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- Notes:
- Oral history of Carlos Munoz, interviewed by Jose 'Cha-Cha' Jimenez, on 5/9/2013 about the Young Lords in Lincoln Park.
- Date Created:
- 2013-05-09T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Bill Hampton is a former Chicago public school teacher and the brother of Fred Hampton, Deputy Chairman of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party who was murdered by a special police squad in an early morning raid on December 4, 1969. Bill Hampton grew up in Maywood, Illinois, where he organizes an annual commemoration event for his brother.
- Date Created:
- 2012-02-09T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Román Rodríguez served in the U.S. army during World War II and moved to Chicago’s La Clark neighborhood in 1953. For many years, his wife, Clautilde Jiménez, taught in the Chicago public school system. They also lived in Lincoln Park and were both active members in the Damas de María and Caballeros de San Juan of Council Number Three. A powerful and eloquent orator, Mr. Rodríguez has been a frequent speaker at Caballeros de San Juan functions across a variety of parishes. He also became a deacon and participated in the mass at St. Silvesters in Humbolt Park/Logan Square, where he helped to solidify the growing community of Puerto Ricans who were being forced out of Lincoln Park. In his oral history, Mr. Rodríguez reflects on the changes he has seen over the years in Chicago and the displacement of Puerto Rican families from Lincoln Park. He expresses his inability to understand why Puerto Ricans were experiencing discrimination especially after they had served in the U.S. military and given their lives for United States. He describes in rich detail, a community of hard working and religious people, dedicated to their families and their faith. In Puerto Rico in the 1940s, Mr. Rodríguez would entertain his siblings by improvising jibaro music after working a hard day in the fields. Like other Puerto Rican pioneers in Chicago, he brought his love of music with him to the city and continued this tradition there.
- Date Created:
- 2012-05-12T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Carlos Vazquez is from Detroit, Michigan but he was born in Mexico and his family is from Ciudad Juárez on the border with Texas. Mr. Vasquez’s family settled in Detroit in the 1940s and 1950s. Mr. Vasquez is a musician who has played in several bands. He met José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez while Mr. Jiménez was a senior counselor/supervisor for Project Rehab. Mr. Vasquez decided to join the Young Lords and has volunteered to work on all of the Lincoln Park Camps. Today Mr. Vasquez’s son and other children still recall the event and say that it had a positive effect on them.
- Date Created:
- 2012-07-18T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Pedro Mateo is from Salinas, Puerto Rico and now lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He first came to Grand Rapids in the 1950s, but quickly moved to Indiana Harbor to work in the steel mills alongside many other Puerto Rican immigrants of that era. Mr. Mateo describes the steel mill culture and the Puerto Rican community that developed in Indiana Harbor beginning in the 1940s. After a short time in Indiana Harbor, Mr. Mateo moved with his family to Van Buren Street near Ashland Avenue in Chicago, in the barrio area then known to Puerto Ricans as La Madison. In the 1960s, Mr. Mateo moved to Addison Ave. and Wilson Street, next to Wrigley Field. It was here that he first met the Young Lords. Mr. Mateo describes his daily travels by train to La Clark to work at “Las Gomas,” or a rubber factory, by New Orleans and Chicago Avenue. He ultimately returned to Grand Rapids, where his large, extended family plays a prominent role in the city’s Latino community.
- Date Created:
- 2012-03-08T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Carmen Tirado Reyes is married to Marcelo Jiménez, a proud Hacha Vieja, and uncle of José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. In the 1940s they moved to Barrio Mula in Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico, where “Tio Gabriel,” as he was called, had purchased a large farm, hired workers, and raised his many children. When work was slow, those children and workers came to Chicago, settling in La Clark in the late 1940s and early 1950s. One of Ms. Reyes’s sons became a leader of the Latin Kings. Ms. Reyes now lives in Puerto Rico.
