José Cha Cha Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords - General Megathread for the 9th of August 2022
José Cha Cha Jiménez, born on this day in 1948, is the founder of the "Young Lords", a national human rights movement with an emphasis on liberation for Puerto Ricans and other colonized people. The group was founded in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois on September 23rd, 1968, one hundred years after the Grito de Lares uprising. Jiménez was born to jíbaro parents in Caguas, Puerto Rico, but spent his formative years in Chicago.
In the summer of 1968, he was picked up for a possession of heroin charge and given a 60-day sentence at Cook County Jail. While in jail, he read "The Seven Story Mountain" by Thomas Merton, and became politically radicalized, also reading texts from radicals such as MLK Jr. and Malcolm X.
After his release, Jiménez transformed the Young Lords from a street gang into a human rights organization, entering into the "Rainbow Coalition" with Fred Hampton, head of the BPP's Chicago chapter. After Hampton's assassination by the Chicago Police and FBI, and the Coalition's dissolution, Jiménez continued his activism, running for a Chicago Alderman position in 1975, and helping organize a voter registration drive to support Harold Washington's 1982-83 mayoral campaign.
When asked in a 2018 interview what happened to the Young Lords, Jiménez responded:
"The question is what happened to the white left, who decided to abandon the Black Panthers and Young Lords when things got hot, as if these groups who risked everything were just, some kind of a fad or that their movement was just some kind of entertainment...
...We will always be reminded of how COINTELPRO and others have worked to split our movement so that we cannot organize together to free our nation of Puerto Rico. We will always work for unity. 'Unidos venceremos' or 'United will win!' It is not just a saying for us. It is a goal."
"If the People of El Salvador can ask for self-determination, if the People of Nicaragua can ask for self-determination, if the People of Ireland can ask for self-determination, if the People of Poland can ask for self-determination, if Black People in America can stand up and demand self-determination, then Puerto Ricans demand self-determination."
- José Cha Cha Jiménez
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