Young Lords

The Young Lords started as a turf gang of young Puerto Rican men, residents of the Lincoln Park neighborhood in Chicago, who protested against the abuses of the government and other repressive institutions. In 1966, in the midst of the Division Street and African American riots, Jose Cha-Cha Rodríguez, one of the group's founders, was in jail. During his time in jail, he met Fred Hampton, leader of the Black Panthers in Chicago, from whom he learned extensively about Marxism and Leninism. Following his release, Cha-Cha turned the former turf gang into a radical organization to resist the gentrification of the Lincoln Park area.

The group saw a connection between their experiences in Chicago with U.S. institutions and the political relationship of Puerto Rico with the United States. The organization demanded an end to the divisive relationship of the island with the United States, which they saw as colonial. The organization was heavily influenced by the Black Panthers; however, the Young Lords were considered more radical. For instance, they favored legal abortion and adopted a feminist approach to resist the oppression of Puerto Rican and African American women. In fact, the thirteen-point program that contained the beliefs of the Young Lords was changed in 1970 to replace a clause advocating for revolutionary “machismo” with one that demanded gender equality.

In 1969, inspired by the organization in Chicago, a group of individuals decided to establish branches of the Young Lords in New York and in other northeastern states. As part of their commitment to local community issues, they organized several activities, such as free breakfasts, health care services, and clothing for community residents. Their struggle was for social justice and against oppression. They relied on violence to obtain that goal, and police attempts to control them did not deter them from challenging the unequal system. In fact, they demonstrated that Puerto Rican children were unequally exposed to high levels of lead, a major environmental hazard for children. Motivated by the lack of or unequal access of minority individuals to health care, in 1970, the Young Lords decided to take over Lincoln Hospital, in the South Bronx, and open it as a drug rehabilitation center accessible to the poor. They also organized forceful campaigns to demand cleaner communities and persuade the city of New York to offer more frequent trash removal.

In their struggle to uphold and promote Marxist-Leninist principles, the Young Lords became the Puerto Rican Revolutionary Workers Organization in 1971. However, after their many victories for Latino rights in the United States, internal divisions in terms of the scope of this new organization brought an end to the group. The Young Lords, in conjunction with the Black Panthers, occupies a central position in the history of the civil rights era and continues to serve as the inspiration for other Latino organizations.