- Date Created:
- 2012-05-12T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- David (pronounced "Daveed") Lemieux joined the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party in the spring of 1969. At age 16, he was the second youngest member of that Chapter. He was a "rank and file" member and functioned in all BPP activities including the Free Breakfast for Children Program and the dissemination of the Black Panther newspaper. As a member of the Education Cadre, he was constantly engaged with "speaking" the mission and purpose of the Black Panther Party. He remained active with the BPP into the early 70s. In 1982, after consultation with other members of the activist community, David joined the Chicago Police Department and began a 26 year career where he was able to use his office and authority as a vehicle to serve the people. Currently, David Lemieux gives seminars facilitated by Chicago's Black Star Project entitled "Keeping OUR children out of the 'Just US' System" and speaks locally and nationally on the role of peace officers serving the community through the justice system. He is active with the Chicago Black Panther History Project and other efforts committed to preservation, education and reclamation of the true history of our struggle.
- Date Created:
- 2012-07-15T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Rosa M. Hernández grew up on Orchard Street in Chicago. Like many of the Puerto Rican women of that era, she grew up sheltered while boys were free to stay out late and roam the streets. Ms. Hernández was the neighborhood store errand girl, it was a way to be free and visit with her friends and neighbors. Down the street at Burling and Armitage, the Black Eagles, Paragons, Flaming Arrows, Imperial Aces, Continentals, Trojans and Young Lords would hang out daily until the early hours of the morning, drinking and talking. Ms. Hernández knew everyone of importance in the neighborhood from youth to adults. She recalls how everyone in the neighborhood watched out for each other and that even the alleged gangs were polite and courteous to their neighbors. Her oral history provides much insight into everyday life in Lincoln Park during that significant era in the early to mid-1960s for the Puerto Rican community.
- Date Created:
- 2012-03-28T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Oral history of Vincent Vaca, interviewed by Jose 'Cha-Cha' Jimenez, on 5/8/2013 about the Young Lords in Lincoln Park.
- Date Created:
- 2013-05-08T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Hilda Frontany is a long-time community activist whose family first lived in the Water Hotel in Chicago’s La Clark neighborhood when they arrived in Chicago from Puerto Rico. In the late 1960s and 1970s she devoted her work to addressing the housing crisis that was displacing Latinos and the poor from Chicago’s Lakeview Neighborhood, a community located just north of Lincoln Park. As a member of the Lakeview Citizens Council, Ms. Frontany provided a public voice for Latinos and helped support homeowners.
- Date Created:
- 2012-03-30T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Rebecca “Buffy” Vance was friends with “Stony,” who was a white southerner and one of the main Young Lords from the Wieland branch of the group before they became human rights activists for Latinos and the poor. Stony was about 17-years-old then and lived across from Wieland on North Avenue. His sisters became members of the auxiliary group, the Young Lordettes. Wieland culture was completely different from the culture at Halsted and Dickens and Burling and Armitage where the other main group of Young Lords hung out. The difference was that on Wieland and North Avenue, they did not have to share space with the other Puerto Rican Clubs of Lincoln Park. Pockets of Puerto Ricans left behind from the destruction wrought by urban renewal in the Puerto Rican barrio of La Clark were still around then. Wieland Street was one of the streets that still survived. Masao Yamasaki, a man of Japanese descent, became friends with Stony and other Young lords and tried to help them with counseling and guidance. Mr. Yamasaki did this through the YMCA, where Young Lords would go for swimming and basketball. He owned a factory and started providing a few of them, including Stony, with jobs. And Stony remained in his packaging company for years, becoming a supervisor for the company. Ms. Vance was never in the Young Lords but grew up in Lincoln Park and attended Alcott Elementary at 2625 North Orchard. Alcott School then had an after school program that would supervise the youth at night to keep them out of trouble and off the streets. A few of the Young Lords attended Alcott and spread the word about the program. They would have to walk 8 to 10 blocks to attend but it did help some of them as they participated in sports, arts and crafts, and other activities. There were also the social dances, where youth danced to tunes such as “Wipe-out,” “Twine Time,” “Monkey Time,” and “Louie Louie.” Today Ms. Vance today works at the University of Illinois Circle Campus as Assistant to Communications and Development and Alumni Relations. Prior to joining the College of Law, she worked as a development Secretary for Will AM-FM-TV. Ms. Vance has also worked at Amdocs Inc. and in benefit planning.
