DOCSLIB.ORG

The Young Lords in Lincoln Park

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Young Lords in Lincoln Park SPECIAL COLLECTIONS & ARCHIVES Empowering Community: The Young Lords in Lincoln Park The Young Lords Organization serves as donation included newspaper clippings, forced minorities out of neighborhoods at an important example of grassroots activism articles, promotional materials, memora- an alarming rate. “The movement opened inciting change in local communities. In- bilia, and over one hundred oral histories eyes to housing discrimination,” explained spired by the Black Panthers, founder José related to the Young Lords’ history. “My Jiménez. “It was a sophisticated form of seg- “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, a Grand Valley State purpose was to display many perspectives so regation that is both economic and racial.” University alumnus, transformed the Young that others can imagine for themselves what Activist groups like the Young Lords Lords from a Puerto Rican street gang took place,” said Jiménez. pushed back against the gentrification, as into a political human rights organization The collection tells a compelling story well as other issues plaguing their com- fighting to enact social reform for minori- about social justice and change agents in munities such as police brutality and the ty groups living in the neighborhoods of American history. During the early 1950s, lack of affordable healthcare. To that end, Chicago, Illinois. Puerto Rican immigrants settled in Chicago the Young Lords joined forces with similar Jiménez donated the Young Lords in looking for greater employment opportuni- groups to form the Rainbow Coalition in Lincoln Park Collection to Special Collec- ties. The city’s urban renewal plan, however, the late 1960s. Together with the Black tions and University Archives in 2014. His eliminated affordable housing options and Panthers, a primarily African-American OFF THE SHELF 12 group, and the Young Patriots, composed of established a health clinic, white Appalachian migrants, the Rainbow free breakfast program, and Coalition sought to empower communi- daycare within the church ties to stand up for themselves politically basement to better serve the through grassroots organizing. The Rainbow needs of the community. Coalition believed that each group was Fueled by the desire to fighting for the same goals and could fight bring minority voices to the most effectively by joining together. The forefront of issues that affected Young Lords’ participation in the Coalition them, Jiménez ran for political illustrated a commitment to multi-cultural office in Chicago’s 46th ward and multi-ethnic empowerment. in 1974 on a “people first” The Young Lords also led numerous platform. Although his cam- protests and projects to combat inequality paign was unsuccessful, he did in the local community. For example, they help orchestrate an increase in seized land marked by urban renewal for voter registration among mi- a tennis club—complete with a $1,200 nority residents in the district. membership fee—to instead create a Empowering community People’s Park with playground equipment was at the heart of every ac- donated by local merchants. In November tion. The Young Lords wanted of 1968, the Young Lords staged a takeover to improve their neighborhoods, but not José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of of the Armitage Avenue Methodist Church at the expense of neighborhood diversity. the Young Lords Organization and renamed it the “People’s Church”. They For them, it was all about the people whose lives were being affected by unfair social and political practices. The Young Lords collection provided the inspiration for a recent exhibition in the Mary Idema Pew Library Learning and Information Commons celebrating the organization’s 50th anniversary. Ultimately, Jiménez hopes the collection and exhibi- tion will inspire Grand Valley students to “become leaders in creating a better world.” The collection is open to the public, and can be viewed at Special Collections and University Archives in Seidman House on the Allendale Campus. Oral histories are available in our digital collections. To explore oral histories in the Young Lords Collection: https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu. edu/collections/show/24 OFF THE SHELF 13.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Race, Governmentality, and the De-Colonial Politics of the Original Rainbow Coalition of Chicago
    University of Texas at El Paso DigitalCommons@UTEP Open Access Theses & Dissertations 2012-01-01 In The pirS it Of Liberation: Race, Governmentality, And The e-CD olonial Politics Of The Original Rainbow Coalition Of Chicago Antonio R. Lopez University of Texas at El Paso, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.utep.edu/open_etd Part of the American Studies Commons, and the History Commons Recommended Citation Lopez, Antonio R., "In The pS irit Of Liberation: Race, Governmentality, And The e-CD olonial Politics Of The Original Rainbow Coalition Of Chicago" (2012). Open Access Theses & Dissertations. 2127. https://digitalcommons.utep.edu/open_etd/2127 This is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UTEP. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Theses & Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UTEP. For more information, please contact [email protected]. IN THE SPIRIT OF LIBERATION: RACE, GOVERNMENTALITY, AND THE DE-COLONIAL POLITICS OF THE ORIGINAL RAINBOW COALITION OF CHICAGO ANTONIO R. LOPEZ Department of History APPROVED: Yolanda Chávez-Leyva, Ph.D., Chair Ernesto Chávez, Ph.D. Maceo Dailey, Ph.D. John Márquez, Ph.D. Benjamin C. Flores, Ph.D. Interim Dean of the Graduate School Copyright © by Antonio R. López 2012 IN THE SPIRIT OF LIBERATION: RACE, GOVERMENTALITY, AND THE DE-COLONIAL POLITICS OF THE ORIGINAL RAINBOW COALITION OF CHICAGO by ANTONIO R. LOPEZ, B.A., M.A. DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at El Paso in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of History THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT EL PASO August 2012 Acknowledgements As with all accomplishments that require great expenditures of time, labor, and resources, the completion of this dissertation was assisted by many individuals and institutions.
