Young Lords Organization
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Young Lords
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| Founded | 1968 by Jose Cha Cha Jimenez |
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| Political position | Left-wing to Far-left |
| International affiliation | Puerto Rico |
| Colors | Black and Purple with Gold |
 From Garbage Offensives to Occupying Churches, Actions of the Young Lords Continue to Inspire, Democracy Now, September 23, 2015 |
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Rev. Bruce and Eugenia Ransier Johnson
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Lords and Eagles
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Young Lords Origins
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The Young Lords, later Young Lords Organization and, in New York (notably Spanish Harlem), Young Lords Party, was a Puerto Rican nationalist group in several United States cities, notably New York City and Chicago.
The Young Lords began in 1960 as a Puerto Rican turf gang in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago. Their president Jose Cha Cha Jimenez reorganized them and became founder of the Young Lords as a national civil and human rights movement on Grito de Lares, September 23, 1968. This new community wide movement then spread to nearly 30 cities including three branches in New York.
During Mayor Daley's tenure, Puerto Ricans in Lincoln Park (the first hub of Puerto Ricans in Chicago) and several Mexican communities were evicted from prime real estate areas near the Loop, lakefront, Old Town, Lakeview and Lincoln Park.The city wanted to avoid paying for extra services and to increase property tax revenues. The Young Lords realized urban renewal was evicting Latino and poor families from their neighborhoods and witnessed police abuses. Some became involved in the Puerto Rican June 1966 Division Street Riots in Wicker Park and Humboldt Park. After the 1968 Democratic Convention is when they joined with others and were reorganized by Jose Cha Cha Jimenez into the broader civil and human rights movement. Puerto Rican self-determination and the displacement of Puerto Ricans and poor residents became the primary organizing focus of the original movement. There were few Latino students or outspoken leadership but the Young Lords were able to transform themselves, training leadership and organizing the broader community.
Multiple chapters formed nationwide following the example by the original chapter in Chicago with several loose branches forming in NYC and along the East Coast. National headquarters in Chicago asked a loose coalition of chapters in New York to form one regional branch. They all accepted neighborhood empowerment and Puerto Rican self-determination as the unifying mission. The national office headed by Jose Cha Cha Jimenez, gave approval because New York then was the port of entry for nearly 90% of the Puerto Ricans entering the continental U.S. It is where most continue to live on the mainland.Therefore it was also the most populated center of the Puerto Rican diaspora. Nevertheless, the Young Lords originated from the transformed Lumpen Proletariat in Chicago which mobilized various social classes and various ethnic People's within the community.
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Wikipedia