- Date Created:
- 2012-04-20T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Although Estervina Jiménez has never lived in Chicago herself, her life has been deeply connected to the city. Born and raised in Barrio San Salvador of Caguas, Puerto Rico, Ms. Jiménez’s husband, Cordero, traveled back and forth to Chicago’s La Clark for work in the early 1950s. Many of her other family members did the same, starting and sustaining the social clubs, congregations, businesses, and other organizations that were at the core of Chicago’s Puerto Rican community. Ms. Jiménez also had several uncles migrate to Detroit during that same period in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Through her memories, it is clear that social clubs like the Hachas Viejas and other were a fundamental source of support for separated families in a strange land. These organizations also provided a way to cope with language and cultural challenges, segregated streets, and housing discrimination. Today, Ms. Jiménez volunteers in her church in San Salvador, the Catholic capilla. She delivers communion to the sick and visits and prays with them. She spends much time sitting on her porch with her husband, who is now in poor health, talking with the travelers who walk down the small path in front of her home. When someone dies in San Salvador, she makes herself available to assist in the traditional novena and helps to lead and to pray the rosary for the nine days. If there is an event or program she also helps out. In fact, she helps the priest whenever called upon and volunteers to daily to clean the church. Ms. Jiménez is a resource for the residents of San Salvador, especially in the Morena and Lao Frío sections of Caguas. Ask anyone from San Salvador and they will also tell you that she is like the unofficial mayor.
- Date Created:
- 2012-06-23T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Omar López was Minister of Information for the Young Lords. He was born in Mexico and first came to Chicago in 1958, settling in the Humboldt Park Neighborhood where he has lived ever since. He first met some Young Lords in Lincoln Park when they were hanging out on the streets as a local Puerto Rican street gang, and later when the Young Lords were providing security for Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez and Fred Hampton (of the Black Panther Party) who were speaking together at Loop Jr. College where Omar was a student and fighting for student rights and bilingual education. Mr. López joined the Young Lords in 1969. In 1973, he founded the Mexican Teachers Organization.
- Date Created:
- 2012-02-07T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Ana Encarnación is from the San Juan metropolitan area of Puerto Rico and describes growing up there in the late 1930s and 1940s. She arrived in Chicago in the 1950s, settling in Old Town, along the border dividing Old Town from neighboring Lincoln Park. She lived on the south side of North Avenue, at the corner of Sedgewick. When the Young Lords decided in 1968 to start to defend the Puerto Ricans and the poor from being displaced, it was her dream come true to join the Young Lords Movement. She saw it as a way to help her people. Ms. Encarnación was in nursing and so she began to work in the Young Lords’ Emeterio Betances Free Health Clinic. Ms. Encarnación describes how the volunteer staff, including herself, not only provided many long hours of free services to the Puerto Ricans and poor of Lincoln Park but when money was low, they also donated from their own personal savings to keep the clinic afloat.
- Date Created:
- 2012-07-10T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Bob Lee or Robert E. Lee grew up in the “forest” near Jasper, TX. His family worked on a cotton plantation. One of his brothers Franco became a county commissioner of the 5th Ward of Houston for over 30 years. In 1969 Bob Lee became a Deputy Field Marshall for the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party. His worked included Uptown where he started working with the Young Patriots Organization and the Young Lords.
- Date Created:
- 2017-02-16T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Oral history of Aaron Dixon, interviewed by Jose 'Cha-Cha' Jimenez, on 3/14/2013 about the Young Lords in Lincoln Park.
- Date Created:
- 2013-03-14T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Gregorio Gómez is known as the “G Man” at one of Chicago’s longest running underground poetry venues, “Weeds,” at 1515 North Dayton Street. Opened in 1964, “Weeds” still serves the Lincoln Park neighborhood; the building has existed there since 1928. Today “Weeds” is known as “the neighborhood bar without a neighborhood.” In the 1980s, prior to the Harold Washington campaign, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez organized a reorganizing event at “Weeds.” It was a small party reunion and the place was packed. The purpose was to remember the Young Lords’ work and the Puerto Ricans who were displaced from Lincoln Park. Mr. Jiménez was assisted by Iris (Martha) Ramos, who, before the Young Lords were political, was one of three different presidents of the Young Lordettes. Ms. Ramos had previously been married to Benny Pérez, one of the original Young Lords club founders, who also turned political when the Young Lords became a human rights movement on September 23, 1968. She was also the sister of Manuel Ramos who was a Young Lord killed by off duty policeman James Lamb on May 3, 1969. Mr. Gómez emigrated from Vera Cruz, Mexico to Chicago in 1963. And he has been in the poetry community for nearly three decades. He has been the Managing Director of the Latino Chicago Theatre Company, which has been in the forefront of theatre and arts in Wicker Park. Mr. Gómez’s work has been published and recorded in numerous venues, including Stray Bullets: A Celebration of Chicago Saloon Poetry (1991) and Poetry for Peace Anthology, published by the Peace Museum of Chicago. In 1986, White Panther Party Minister of Information, Bob “Righteous” Rudnick, now deceased, approached the owner of “Weeds,” Sergio Mayora, about staging “Poetry Slams.”. Soon after that Mr. Gómez started to MC. Some of the patrons are a mix of newcomers and old timers, a few white pacifists and anarchists, some revolutionaries, primarily Blacks and Latinos. Early poets who presented their work at “Weeds” includes Chris “Man Defender” Chandler, “Sultry” Sue McDonald, and Susie “Mellow” Greenspan. Poet and Young Lord Alfredo Matias is a regular at “Weeds,” along with Sergio Mayora who always recites his two poems, and Mr. Gómez himself. As Mr. Gómez reiterates, “I stand for hundreds of Poets who will never be famous.”
- Date Created:
- 2012-08-23T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Mike Lawson is a civil rights activist who first met Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez in 1968, after Mr. Jiménez was released from prison. At that time, Mr. Lawson was in charge of a G.E.D. program for ex-offenders that already had enrolled a number of Black Stone Rangers, Disciples, and Young Lords. The group met at Argonne National Laboratory. Because Mr. Lawson lived in Old Town, he helped some of the students who lived in Lincoln Park get to the classes. In the morning most of the students would work part-time as janitors; they would study part-time in the afternoons. As an extension of their classroom lessons, Mr. Lawson took some of his students on a field trip to Grant Park during the Democratic National Convention where they witnessed police beating up on hippies and reporters firsthand. These demonstrations helped to remind Mr. Jiménez of the goals he had set for himself while in jail. Today Mike Lawson lives on the south side of Chicago and is dependent on a wheelchair to get around, as he is plagued by muscular dystrophy.
- Date Created:
- 2012-03-29T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Luis "Tony" Baez arrived in Chicago from Barrio Borinquén of Caguas, Puerto Rico in 1969 and soon became Minister of Education of the Young Lords. In Puerto Rico, Dr. Baez was also active with the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP), the electoral component of the broad movement in Puerto Rico, fighting for Puerto Ricans to regain back control of their nation. By 1970, Dr. Baez moved from Chicago to Milwaukee and set up a Young Lords chapter. They maintained a community office and distributed the Young Lords Newspaper (that Dr. Baez had also helped to publish while in Chicago), focusing primarily on neighborhood organizing, community-based programs, and bilingual education.
- Date Created:
- 2012-08-23T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- William “Ninja” Ruiz is the brother of Mildred Ruiz-Sapp of Universes and they grew up in New York City on the Lower East Side. He earned his BA in Theatre at Bard College where he also studied poetry. Today he makes his home in Santurce, Puerto Rico and is a leading member of the Universes Theatre Ensemble. Universes is a New York-based theatre group that fuses poetry, jazz, hip hop, politics, blues and Spanish boleros to create its own productions which are performed on and off Broadway, nationally and internationally. One of their most recent productions is “Party People” (2012) which is primarily about the Black Panther Party and the Young Lords.
- Date Created:
- 2012-07-07T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- David Mojica is a very important, unsung hero in the history of Puerto Ricans in Chicago. He has volunteered his services in Humboldt Park. Mr. Mojica has been the head of the Cocineros union for many years, helping to provide jobs and distributing Puerto Rican pride flags and shirts, and good tasting fast food to the entire community. Mr. Mojica was also one of the primary Puerto Rican community workers that helped to elect Harold Washington, during his first bid for mayor. He volunteered every day at the Fullerton Ave. near Western Ave. in the “Washington for Mayor” office. Mr. Mojica’s work included distributing flyers and posters, identifying registered voters, and phone canvassing. Mr. Mojica was also a Young Lord who helped to organize the first Hispano rally for Harold Washington at North West Hall in 1982, and the victory rally at Humboldt Park during the first official Mayor’s Neighborhood Festival where over 100,000 Puerto Ricans attended.
- Date Created:
- 2012-01-22T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Oral history of Carol Blakely, interviewed by Jose 'Cha-Cha' Jimenez, on 10/19/2012 about the Young Lords in Lincoln Park.
- Date Created:
- 2012-10-19T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Martha López grew up in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood and recalls the thriving Puerto Rican community there, especially the youth groups, Caballeros de San Juan, and the Young Lords. She also recalls being attacked “from the whites and the blacks” who lived in different parts of the segregated Old Town and Lincoln Park neighborhoods.
- Date Created:
- 2012-03-30T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Obed López-Zacarias is founder of the Latin American Defense Organization (LADO), that organized for a caseworker union and for the dignified treatment of welfare recipients at the Wicker Park Welfare Office of Chicago. LADO was also instrumental in helping to develop the Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center, the longest standing Puerto Rican Cultural Center in the city of Chicago. Mr. López-Zacarias worked closely with the Young Lords and became the official envoy to the Presbyterian Conference in Texas by the Young Lords and the Lincoln Park Poor People’s Coalition. When the occupation was over and all the demands were won, LADO opened a free community clinic located in the Wicker Park neighborhood.
- Date Created:
- 2012-03-02T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Francisca Medina lived for many years in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. She describes visiting with other Latinas on the streets of Lincoln Park, at laundromats, and in the large variety of Puerto Rican owned shops in the 1950s, a time when the community was thriving and safe. Ms. Medina recalls her involvement in Council Number 9 at St. Teresa’s, as well as her work with the congregations at St. Vincent De Paul and St. Sebastian. Ms. Medina raised her family in Lincoln Park, moving several times within the neighborhood including homes on Sheffield, Bissell and Fremont Streets.
- Date Created:
- 2012-03-02T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Oral history of Lawrence Reyes, interviewed by Jose 'Cha-Cha' Jimenez on 10/23/2016 about the Young Lords in Lincoln Park.
- Date Created:
- 2016-10-23T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Primitivo Cruz is a Young Lord at heart who studied at DePaul University. He has researched and written several poems and papers on the Young Lords. Mr. Cruz performed several of his poems and songs at the Young Lords 40th Anniversary, celebrating the official founding of the Young Lords on September 23, 1968. Most of his work is political by nature, focusing on the Puerto Rican experience, the right to Puerto Rican self-determination, as well as the rights of new immigrants.