    [Show full text]
  • Wright on Fernández, 'The Young Lords: a Radical History'
    H-Socialisms Wright on Fernández, 'The Young Lords: A Radical History' Review published on Sunday, April 18, 2021 Johanna Fernández. The Young Lords: A Radical History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020. 480 pp. $30.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-4696-5344-0. Reviewed by Chris Wright (Hunter College, CUNY)Published on H-Socialisms (April, 2021) Commissioned by Gary Roth (Rutgers University - Newark) Printable Version: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=55947 The Young Lords Johanna Fernández’s The Young Lords: A Radical History could hardly have been published at a more auspicious time. The fateful year 2020 saw not only the outbreak of a global pandemic but also, in the United States, a rejuvenation of Black Lives Matter and renewed national attention to issues of racial and economic justice. The pandemic and its economic consequences have further skewed a lopsided distribution of income, with US billionaires gaining over a trillion dollars in the last nine months of 2020 even as millions of people were thrown out of work and wages continued to stagnate. Popular resistance, in part inspired by Bernie Sanders’s two presidential campaigns, seems to be gaining momentum, as the nation continues its headlong rush into an era of tumult likely reminiscent of both the 1930s and the 1960s-70s. The memory of the Young Lords resonates in our time of troubles. Others have written about the Young Lords, including members Iris Morales Through( the Eyes of Rebel Women: The Young Lords 1969–1976 [2016]) and Miguel Meléndez (We Took the Streets: Fighting for Latino Rights with the Young Lords [2003]), but Fernández’s work, which focuses on the New York organization, is an exhaustive study grounded in archival research and extensive interviews with surviving Lords.
    [Show full text]
  • Organize Your Own: the Politics and Poetics of Self-Determination Movements © 2016 Soberscove Press and Contributing Authors and Artists
    1 2 The Politics and Poetics of Self-determination Movements Curated by Daniel Tucker Catalog edited by Anthony Romero Soberscove Press Chicago 2016 Contents Acknowledgements 5 Gathering OURSELVES: A NOTE FROM THE Editor Anthony Romero 7 1 REFLECTIONS OYO: A Conclusion Daniel Tucker 10 Panthers, Patriots, and Poetries in Revolution Mark Nowak 26 Organize Your Own Temporality Rasheedah Phillips 48 Categorical Meditations Mariam Williams 55 On Amber Art Bettina Escauriza 59 Conditions Jen Hofer 64 Bobby Lee’s Hands Fred Moten 69 2 PANELS Organize Your Own? Asian Arts Initiative, Philadelphia 74 Organize Your Own? The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago 93 Original Rainbow Coalition Slought Foundation, Philadelphia 107 Original Rainbow Coalition Columbia College, Chicago 129 Artists Talk The Leviton Gallery at Columbia College, Chicago 152 3 PROJECTS and CONTRIBUTIONS Amber Art and Design 170 Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research 172 Dan S. Wang 174 Dave Pabellon 178 Frank Sherlock 182 Irina Contreras 185 Keep Strong Magazine 188 Marissa Johnson-Valenzuela 192 Mary Patten 200 Matt Neff 204 Rashayla Marie Brown 206 Red76, Society Editions, and Hy Thurman 208 Robby Herbst 210 Rosten Woo 214 Salem Collo-Julin 218 The R. F. Kampfer Revolutionary Literature Archive 223 Thomas Graves and Jennifer Kidwell 225 Thread Makes Blanket 228 Works Progress with Jayanthi Kyle 230 4 CONTRIBUTORS, STAFF, ADVISORS 234 Acknowledgements Major support for Organize Your Own has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, with additional support from collaborating venues, including: the Averill and Bernard Leviton Gallery at Columbia College Chicago, Kelly Writers House’s Brodsky Gallery at the University of Pennsylvania, the Slought Foundation, the Asian Arts Initiative, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and others.
