Young Lords (Organization); Puerto Ricans--United States; Civil Rights--United States--History; Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.); Puerto Ricans--Personal narratives; Social justice; Community activists--Illinois--Chicago; Puerto Rico--Autonomy and...
Luis “Tony” Baez arrived in Chicago from Barrio Borinquén of Caguas, Puerto Rico in 1969 and soon became Minister of Education of the Young Lords. In Puerto Rico, Dr. Baez was also active with the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP), the...
Young Lords (Organization); Puerto Ricans--United States; Civil Rights--United States--History; Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.); Personal narratives; Social justice; Community activists--Illinois--Chicago
Helen Shiller, a Jewish American born in 1947 in Long Island, New York. Her father had immigrated to the United States from Latvia and her mother from Belarus. She moved to Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood in 1972, living on N. Malden Street....
Young Lords (Organization); Puerto Ricans--United States; Civil Rights--United States--History; Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.); Personal narratives; Social justice; Community activists--Illinois--Chicago
Howard Alan is an architect who specializes in organic architecture, passive and active solar and alternative energy conservation. He grew up in Chicago and first learned architecture in high school before going on to attend the School of...
Young Lords (Organization); Puerto Ricans--United States; Civil Rights--United States--History; Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.); Personal narratives; Social justice; Community activists--Illinois--Chicago
A resident of Chicago’s Roger’s Park neighborhood, Mike James was the first leader of Rising Up Angry, a white, working-class group formed in the late 1960s and early 1970s that sought to organize residents of Lakeview/Uptown and offer a range...
Young Lords (Organization); Puerto Ricans--United States; Civil Rights--United States--History; Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.); Personal narratives; Social justice; Community activists--Illinois--Chicago; Urban renewal--Illinois--Chicago;...
Patricia Devine-Reed was the leader of the Concerned Citizens of Lincoln Park (later called the Concerned Citizens Survival Front of Lincoln Park), the first group to protest urban renewal plans on the grounds that Puerto Ricans and African...
Young Lords (Organization); Puerto Ricans--United States; Civil Rights--United States--History; Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.); Personal narratives; Social justice; Community activists--Illinois--Chicago; Chicago (Ill.)--Politics and...
Paul Siegel was a precinct captain in the Jiménez for Alderman Campaign (1973-1975). He was also a member of the Inter Communal Survival Committees that moved to Chicago to concentrate their forces and work in uptown organizing the poor at the...
Young Lords (Organization); Puerto Ricans--United States; Civil Rights--United States--History; Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.); Personal narratives; Social justice; Community activists--Illinois--Chicago; Puerto Ricans--Illinois--Chicago--Social...
Mike Lawson is a civil rights activist who first met Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez in 1968, after Mr. Jiménez was released from prison. At that time, Mr. Lawson was in charge of a G.E.D. program for ex-offenders that already had enrolled a...
Young Lords (Organization); Puerto Ricans--United States; Civil Rights--United States--History; Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.); Personal narratives; Social justice; Community activists--Illinois--Chicago; Chicago (Ill.)--Politics and...
Jack Hart was a primary assistant to Walter “Slim” Coleman during the Jiménez for Alderman Campaign of 1975. He continues to live and work in Chicago’s 46th Ward, primarily in the Uptown Community. In the 1970s, Hart was a member of the...
Young Lords (Organization); Puerto Ricans--United States; Civil Rights--United States--History; Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.); Personal narratives; Social justice; Community activists--Illinois--Chicago; Rural-urban migration--Illinois--Chicago;...
Hy Thurman arrived in Chicago when he was seventeen years old from a small farming town in eastern Tennessee. Mr. Thurman co-founded the Young Patriots. In 1969, the Young Patriots became part of the original Rainbow Coalition, along with the Young...
Young Lords (Organization); Puerto Ricans--United States; Civil Rights--United States--History; Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.); Personal narratives; Social justice; Community activists--Illinois--Chicago; Catholic Church. Archdiocese of Chicago (Ill.)
