did not originate from a middle class movement. They did not even resemble a student movement at first. It was only later when they began to grow that students and others joined them. Back then there was pride to say you were “Lumpen.” Mr. Pearson and others like him stood for working people, and he hated discrimination and racism then and now. He was one of several who did not judge, but related, relaxed, and took the time to talk and get to know the original members of the Young Lords. It was easy to notice that he genuinely cared for the plight of the poor, and in turn for him to realize that the Young Lords were not evil but were his friends. They were odd looking but they shared the same values. He was also strong on the need to fight racism. Mr. Pearson co-chaired the Chicago branch of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression. His mother had been active in the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. She was a strong supporter of a movement called, “The Right of a Black Family to live in a White Community.” This movement was led by Carl Braden and was put forth during the Red Scare of the 1950s, when the House Un-American Activities Committee was hunting for communists, in all parts of government and the country. Mr. Pearson has supported many democratic causes since before the 1960s. They include the Young Lords and Black Panthers, Voter Registration Drives, Immigrant Rights, The Committee to Defend the Bill Of Rights, Harold Washington for Mayor, the Obama Campaign, and the Lincoln Park Neighbors United for Peace Against the War in Iraq. This was a grassroots group of neighbors who came together to speak out in a unified voice against the war. They believe in using peaceful non-violent solutions, to promote social justice, conserve the environment and protect civil and human rights.
- Date Created:
- 2012-07-12T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries