Young Lords
The Young Lords, later Young Lords Organization and, in New York (notably Spanish Harlem), Young Lords Party, was a Puerto Rican nationalist group in several United States cities, notably New York City and Chicago.
Founding
The Young Lords began as a Puerto Rican turf gang in the Lincoln Park, Chicago neighborhood of Lincoln Park in the fall of 1960 and as a civil and human rights movement on Grito de Lares, September 23, 1968. During Mayor Daley's tenure, Puerto Ricans in Lincoln Park (the first hub of Puerto Ricans in Chicago) and several Mexican communities were completely evicted from areas near the Loop, lakefront, Old Town, Lakeview and Lincoln Park, in order to increase property tax revenues. When they realized that urban renewal was evicting their families from their barrios and witnessed police abuses, some Puerto Ricans became involved in the June 1966 Division Street Riots in Wicker Park and Humboldt Park. They were officially reorganized from the gang into a civil and human rights movement by Jose Cha Cha Jimenez, who was the last president of the former gang and became the founder of the new Young Lords Movement. Puerto Rican self-determination and the displacement of Puerto Ricans and poor residents from prime real estate areas for profit became the primary focus of the original movement. Since there were few Latino students and no outspoken leadership at the time, the former street-gang transformed themselves, training leadership and organizing the broad community.