(Optional First Stop): The Introduction of the Young Lords at Tompkins Square Park

Note: Tompkins Square Park is located a few miles from the rest of the remaining stops on this tour. If opting to not physically visit Tompkins Square Park, the text for this stop can serve as an introduction.

Here at Tompkins Square Park, on July 26, 1969, the Young Lords announced their formation, harnessing the public setting and ongoing neighborhood commemorations for the Cuban Revolution to raise their profile. The New York Young Lords were an organization composed primarily of Puerto Rican students and youth activists, who rallied around issues of Puerto Rican freedom, social reforms, and protesting Black oppression in America. During this first foray into the public spotlight, Felipe Luciano capped off their unveiling with an attention-grabbing speech and poem from the park stage (no longer in existence). As one of the organizers of the movement with a reputation as a persuasive speaker, Luciano announced the organization’s goals and sought to inspire other young Puerto Ricans to join in the movement. Dressed in berets and fatigues, with a flag depicting a rifle superimposed over the Puerto Rican flag, the Young Lords made entirely clear their dedication to the cause.

After the organization’s initial introduction to the public, the Young Lords did not rest on their laurels. As we will see at later stops (#2-4), they immediately set in motion their first action for reform the very next day, Sunday, July 30, in what is known as “The Garbage Offensive." But that would not be the only action the Young Lords would take in the community.

Following World War II, the U.S. deployed “Operation Bootstrap,” which sought to rapidly industrialize Puerto Rico. The operation acknowledged that many farmers would be displaced in the process and planned to relocate them to the mainland United States, with historian Johanna Fernández estimating that nearly 1/3 of the total population of the island moved to the continent from the 1940s to the 1960s. Many of the displaced workers resettled in New York, in neighborhoods like East Harlem. Unemployment and poverty were high amongst Puerto Ricans in New York City, with the mass arrival of predominantly unskilled labor coinciding with a general decline in working-class jobs in the city. In East Harlem, an area Puerto Rican locals referred to as “El Barrio,” residents faced overcrowding and a chronic shortage of basic services, including sanitation services like trash collection. Children of Puerto Rican heritage were met with particularly severe discrimination and hostility in schools – perhaps not coincidentally, it would be college and high school students who would soon lead the movement to protest and change living conditions in the city.

The New York Young Lords were inspired by a Chicago organization, called the Young Lords Organization, whom they had met with in person just months before the announcement of the New York chapter at Tompkins Square Park. The Chicago YLO evolved as a political unit out of a former gang following the police shooting of one of their members and sought social reforms on a fundamental, structural level with a focus on local action to make larger-scale changes. They also sought an end to the Vietnam War and U.S. colonialism and became allies with the Black Panther Party (BPP), utilizing a similar militancy in their organization. In contrast, though, the New York Young Lords were mostly college and high school students, but with a similar set of goals, they traveled to Chicago in June 1969 and sought permission to organize a New York chapter of the Young Lords. The New York organization grew out of a combination of different college activist groups, as well as the East Harlem Photography Workshop which formed as an outlet for artistic youth to employ their skills for political action.

Leadership in the Young Lords called themselves the Central Committee. José “Cha Cha” Jiménez, the leader of the Chicago YLO, advised that to create social reforms, it was important to take stock of local concerns and prove their impact to the community. The New York Young Lords established a base in El Barrio. The organization was still relatively small, and the goal was to rally more support for their cause. To raise awareness, the Central Committee settled on tactics that would include a mix of education around their issues as well as direct, nonviolent action in the community. They could point a spotlight on Puerto Rican oppression and U.S. colonialism when they had the rest of El Barrio on their side.

The choice of Tompkins Square Park was both practical and symbolic. Though outside the Harlem neighborhood, it was a prominent public setting in New York’s East Village, an area known for political activism. The park had a long history of protests, riots, and free speech, including the 1863 New York draft riots during the Civil War. Lastly, the date, July 26, was chosen deliberately to coincide with a local commemoration of Cuba’s first attempt at revolution in 1953 – and linking the movement symbolically to the challenge Cuba posed to U.S. global politics.

Like the Chicago organization, the New York Young Lords were similarly influenced by the Black Panther Party -- the berets and fatigues on display at the Tompkins Square Park on July 26 were akin to the BPP and showed the Young Lords’ militant, though also nonviolent, resolve in contesting oppression and racism in the U.S.

For 1/3 of the population of Puerto Rico migrating to the continental U.S., see: Johanna Fernández, The Young Lords: A Radical History, page 53.

1. Bubbins, Harry. “The Young Lords Start in Tompkins Square Park.” Village Preservation. Off the Grid: Village Preservation Blog. Accessed November 1, 2022. https://www.villagepreservation.org/2018/07/26/the-young-lords-start-in-tompkins-square-park/.
2. Fernández, Johanna. The Young Lords: A Radical History Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2020. Project Muse, https://muse-jhu-edu.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/book/72262.
3. Kargbo, Connie. “Puerto Rican radical group Young Lords retake NYC in museum exhibit.” PBS News Hour, September 19, 2015. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/puerto-rican-radical-group-young-lords-retake-new-york-city-multi-museum-exhibit.
4. Library of Congress. “1968: The Young Lord's Organization/Party.” A Latinx Resource Guide: Civil Rights Cases and Events in the United States. Accessed November 1, 2022. https://guides.loc.gov/latinx-civil-rights/young-lords-organization.
5. NYC Parks. “Tompkins Square Park.” Accessed November 1, 2022. https://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/tompkins-square-park/history.
6. Older, Daniel José. “Garbage Fires for Freedom: When Puerto Rican Activists Took Over New York’s Streets.” New York Times, October 11, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/11/nyregion/young-lords-nyc-garbage-offensive.html.  
7. Reaven, Marci and Jeanne Houck. “A History of Tompkins Square Park.” Lower East Side Preservation Initiative. Accessed November 1, 2022. https://lespi-nyc.org/a-history-of-tompkins-square-park/.
8.  Wanzer-Serrano, Darrel. The New York Young Lords and the Struggle for Liberation. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2015.