- Date Created:
- 2012-03-27T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Gamaliel Ramirez was born in 1949 in South Bronx, New York to recently arrived immigrant parents. Their family moved to Chicago in 1955. Although Mr. Ramirez was never a member, he hung around with the Latin Kings and with the Young Lords. Mr. Ramirez became one of the pioneers of the Chicago-based Latino Art Movement and has exhibited his paintings nationally and internationally. Mr. Ramirez also led the painting of murals at the Young Lords office, both outside and inside.
- Date Created:
- 2012-05-12T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Hy Thurman arrived in Chicago when he was seventeen years old from a small farming town in eastern Tennessee. Mr. Thurman co-founded the Young Patriots. In 1969, the Young Patriots became part of the original Rainbow Coalition, along with the Young Lords and the Black Panther Party. Hy Thurman, Jack “Junebug” Boykin, William “Preacherman” Fesperman, and many of the Young Patriots had been involved with JOIN (Jobs or Income Now), a project run by Students for a Democratic Society, and the Goodfellows, JOIN’s de facto anti-police brutality committee, for several years which is what led them to form the Young Patriots. One of the Young Patriots’ main organizing efforts led to the Summerdale Scandal which exposed the then accepted criminal activities of eight policeman and put them in jail for burglaries, thefts, and extortions. Today, Hy Thurman has a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology, has conducted ethnology interviews with a prominent anthropologist, worked for VISTA and for the Uptown People’s Northeastern Illinois University Center, and has held benefits for community organizations via Bluegrass Inc. He is also a teacher who specializes in Appalachian history and migration.
- Date Created:
- 2012-01-22T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Carmen Trinidad’s family arrived in Lincoln Park in the 1950s. She was one of only a few Puerto Rican families to attend St. Michael’s Church in those days, although the neighborhood had already become heavily Puerto Rican. She recalls her father’s, Cesario Rivera’s, work as a leader of Council Number Three of the Caballeros de San Juan at St. Michael’s. She also remembers the way that organizations like the Caballeros de San Juan and Damas de María started and sustained softball leagues, picnics, social dances and dinners, retreats, plays, parades, festivals, and the establishment of a credit that still exists to this day.
- Date Created:
- 2012-05-17T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Panel discussion about the original Rainbow Coalition begun by Illinois Chapter Chairman Fred Hampton. The moderator was Aaron Dixon and panelists included founder of the Young Lords Movement, Jose (Cha-?Cha) Jimenez; Stan McKinney of the Illinois BPP; Co-? founder of the Young Patriots Organization, Hy Thurman; a leader of the Palestinian Hamas Bos Campaign, Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi; Pam of the Asian American Alliance and the Red Guard; Professor Harvey of the I Wor Kuen; and Lenny Foster of the Navajo Nation and the American Indian Movement (A.I.M.).
- Date Created:
- 2016-10-23T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Juan Jiménez is the younger brother of Antonio “Maloco” Jiménez and currently lives in Barrio San Salvador of Caguas, Puerto Rico, in the secluded road behind the tienda, or store, of the Trinidads. His home is newly built and sits on cement blocks like stilts, carved right into the hill but sitting halfway on air. It is difficult to turn your car around the dead end road as there are more hills to the other side. And he has a beautiful view of the center of San Salvador’s Monte Peluche, a tall, rocky mountain covered with vegetation. It is his section of paradise and what Mr. Jiménez worked for all his life when he lived in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood, on La Armitage. Mr. Jiménez is content, still raising his college-aged daughter. His son is a proud Illinois State trooper. Mr. Jiménez was part of Council Number 9 of the Caballeros de San Juan and Damas de María at St. Teresa’s Church on Kenmore and Armitage. He played well and was a proud member of their softball team. It instilled character in the players, kept the community stable, and kept the youth away from hard drugs and off the streets. Each team had their own chanting cheerleaders, coaches, and managers. It was also good for small entrepreneurs who sold pasteles and pastelillos, rice and bean dinners, and T- shirts and flags and banners. The Catholic softball leagues provided the Puerto Rican version of the college town football game for the entire Puerto Rican family. It kept them united and parents knew at all times where they could find their children. It was a cost effective, after school fun that today would have eliminated the few existing after school programs. And it was a true community program that did not have to be funded by the federal government or by city hall. But the leagues and the Caballeros and the Damas were being weakened and destroyed by discriminatory plans to “cleanse for profit” the lakefront and near downtown areas of Puerto Ricans, other minorities and the poor. And along with their displacement and destruction of neighborhood networks and the disenfranchisement of Puerto Rican and poor voters, breeding grounds for today’s super gangs were created.
