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27 3 The Origins and History of the Young Lords This chapter contains a selection of resources that helps to chart the evolution of the Young Lords from their beginnings in Chicago to their various phases in New York and beyond. This chapter begins with an interview of the Chicago Young Lords Organization founder Cha Cha Jimenez (published in the Black Panther), which the nascent New York activists used as a model of their activism. What follows this interview are other articles published by the New York Young Lords that document organizational changes (e.g., the break with the Chicago Young Lords Organization) and political and community milestones related to their service and activism. Interview with Cha-Cha Jimenez (From the newspaper The Black Panther, 7 June 1969) BM: Cha-Cha, how did the Young Lords come into existence, become an organization? Cha-Cha: In 1959 the Young Lords was a gang, a street gang on the near North Side of Chicago in the area of Oldtown. It got together as probably being more or less for protection because it was primarily a white area and the Young Lords were Puerto Rican. Later on more and more Puerto Ricans came into the area as more and more of the racist whites moved out into another community which was closer to Oldtown. After a while they became a social club, they had parties for the benefit of raising money for sweaters and T-shirts. They had picnics, they had dinners for the families and slowly but surely they were changing organizationally into helping the people in the community. After a period of time of giving money to the people in the community, and giving donations of food and clothing, the Young Lords tried to sit down to cope with the needs of their environment. So they got together to find out what was the real problem, how could they help their people best. This was the main reason why the Young Lords Organization turned politically, because they found out that just giving gifts wasn’t going to deal with the system that was messing over them. BM: Cha-Cha I see that more and more in different medias [. . .] you are associated with different political groups such as the Black Panthers, which is a very political organization and they have a political line and a political platform and program which they follow. What inspired you to align yourselves with the Black Panther Party? Cha-Cha: Well you see, we’re still looking for that way in which we can help our people. Now we’re starting to realize who our people really are, who our friends are and who our enemies are. And as we read and studied other organizations that are appearing now in the United States, we see and we recognize the Black Panther Party as a vanguard 28 The Origins and History of the Young Lords party, a vanguard revolutionary party. And we feel that as revolutionaries we should follow the vanguard party, this is why we follow them. BM: Cha-Cha, I’ve seen in the news and it’s been in different medias where you lost a member of your organization, he was shot down by some of the Chicago police. And in working in a political way as the Black Panthers do and knowing Mayor Daley and the officials or the power structure of Chicago to be, as they’ve demonstrated in the past, are you prepared and willing to deal with that situation or whatever for existence as a political organization? Cha-Cha: As a political organization, I think we’re well prepared to deal with it. I think we’ve dealt with it already, I think we’ve showed Chicago our following by coming out in 24 hours bringing 3,000 people to the streets which is something that isn’t done very often. Manual Ramos was a regular guy from the Ghettoes of Chicago. He was just like most of us are right now. Like we said before earlier, we’re still searching for a way to help our people, we’re still helping search for a way towards protection. Manual Ramos was a regular member in the organization since the beginning. We feel that he was a true revolutionary for changing along with it, because most of us don’t really understand all the basic issues. Most of us are new in the movement but we can see everyday, this is a...

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