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Description |
María Romero first joined the Young Lords on Wilton and Grace Streets. She was recruited by then Angie
Lind-Rizzo (later Angie Adorno) and the other Young Lord women members. It was 1973 and the Young
Lords were emerging from two long years of being completely underground, or inoperative publicly as a
human rights organization. There were no longer remnants of the Young Lords Movement left in the
Lincoln Park neighborhood that gave birth to them in 1968. The Lincoln Park neighborhood had been
cleaned out of Puerto Ricans and the poor, in just a few years, by city hall and the Lincoln Park
Neighborhood Association. A directive was given by the leadership for the Young Lords members to
move and to establish themselves as a base of operations in the Lakeview Neighborhood, at Wilton and
Grace Streets. Many Young Lords moved there with their families. Prior to that, a group of about 25
Young Lords had moved to a rural, rented farm near Tomah, Wisconsin. The farm camp was called a
“Training School,” and their sole purpose for their camp was to train new Young Lord’s leaders who
would step in and lead the Young Lords. Repression had hit extremely hard within the Lincoln Park
Movement, splitting it in several directions. This was aided by pending trials of several Young Lords
leaders and the still unsolved murders of United Methodist Rev. Bruce Johnson and his wife Eugenia, of
the Young Lords People’s Church. Rainbow Coalition leader of the Black Panther Party, Fred Hampton,
and Mark Clark were also assassinated in a raid organized by the States Attorney. The Lincoln Park
Movement had seized to exist. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, who was then in hiding from the police after
being sentenced to one year in Cook County Jail and who had 17 more felony indictments still pending,
called for the organizing of a training school in a secluded farm near Tomah, Wisconsin. After members
received their training in the farm camp for one and a half years, it was decided that Mr. Jiménez would
voluntarily turn himself in, begin serving the year and start to fight the remaining cases which included
bond jumping and many trumped up charges of mob actions for demonstrations. The Young Lords
would raise his bond, hire attorneys, and then switch their organizing in Lakeview and Uptown where
many of the Puerto Ricans of Lincoln Park had moved. They had also moved to Wicker Park and
Humboldt Park but the Young Lords wanted to concentrate their forces. If this move was not done, the
movement started in Lincoln Park would completely collapse. After serving the year, Mr. Jiménez
announced his Aldermanic Campaign for the 46th Ward, as an Independent Democrat. He would use the
election not as an electoral revolution but, “as an organizing vehicle for change.” Among other things
the campaign would focus on Mayor Daley’s forced displacement of the Puerto Rican Community from
the near lakefront and near downtown areas of the city. It not only boldly opposed the banks, the
developers, the neighborhood associations but implicated Mayor Richard J. Daley in urban renewal
plans that clearly were racist, being utilized to cleanse these areas of lower income minorities. Because
of this, María Romero volunteered to serve as Young Lords Office Coordinator. It was Ms. Romero’s job
to pass out assignments and to provide support and referrals for services for residents of that Lakeview
area of Wilton and Grace. She herself had lived in Lincoln Park but had grown up in Lakeview. There
most of the Puerto Ricans knew her family, as her father was a businessman, who for years had owned
several Latino botanicas, or stores that sell religious potions and candles of saints, and provide
consultation services. Ms. Romero was instrumental in getting a large amount of persons registered to
vote. The Jiménez Aldermanic Campaign received 39% of the vote on the first attempt. It was not the
51% needed, but it was still victorious in uniting the community and beginning to expose the prejudice
behind displacement. It also opened wide the doors for future Latino political candidates. As Ms.
Romero moved west to Humboldt Park she was hired as a community organizer for Bickerdike, a non -
profit development corporation. She used her Young Lords organizing skills and passion to promote their
mission of being, deeply dedicated to preserving the ethnic and cultural character of their
neighborhoods, providing quality affordable housing, preserving jobs, advocating for resources and
struggling against gentrification and displacement. One of the main issues that Ms. Romero advocated
for was the “Chicago Affordable Set Aside.” |
