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Young Lords (Organization)
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- 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:
- 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:
- 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 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
- Notes:
- John “Oppress” Preston was a leading member of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP). His role within the party was to set up and distribute the BPP newspaper throughout the state of Illinois. Though the BPP started in Oakland, California in 1966, it was not until April 25, 1967 that they published their first official newspaper. By 1969 the newspaper had a nationwide distribution of about 250,000 copies. In Illinois, distribution climbed up to about 80,000 copies.Mr. Preston describes what a major operation it was to set up and distribute the paper. Many times the newspaper was used as part of Political Education or “P.E.” classes. It was automatically given to new members to sell. The Black Panthers were about being out and active in the community as well as educating the People. The office was primarily used as a place to stop over to eat with others from the community or to report in; very quickly members were back on the streets selling papers and talking with the People.The BPP Newspaper was used as a tool for discussion on the many corners where it was sold. In this way it also provided visibility, as individuals would wave or drive by honking their horns. The newspaper also provided guidance to the Young Lords and to the many other organizations that were connected in one way or the other to the Black Panthers. The Young Lords began to put out their own bilingual newspaper which was then distributed in Latino areas along with several other organizations. Although it was improving, it still lacked in the sophistication of the work done by Mr. Preston. He delivered the newspaper to the various branches and chapters in Illinois cities; they, in turn, would distribute it to their assigned geographical area. There was an accounting for each and every newspaper because the paper also provided income for the BPP chapters.
- Date Created:
- 2012-03-27T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Howard Alan is an architect who specializes in organic architecture, passive and active solar and alternative energy conservation. He grew up in Chicago and first learned architecture in high school before going on to attend the School of Architecture at the University of Southern California. In 1969, Mr. Alan invited and brought the world renowned architect, Buckminster Fuller, to the People’s Church to meet with Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez and the Young Lords. The Young Lords and the Poor People’s Coalition of Lincoln Park (which Mr. Jiménez was also their president) hired Mr. Alan to draw up plans for a multi-unit, affordable housing complex, as a concrete cooperative alternative to Daley’s Master Plan; a plan which was displacing Latinos and the poor from across Chicago’s near-downtown and lakefront neighborhoods.
- Date Created:
- 2012-08-22T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Fr. Donald Headley was first ordained as a Catholic priest in 1958 and is resident priest at the St. Mary’s of the Woods Faith Community in Chicago. He recalls meeting with Saul Alinsky and working with Rev. Jack Eagan, the founder of urban Catholic activism. He also recalls a great deal about the Puerto Rican community in La Clark that grew up through the 1950s. Fr. Headley’s work in Chicago also prompted him to spend 13 years working with the poor in the San Miguelito Mission in Panama during the late 1960s and 1970s.
- Date Created:
- 2012-08-21T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Higinio Lozano arrived in Chicago and settled in the La Clark neighborhood in 1947. He later moved to North Avenue and Sedgwick in Old Town, right across the street from Lincoln Park, and lived there until the 1980s. Mr. Lozano is considered the official “Grandpa” of the Young Lords because he does not miss any of their events including socials, funerals and weddings. Several of his children were part of the Young Lords including his daughter, Yolanda Lucas, who held a top leadership position within the Young Lords. Ms. Lucas is also the mother of Alejandro “Alex” Jiménez, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez’s only son. Alejandro Jiménez is now an adult who went to Truman College, has sold insurance and other products, and has even worked for the Northwest Community Organization, a neighborhood group known for their grassroots activism, especially around housing concerns.Ms. Lucas and Mr. José Jiménez separated after the Jiménez for Alderman Campaign when pressures contributed to Mr. Jiménez‘s relapse. Circumstances related to divorce, safety, distance, the Young Lords, and repression prevented a more traditional type of family communications. Communication was nearly non-existent and usually done in public places, which became cannon fodder for those without clear understanding, and who loved to be involved in gossip. This contributed even more to the pain of a child. But Mr. Lozano provided needed support to Alex and to the Young Lords group. Ms. Lucas remains very close to the Jiménez family and now there is also a granddaughter, Alessandra.Mr. Lozano is always happy go lucky and the biggest flirt ever, who will not miss a beat on the dance floor. His son, Albert, was a salsa king at the Rico’s Club that Young Lord Angie Adorno owned, and which many Young Lords and others from Lincoln Park patronized. Mr. Lozano is the typical Puerto Rican joker who will catch your every weakness. And his politics are soft spoken. One does not realize how clear he is on Puerto Rican politics. He knows racism firsthand and what Mayor Daley did to Puerto Ricans; removing them from the lakefront and downtown. He saw it with his own eyes. But he is patient enough to wait until you can see it.
- Date Created:
- 2012-07-12T00:00:00Z
- 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
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