Rafael Cancel Miranda
| Rafael Cancel Miranda | |
|---|---|
Congressman Robert García (left) with Rafael Cancel Miranda (right)
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| Born |
July 18, 1930 Mayagüez, Puerto Rico |
| Nationality |
Puerto Rican 
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| Political party | Puerto Rican Nationalist Party |
| Movement | Puerto Rican Independence |
| Notes | |
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Cancel Miranda was the only Nationalist jailed in "Alcatraz"
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 Newsreel scenes of the Ponce Massacre on YouTube
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A speech in Spanish by Rafael Cancel Miranda on YouTube
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Rafael Cancel Miranda (born July 18, 1930) is a political activist, member of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and an advocate of Puerto Rican independence. On March 1, 1954, Miranda together with fellow Nationalists Lolita Lebrón, Andrés Figueroa Cordero, and Irvin Flores Rodríguez entered the United States Capitol building armed with automatic pistols and fired 30 shots. Five congressmen were hit, however all the representatives survived and Cancel Miranda, along with the other three members of his group were immediately arrested. Cancel Miranda was the only Nationalist out of the four to have been jailed in Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, a Federal Bureau of Prisons federal prison.
Cancel Miranda was born in the City of Mayagüez, located in the western coast of Puerto Rico. His father, Rafael Cancel Rodríguez, was president of the Mayagüez chapter of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and his mother was a member of the Daughters of Freedom, a non-partisan women's organization which was the women's branch of the Nationalist Party. His father, a businessman and owner of a furniture store, had been imprisoned because of his political beliefs.
In March 1937, when Cancel Miranda was seven years old,his mother and father traveled to the City of Ponce to participate in a march organized by the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. (He and his sisters couldn't go because they were sick with measles).The march, which was scheduled for March 30 (Palm Sunday), was organized to commemorate the ending of slavery in Puerto Rico by the governing Spanish National Assembly in 1873, and to protest the incarceration by the U.S. Government of Nationalist leader Pedro Albizu Campos on sedition charges.
Upon learning of the planned protest, however, the colonial Governor of Puerto Rico at the time, General Blanton Winship, who had been appointed by US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, demanded the immediate withdrawal of the permits. They were withdrawn a short time before the march was scheduled to begin. As "La Borinqueña", Puerto Rico's national song, was being played, the demonstrators began to march. They were then fired upon for over 15 minutes by the police from their four positions. About 235 people were wounded and nineteen were killed. Among the dead were 17 unarmed civilians and two police officers at the hands of the Insular Police for a total of 19 dead, in addition 235 civilians were wounded, including women and children. Ultimately, responsibility for the massacre fell on Governor Winship, and he is considered to have, in effect, ordered the massacre. Many were chased by the police and shot or clubbed at the entrance of their houses as they tried to escape. Others were taken from their hiding places and killed. Leopold Tormes, a member of the Puerto Rico legislature, told reporters how a policeman murdered a nationalist with his bare hands. Dr. José N. Gándara, one of the physicians who assisted the wounded, testified that wounded people running away were shot, and that many were again wounded by the clubs and bare fists of the police. No arms were found in the hands of the civilians wounded, nor on the dead ones. About 150 of the demonstrators were arrested immediately afterward; they were later released on bail. The incident is known as the Ponce Massacre.
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Wikipedia