Andres Figueroa Cordero

Andres Figueroa Cordero
Andre Figueroa Cordero
Born	November 29, 1924 Aguada, Puerto Rico
Died	March 7, 1979 Aguada, Puerto Rico
Nationality	Puerto Rican
Political party	Puerto Rican Nationalist Party
Movement	Puerto Rican Independence

External video

Newsreel scenes in English of the attack on the U.S. Capitol by Flores, Lebrón, Cancel Miranda and Figueroa Cordero

Andres Figueroa Cordero (November 29, 1924- March 7, 1979) was a political activist, member of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and an advocate of Puerto Rican independence. On March 1, 1954, Figueroa Cordero together with fellow Nationalists Lolita Lebrón, Irvin Flores, and Rafael Cancel Miranda entered the United States Capitol building armed with automatic pistols and fired 30 shots. Five congressmen were hit, however all the representatives survived and Figueroa Cordero, along with the other three members of his group were immediately arrested.

Figueroa Cordero was born into a poor family in the Barrio Lagunas in the town of Aguada in Puerto Rico. He quit school at an early age and went to work in order to help his family by providing some economic support.

The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party was founded by José Coll y Cuchí as a direct response to the American colonial government in 1919, By the 1920s, there were two other pro-independence organizations in the Island, they were the "Nationalist Youth" and the "'Independence Association of Puerto Rico". On September 17, 1922, the two political organizations merged into the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. In 1924, Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos joined the party and on May 11, 1930, Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos was elected president of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party.

There were sub-groups within the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. The "Puerto Rican Youth for Independence" was one of them. Figueroa Cordero became a believer in the ideology which embraced Puerto Rican independence and joined the "Puerto Rican Youth for Independence" group. He later became a fully fledged member of the Puerto Rican nationalist Party presided by Albizu Campos.

On July 2, 1948, Figueroa Cordero decided to move to New York City in search of a job. He did so because the economic situation of the island was in a bad state. Figueroa Cordero worked in a butcher shop, while at the same-time he continued to be a vocal advocate of the Puerto Rican independence cause. In New York he became a member of the Nationalist Party branch of that city. There he befriended Lolita Lebrón and Rafael Cancel Miranda. He later met and befriended Irvin Flores who had moved to New York and had become a member of the New York Nationalist Party branch.