- Date Created:
- 2012-06-25T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Dylcia Pagán was born to Puerto Rican parents in 1946 at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, New York City and raised in East Harlem. She became a child star, performing every week on NBC’s “Children’s Hour.” After losing her parents at the age of 20, she became an activist, participating in voter registration drives and working for the Community Development Agency (CDA) evaluating poverty programs throughout the City of New York. In 1969, Ms. Pagán decided to attend Brooklyn College where she co-founded the Puerto Rican Student Union that resulted in the formation of a student-controlled Puerto Rican Studies Department that is still in existence today. She continued a long career in media, becoming the first Puerto Rican woman television producer in New York City. Ms. Pagán has worked as a producer, writer, and filmmaker, developing investigative documentaries and children’s program on nearly every major television network. She also worked as the English editor for the city’s first bilingual daily newspaper, El Tiempo, and authored a popular daily column in that same paper.In 1978, Ms. Pagán was subpoenaed by a Grand Jury to testify in connection with the arrest of her companion, William Morales. At the time, she was three months pregnant with her son, Guillermo, and she refused to testify. Sometime in 1979 she went underground with her son. She was arrested in 1980, charged with seditious conspiracy for fighting for the independence of Puerto Rico, and was sentenced to 63 years in prison. She was released from prison on September 10, 1999 after a long campaign in the United States, Puerto Rico, and internationally pressured President Bill Clinton to give she and nine of her co-defendants a Presidential Conditional Clemency. She lives and works in Puerto Rico.
- Date Created:
- 2012-05-15T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Alfredo “Freddy” Calixto and his family were among the first Puerto Rican families to move to Chicago in the early 1950s. Born in Caguas, Puerto Rico, Mr. Calixto lived through the displacement of Puerto Rican families from La Clark to the Lincoln Park Neighborhood where he grew up. Mr. Calixto describes struggling with discrimination in Lincoln Park and how these early experiences inspired him to commit himself to advocating for Latino youth.
- Date Created:
- 2012-02-08T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- 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:
- 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
- Notes:
- Oral history of Sandra Quiles, interviewed by Jose 'Cha-Cha' Jimenez, on 11/21/2012 about the Young Lords in Lincoln Park.
- Date Created:
- 2012-11-21T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- María Romero first joined the Young Lords on Wilton and Grace Streets. She was recruited by then Angie Lind-Rizzo (later Angie Adorno) and the other Young Lord women members. It was 1973 and the Young Lords were emerging from two long years of being completely underground, or inoperative publicly as a human rights organization. There were no longer remnants of the Young Lords Movement left in the Lincoln Park neighborhood that gave birth to them in 1968. The Lincoln Park neighborhood had been cleaned out of Puerto Ricans and the poor, in just a few years, by city hall and the Lincoln Park Neighborhood Association. A directive was given by the leadership for the Young Lords members to move and to establish themselves as a base of operations in the Lakeview Neighborhood, at Wilton and Grace Streets. Many Young Lords moved there with their families. Prior to that, a group of about 25 Young Lords had moved to a rural, rented farm near Tomah, Wisconsin. The farm camp was called a “Training School,” and their sole purpose for their camp was to train new Young Lord’s leaders who would step in and lead the Young Lords. Repression had hit extremely hard within the Lincoln Park Movement, splitting it in several directions. This was aided by pending trials of several Young Lords leaders and the still unsolved murders of United Methodist Rev. Bruce Johnson and his wife Eugenia, of the Young Lords People’s Church. Rainbow Coalition leader of the Black Panther Party, Fred Hampton, and Mark Clark were also assassinated in a raid organized by the States Attorney. The Lincoln Park Movement had seized to exist. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, who was then in hiding from the police after being sentenced to one year in Cook County Jail and who had 17 more felony indictments still pending, called for the organizing of a training school in a secluded farm near Tomah, Wisconsin. After members received their training in the farm camp for one and a half years, it was decided that Mr. Jiménez would voluntarily turn himself in, begin serving the year and start to fight the remaining cases which included bond jumping and many trumped up charges of mob actions for demonstrations. The Young Lords would raise his bond, hire attorneys, and then switch their organizing in Lakeview and Uptown where many of the Puerto Ricans of Lincoln Park had moved. They had also moved to Wicker Park and Humboldt Park but the Young Lords wanted to concentrate their forces. If this move was not done, the movement started in Lincoln Park would completely collapse. After serving the year, Mr. Jiménez announced his Aldermanic Campaign for the 46th Ward, as an Independent Democrat. He would use the election not as an electoral revolution but, “as an organizing vehicle for change.” Among other things the campaign would focus on Mayor Daley’s forced displacement of the Puerto Rican Community from the near lakefront and near downtown areas of the city. It not only boldly opposed the banks, the developers, the neighborhood associations but implicated Mayor Richard J. Daley in urban renewal plans that clearly were racist, being utilized to cleanse these areas of lower income minorities. Because of this, María Romero volunteered to serve as Young Lords Office Coordinator. It was Ms. Romero’s job to pass out assignments and to provide support and referrals for services for residents of that Lakeview area of Wilton and Grace. She herself had lived in Lincoln Park but had grown up in Lakeview. There most of the Puerto Ricans knew her family, as her father was a businessman, who for years had owned several Latino botanicas, or stores that sell religious potions and candles of saints, and provide consultation services. Ms. Romero was instrumental in getting a large amount of persons registered to vote. The Jiménez Aldermanic Campaign received 39% of the vote on the first attempt. It was not the 51% needed, but it was still victorious in uniting the community and beginning to expose the prejudice behind displacement. It also opened wide the doors for future Latino political candidates. As Ms. Romero moved west to Humboldt Park she was hired as a community organizer for Bickerdike, a non - profit development corporation. She used her Young Lords organizing skills and passion to promote their mission of being, deeply dedicated to preserving the ethnic and cultural character of their neighborhoods, providing quality affordable housing, preserving jobs, advocating for resources and struggling against gentrification and displacement. One of the main issues that Ms. Romero advocated for was the “Chicago Affordable Set Aside.”
- Date Created:
- 2012-06-02T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Juan Rodríguez was a member and leader of the Jovenes Nobles social club in San Salvador, Puerto Rico, where he was born and raised. Mr. Rodríguez later followed other family members to Aurora, Illinois where he worked for many years at the Caterpillar Plant on Montgomery Road. Later, Mr. Rodríguez heard about the organizing work of the Young Lords in Chicago’s Lincoln Park. By that time his relatives from the Jiménez family had also come to Aurora, moving from Lincoln Park and Wicker Park. Mr. Rodríguez and his brother Ramón would visit their home regularly, and assisted with organizing the parades.
- Date Created:
- 2012-06-21T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Oral history of Lenny Foster, interviewed by Jose 'Cha-Cha' Jimenez on 10/23/2016 about the Young Lords in Lincoln Park.
- Date Created:
- 2016-10-23T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Oral history of Ricardo Lugo, 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:
- Oral history of Dennis Cunningham, interviewed by Jose 'Cha-Cha' Jimenez on 10/23/2016 about the Young Lords in Lincoln Park.
- Date Created:
- 2016-10-23T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Oral history of Minerva Solla, interviewed by Jose 'Cha-Cha' Jimenez on 10/23/2016 about the Young Lords in Lincoln Park.
- Date Created:
- 2016-10-23T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
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