    [Show full text]
  • Annotated Bibliography
    Annotated Bibliography Primary Sources: Browning, Frank. From Rumble to Revolution: the Young Lords. Glad Day Press, 1970. ​ ​ This is an article written during the time of the Young Lords describing how they went from being street gang members to an activist group. From this article I learned about the injustice Puerto Ricans and other lower class citizens were facing in Lincoln Park as they faced gentrification movements. In this article it also mentioned early successes they had such as establishing a public clinic for their community and creating large protests on the streets to demand the city for better sanitation. This source can be useful as it describes many of the issues that the Young Lords were facing in their community and how they decided to resolve them. It described many of their successful movements that helped improve their community. “CHA CHA: Guilty or Innocent?” Y.L.O., Vol. 2, No. 7; Page 002, 1970. ​ ​ This article from the Young Lord Organization newspaper was published in 1970 and it details Jose Cha Cha Jimenez experience in jail. From this article we learned about the struggles Jimenez had with drugs especially heroin that landed him in jail several times. While in jail Jimenez spent his free time learning about Martin Luther King which inspired his activist movement. In another section of the article about Urban Renewal, Jimenez explains how in many of the community board meetings that decided Urban Renewal there were hardly anybody representing his people. This source can be useful in describing Jimenez’s life as well as explaining the injustice with Urban Renewal.
    [Show full text]
  • Bobby L. Rush, Rise of a Black Panther Politican: the Price of Resistance in America
    Wayne State University Wayne State University Dissertations January 2019 Bobby L. Rush, Rise Of A Black Panther Politican: The Price Of Resistance In America Samuel Hogsette Wayne State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_dissertations Part of the Other History Commons Recommended Citation Hogsette, Samuel, "Bobby L. Rush, Rise Of A Black Panther Politican: The Price Of Resistance In America" (2019). Wayne State University Dissertations. 2284. https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_dissertations/2284 This Open Access Embargo is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@WayneState. It has been accepted for inclusion in Wayne State University Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@WayneState. BOBBY L. RUSH RISE OF A BLACK PANTHER POLITICAN: THE LIMITS OF BLACK RESISTANCE IN AMERICA by SAMUEL J HOGSETTE DISSERTATION Submitted to the Graduate School of Wayne State University Detroit Michigan in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 2019 MAJOR: HISTORY Approved By: _____________________________________ Advisor Date ______________________________________ ______________________________________ ______________________________________ ______________________________________ DEDICATION This Dissertation is dedicated to several people who have impacted my life in positive ways. In memory of my father Sammie Hogsette who never dreamed such a thing was possible. Black Panthers from Englewood High School Spurgeon “Jake” Winters and Walter “Brother” Johnson who exemplified the spirit of the Panther. Mentor Clyde Williams who helped me realize my full potential. To all the Members of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party. Aluta’ Continua. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the many people who assisted me in this project.
    [Show full text]
  • Radicals in Black and Brown
    January 27 – March 2, 2007 The Robert and Sallie Brown Gallery and Museum THE SONJA HAYNES STONE CENTER FOR BLACK CULTURE AND HIstORY THE UNIVERSI T Y O F N OR T H CAROLINA AT C H A P E L H ILL A BOUT THE ROBERT A ND SA LLIE BROWN G A LLERY A ND MUSEUM The Robert and Sallie Brown Gallery and Museum at the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History is dedicated to the enrichment of visual culture on campus and in the community. The Brown Gallery supports the Stone Center’s commitment to the critical examination of all dimensions of African-American and African diaspora cultures through the formal exhibition of works of art, artifacts and forms of material culture. Project Directors Joseph Jordan, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Johanna Fernandez, Carnegie-Mellon University Charles Jones, Georgia State University Project Advisors Jose “Cha Cha” Jimenez Kathleen Cleaver Denise Oliver-Velez Darrell Enck-Wanzer Mickey Melendez Hiram Maristany Iris Morales Alden Kimbrough Ahmad Rahman Carlos Flores Co-Sponsors Institute of African-American Research at UNC at Chapel Hill The Latina/o Studies Minor at UNC at Chapel Hill Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños in New York African-American Latina/o Alliance of North Carolina Special Thanks to Sandra B. Hill Olympia Friday Jumoke Blaize Randy Simmons Trevaughn Eubanks Lotticia Mack Reginald Hildebrand Works featured in the exhibit were acquired from the Alden Kimbrough and Mary Kimbrough Collection, the Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños, the Carlos Flores Collection, the Hiram Maristany Collection, and the Sonja Haynes Stone Collection.