Fr. Donald Headley was first ordained as a Catholic priest in 1958 and is resident priest at the St. Mary’s of the Woods Faith Community in Chicago. He recalls meeting with Saul Alinsky and working with Rev. Jack Eagan, the founder of urban...
Young Lords (Organization); Puerto Ricans--United States; Civil Rights--United States--History; Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.); Personal narratives; Social justice; Community activists--Illinois--Chicago; Catholic Church. Archdiocese of Chicago (Ill.)
In the early 1950s, Monsignor Leo T. Mahon, an Irish American priest who was then head of the Hispanic apostolate in the Chicago Diocese, organized the (Knights of San Juan), as a religiously inspired community action group among Puerto Rican men....
Young Lords (Organization); Puerto Ricans--United States; Civil Rights--United States--History; Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.); Personal narratives; Social justice; Community activists--Illinois--Chicago
John Boelter was one of the Chicago Teachers Union members on strike in September 1968 at Waller
High School, known today by its new name, Lincoln Park High. Today he is a Professor of Biology at
Chicago State University. In 1968, a prominent Young...
Young Lords (Organization); Puerto Ricans--United States; Civil Rights--United States--History; Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.); Personal narratives; Social justice; Community activists--Illinois--Chicago
Gregorio Gómez is known as the “G Man” at one of Chicago’s longest running underground poetry venues, “Weeds,” at 1515 North Dayton Street. Opened in 1964, “Weeds” still serves the Lincoln Park neighborhood; the building has existed...
Young Lords (Organization); Puerto Ricans--United States; Civil Rights--United States--History; Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.); Personal narratives; Social justice; Community activists--Illinois--Chicago
Melisa Jiménez is the youngest daughter of Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. Like his other children she was
not able to grow up with Mr. Jiménez. But she has always maintained a close relationship with him, even
though they live miles away from...
Young Lords (Organization); Puerto Ricans--United States; Civil Rights--United States--History; Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.); Personal narratives; Social justice; Community activists--Illinois--Chicago
Melisa Jiménez is the youngest daughter of Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. Like his other children she was
not able to grow up with Mr. Jiménez. But she has always maintained a close relationship with him, even
though they live miles away from...
Young Lords (Organization); Puerto Ricans--United States; Civil Rights--United States--History; Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.); Personal narratives; Social justice; Community activists--Illinois--Chicago
Higinio Lozano arrived in Chicago and settled in the La Clark neighborhood in 1947. He later moved to North Avenue and Sedgwick in Old Town, right across the street from Lincoln Park, and lived there until the 1980s. Mr. Lozano is considered the...
Young Lords (Organization); Puerto Ricans--United States; Civil Rights--United States--History; Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.); Personal narratives; Social justice; Community activists--Illinois--Chicago
Patrick Mateo is a Young Lord who was born in the United States but lived many years in Puerto Rico.
His family is from Salinas. But he and his siblings grew up in Chicago starting at Van Buren, the old La
Madison barrio, and in Grand Rapids,...
Young Lords (Organization); Puerto Ricans--United States; Civil Rights--United States--History; Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.); Personal narratives; Social justice; Community activists--Illinois--Chicago
Felícitas Nuñez lives in Bermuda Dunes, California. She and Delia Ravelo are co-founders of Teatro de Las Chicanas. The concept began when women of Movimiento Estudíantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA) brought their mothers to a university setting....
Young Lords (Organization); Puerto Ricans--United States; Civil Rights--United States--History; Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.); Personal narratives; Social justice; Community activists--Illinois--Chicago
Ted Pearson is a long-time resident of Lincoln Park who has been active within the progressive
movement all his life. Early on in 1968 and 1969 he would come by the Young Lord’s People’s Church to
offer his support for the Young Lords and their...
Young Lords (Organization); Puerto Ricans--United States; Civil Rights--United States--History; Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.); Personal narratives; Social justice; Community activists--Illinois--Chicago
John “Oppress” Preston was a leading member of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP). His role within the party was to set up and distribute the BPP newspaper throughout the state of Illinois. Though the BPP started in Oakland,...
