Rooted in a Chicago-based street gang, the Young Lords grew into one of the most dynamic revolutionary community organizations of the late 1960s and early ’70s.
In their field jackets and signature purple berets, using militant tactics like building takeovers and mass education, the Young Lords mobilized their community for liberation and against gentrification, poverty, racism, and police brutality. Forging a Rainbow Coalition with Fred Hampton and the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords expanded from their Chicago headquarters into the Puerto Rican and Latino barrios of New York City and elsewhere, demanding an end to the US occupation of Puerto Rico and self-determination for oppressed communities everywhere.
With a foreword by founder José "Cha Cha" Jiménez, written just before his passing, The Young Lords Speak tells the story of Chicago's Young Lords in their own words through articles, essays, interviews, and speeches.
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"The Young Lords Speak delivers an in-depth exploration of the Young Lords Organization from its origins as a street gang in Chicago to its transformation into a powerful revolutionary force. Professor Lazu expertly curates the first collection of primary sources, filling a critical gap in the historical narrative of the Young Lords. The anthology illuminates the ideals and actions that ignited a radical social justice movement within the Puerto Rican diaspora in the late 1960s and continues to inspire the ongoing struggle for Puerto Rican liberation." —Iris Morales, Activist, Educator, former Young Lord in New York, and author of Revisiting Herstories: The Young Lords Party
"This dazzling collection—part archive, part memoir and ethnography, part the everyday poetry of the street—hits like a hammer and then settles like an abiding life-lesson. Its authenticity—meaning its contradictions, disagreements, ambiguities, paradoxes, and uncertainties—illuminates the movement muddle in full. There’s no attempt here to present the fragmented, dynamic, and contested reality of revolutionary struggle as linear or coherent, but rather as it truly is: achingly human, deeply aspirational, trembling, and real. I left my encounter with The Young Lords Speak energized, refreshed, and with my radical imagination unleashed and my courage renewed." —Bill Ayers, author of Demand the Impossible! and When Freedom is the Question Abolition is the Answer
"Through memoir, speeches, oral histories, primary sources, and incisive framing, this reader ushers in a long-awaited compendium of the history of the Chicago Young Lords Organization. Attending to how the history of the Young Lords has often been told through the works of their counterparts and comrades, Lazu carefully lays out an archive of political thought and action that remain ever salient." —Yomaira C. Figueroa-Vásquez, Professor and Director of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies (CENTRO)
"The Young Lords Speak brings to life the origins and history of the Young Lords Organization. In the late 1960s the Young Lords took a stand refusing to accept the repetitive forced removal of their families and friends from yet another Chicago community. With one foot in Chicago, another in the Puerto Rican Diaspora, they demanded better. They organized breakfast programs for hungry children, a health center for the sick, day care for mothers struggling to support their families and they organized their community to envision, hope for and demand a better future. Their efforts were embraced by the community but targeted with repression and reaction from the powers that be. This is their story, the perspectives and lived experiences of members of the Young Lords Organization.
Each of us engaged in the struggle for a more just society do so standing on the shoulders of those who went before. Knowing that history and sharing it is our path to building the sea for future change makers to swim in and be successful. For an important piece of that history this book is a must read." —Helen Shiller, Former Chicago city council woman and author of Daring to Struggle Daring to Win
"This reader offers an essential collection of primary sources on the Chicago Young Lords Organization. Covering various aspects of the group's history, the documents provide critical evidence of the activities, motivations, political ideologies, and achievements of the YLO." —Lilia Fernandez, historian and author of Brown in the Windy City: Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Postwar Chicago
Other books of interest
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Palante
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Border and Rule
by Harsha Walia -
To Washington Park, With Love
by Rose Blouin -
The Black Antifascist Tradition
by Jeanelle K. Hope and Bill V. Mullen -
I Didn't Come Here to Lie