    [Show full text]
  • The Black Mohicans: Representations of Everyday Violence in Postracial Urban America
    The Black Mohicans: Representations of Everyday Violence in Postracial Urban America John D. Márquez American Quarterly, Volume 64, Number 3, September 2012, pp. 625-651 (Article) Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: 10.1353/aq.2012.0040 For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/aq/summary/v064/64.3.marquez.html Access provided by San Francisco State University (1 Oct 2013 16:52 GMT) The Black Mohicans | 625 The Black Mohicans: Representations of Everyday Violence in Postracial Urban America John D. Márquez It’s like all the good kids are leaving, you know. The gangbangers are making it and our kids are dying. —Annette Holt, mother of a sixteen-year-old Chicago teen slain by a peer erhaps the most dramatic scene of The Interrupters (2011) portrays the funeral director, Spencer Leak, a community elder, saying: “How can Pthe President of the United States be a Black man? . I never thought that I’d see that in my lifetime. But, while I’m seeing the President on television and the images of him leading the free world . I’m still burying Black kids. It just doesn’t make sense to me.”1 Most of the scene, filmed inside of Leaks’s funeral home, showed the wake of a working-class black male teenager named Jessie “Duke” Smith, who was killed in retaliation for a previous shooting of another black male teenager, a shooting that Smith did not commit. Images of the wake and Leaks’s words add another painful dramatic moment to the many other accounts of deaths of young black and Latino males.
    [Show full text]
  • ¡Palante Siempre Palante! the Young Lords
    ¡Palante Siempre Palante! The Young Lords P.O.V.’s Youth Views Youth Outreach Toolkit ¡Palante Siempre Palante! The Young Lords Youth Outreach Toolkit Table of Contents Introduction Background Information on ¡Palante Siempre Palante! The Young Lords q Film Synopsis q Cast of characters q Background Information on the Young Lords ¡Palante Siempre Palante! The Young Lords Screening Goals q Screening Goal One: Learning the Importance of Knowing Our History q Screening Goal Two: Developing a Plan for How Student Activists Can Impact Their Community q Screening Goal Three: Increasing Understanding of the Unique Immigrant Experience of Each Ethnic Group q Screening Goal Four: Understanding the Art of Storytelling in Filmmaking: How the Structure Influences the Message q Screening Goal Five: Examining the Impact of Gender Expectations on Revolutionary Movements Step-by-Step Guide on How to Organize a Screening Event Index of Companion Materials and Resources Acknowledgements INTRODUCTION Welcome to the ¡Palante Siempre Palante! The Young Lords Youth Outreach Toolkit! We are very excited to have your participation in the Youth Views program. Youth Views’ dedicated to collaborating with young people that want to explore the use of documentaries as community building tools. The ¡Palante Siempre Palante! The Young Lords Youth Outreach Toolkit focuses on involving young people in the creation of screening events where critical dialogues and civic response can succeed under youth leadership and initiative. With your input, we hope to continue creating more youth outreach toolkits for other P.O.V. programs. The Goals of The ¡Palante Siempre Palante! The Young Lords Youth Outreach Toolkit Are To… Support youth by… encouraging the development of critical thinking, media literacy, community organizing, peer support, personal expression, leadership, coalition building, and solution seeking through the organizing and execution of the ¡Palante Siempre Palante! The Young Lords screening event in their communities.
    [Show full text]
  • Latino-Police Relations in 1960'S Chicago Crisol G
    McNair Scholars Journal Volume 19 | Issue 1 Article 4 2015 "They Do Not Treat Us Like Human Beings": Latino-Police Relations in 1960's Chicago Crisol G. Beliz Grand Valley State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/mcnair Recommended Citation Beliz, Crisol G. (2015) ""They oD Not Treat Us Like Human Beings": Latino-Police Relations in 1960's Chicago," McNair Scholars Journal: Vol. 19 : Iss. 1 , Article 4. Available at: http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/mcnair/vol19/iss1/4 Copyright © 2015 by the authors. McNair Scholars Journal is reproduced electronically by ScholarWorks@GVSU. http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/ mcnair?utm_source=scholarworks.gvsu.edu%2Fmcnair%2Fvol19%2Fiss1%2F4&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages “They Do Not Treat Us Like Human Beings”: Latino-Police Relations in 1960’s Chicago Instances of police brutality against even though the issue of police brutality unarmed African-Americans dominate continued to negatively affect the the news and media outlets. Stories community. Their efforts were not in vain; of police brutality against unarmed instead, their actions were able to bring citizens across the United States have the Latino community of Chicago into garnered the attention of a worldwide the larger national conversation about the audience. Names such as Eric Garner mistreatment of marginalized groups in and Rodney King were embedded in the 1960’s. people’s memories, but what about names like Manuel Ramos? Members Puerto Ricans in Chicago of the Latino1 community have also Puerto Ricans have been migrating to been victims of police brutality, even Chicago since the early years of the though this community is often left twentieth century.
    [Show full text]
  • The Ideology of the Young Lords Party
    NYU Press Chapter Title: The Ideology of the Young Lords Party Book Title: The Young Lords Book Subtitle: A Reader Book Editor(s): Darrel Enck-Wanzer Published by: NYU Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/j.ctt9qfc5q.7 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms NYU Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Young Lords This content downloaded from 136.145.180.42 on Thu, 23 Jul 2020 18:50:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 2 The Ideology of the Young Lords Party This chapter reproduces part of a booklet, by the same title, that the Young Lords circulated among themselves, “friends of the Lords,” and community members. The essays contained in this chapter lay out key theoretical and practical com- mitments of the Young Lords. While they are not reproduced in this volume, it is important to note that the booklet contained eight different images across forty-one pages of text. The booklet was first written in February 1971 and first printed in February 1972. The reader will find many (though not all) of the essays in the original booklet reproduced here.
    [Show full text]
  • The Young Lords, Puerto Rican Liberation, and the Black Freedom Struggle Downloaded From
    Bringing History Alive The Young Lords, Puerto Rican Liberation, and the Black Freedom Struggle Downloaded from Interview with José “Cha Cha” Jiménez http://maghis.oxfordjournals.org/ José “Cha Cha” Jiménez was born into a peas- community. From a turf gang mainly inter- ant family in Caguas, Puerto Rico in 1948. ested in “getting a reputation,” as Jiménez After father Antonio Jiménez Rodríguez had recalls, the Young Lords became the Young worked for two years as a tomatero, or Lords Organization (YLO), a voice for migrant tomato picker, in Concord, Mas- militant Puerto Rican nationalism, opposi- sachusetts, José and his mother, Eugenia tion to urban renewal, solidarity with the Rodríguez Flores, joined Antonio in Boston, black freedom struggle, and support for rev- at Indiana University Libraries Technical Services/Serials Acquisitions on January 18, 2012 and they moved to Chicago in 1950. At that olutionary movements around the world. time, most Puerto Ricans in the Windy City They signed peace treaties with rival gangs, lived in run-down neighborhoods just north published a newspaper, spread to a number and west of downtown. As José came of age on of U.S. cities, most notably New York, and the mean streets of Chicago, working-class turf formed an alliance—the Rainbow Coali- gangs—black, white, Mexican, and Puerto tion—with the Black Panther Party (BPP) Rican—defended their neighborhood territo- and the Young Patriots, a white working-class ries against perceived outsiders. At the same group. time, a growing movement for “urban renewal” The YLO viewed Puerto Rican immigra- pushed working-class Puerto Rican families tion to the U.S., as a result of the island’s northward to Lincoln Park, and in the 1960s, colonial status, as similar to the forced migra- further northwest to the Humboldt Park and tion of Africans in the transatlantic slave Wicker Park neighborhoods.
    [Show full text]
  • The Young Lords
    University of North Carolina Press THE YOUNG LORDS Copyrighted Material • Further Distribution Prohibited University of North Carolina Press INTRODUCTION In the !nal days of "#$#, the Young Lords were on top of the world. As the decade entered its midnight hour, this group of poor and working- class Puerto Rican radicals brought an alternative vision of society to life in their own neighbor- hood. Their aim was to reclaim the dignity of the racially oppressed and elevate basic human needs—food, clothing, housing, health, work, and community— over the pursuit of pro!t. In the course of a !ght with East Harlem’s First Spanish United Methodist Church (FSUMC), they found an unlikely but irresistible se%ing for the public presentation of their revolutionary project. The Young Lords had simply been looking for a space to feed breakfast to poor children before school. The church seemed an ideal place. It was conve- niently situated in the center of East Harlem and housed in a beautiful, spacious building that was closed all week except for a couple of hours on Sunday. But its priest, an exile of Castro’s revolutionary Cuba, denied the use of its building. In response, the Young Lords charged that the church’s benign indi&erence to the social and economic su&ering of the people of East Harlem—one of the poor- est districts in the city—mirrored government indi&erence and enabled social violence. They argued further that the church’s professed goals of service to mankind and promises of happiness and freedom from earthly worries in the herea'er cloaked a broader project of social control.
    [Show full text]