"When you look to any group to find out who's the most oppressed, it's always gonna be the women. . . . Just look at a woman, and you'll find the story of real oppression in this society. In our case, our oppression is threefold. It's first the oppression under capitalism that affects all people of the Third World. Secondly, there's the oppression under capitalism that affects women in terms of jobs and things like that; and thirdly, there's the oppression that we receive from own own men." Denise Oliver, Young Lords Central Committee, 1970 About This Project Photo credit: Michael Abramson, Untitled (Iris Morales, Denise Oliver, and other Young Lords), c. 1970 The Young Lords were a radical Puerto Rican nationalist group that demanded social and political change for their community of Spanish Harlem. They vowed to raise consciousness about colonialism and fought against system of oppression. They were active for a short time from July 1969 to the mid-1970's but their legacy still lives on today. They set up many community programs based on what the community told them they needed. In the summer of 1969, they went around and the community informed them that they needed their garbage picked up due to ineffective sanitation. The Young Lords then carried out the Garbage Offensive in which they, along with members of the community, picked up the trash in Spanish Harlem. They originally asking the sanitation department for brooms to sweep the streets but when the sanitation department denied the notion, they built barricades with the trash they picked up on a main intersection and lit them on fire. To them, that neglect was oppression. Finally, the sanitation services improved in El Barrio. In December of that same year, they took over a church that didn’t let them hold a free breakfast program during the days in which mass was not being offered. They were beaten in the church in the middle of mass. When they were finally allowed to hold the breakfast program they called it the “People’s Church”. They held community testing for tuberculosis and lead poisoning, free clothing drives, cultural events, and Puerto Rican history classes. Photo credit: Librado Romero/The New York Times. Members of the Young Lords marched in the Puerto Rican Parade in June 1970 The first time I learned about the Young Lords Party, I was in high school. I was learning about this male-dominated revolutionary group in an all-girls catholic school. It was interesting but not very groundbreaking to me. In college, however, i rediscovered them when I took a Latin American history course and had to watch the documentary ¡Palante! directed by former Young Lord Iris Morales. It was then when i saw the pivotal role that women played in the group and how everything else i had learned about them was so male-centered. I started learning about how women were actually the backbone of the movement. Photo credit: Michael Abramson for the New York City Life publication, 1970. I felt a deep connection to them as a young working-class latina growing up in New York City with an interest. in activism. Throughout my years in college, I was involved on and off with the DREAM team which advocates for immigration rights on campus and beyond and I realized that i could follow in their footsteps. Like the black panthers, who they were very involved with, the stories of the activist women of the Young had been left untold. I felt very inspired by the women in the Young Lords and when it came time to figure out my thesis, I told my advisor I wanted to do something on the Young Lords. She said why not do an oral history project? Therefore, I decided to document the untold stories of the women of the Young Lords and their gendered experiences. Cover of Palante newspaper (Volume 2, Number 7, July 17, 1970) It was the perfect time to start my research because there was a citywide exhibit on the Young Lords in 3 different museums, the Loisaida Center, Museo del Barrio and Bronx Museum of Art. I attended panels at New York University and the museums and met some of those involved in the movement. I also went to the New York Public Library and read ¡Palante! their newspaper that they manufactured themselves and sold for 25 cents throughout the city to support themselves. Most of them dedicated themselves fully to the Young Lords but still had to pay rent and make ends meet therefore the newspaper was a great way to earn money. Through my research, I found that the articles written by women in the newspaper were signed off with “Forward Sisters in the Struggle!” hence where the title came from. Photo credit: Michael Abramson. Denise Oliver-Velez marches in the Puerto Rican Day Parade, 1970 I learned so much about the strong women of the Young Lords through this journey. They successfully overcame machismo within the Young Lords. The men had come up with a thirteen point program and platform that included demands such as a socialist society and the liberation of Puerto Rico. One of the points stated "we want equality for all women...machismo must be revolutionary, not oppressive." But how can machismo be revolutionary when it is one of the most oppressive forces against women? Can a group really be revolutionary when they are being oppressive to members within the group? The mere presence of men is oppressive to women and the women of the Young Lords and they would not stand for it. When I asked Mickey Melendez what they were thinking when that was written he said he would probably be embarrassed if he remembered. The organization's position towards women was only by a very small margin revolutionary in theory but not in practice. Women were not in leadership positions, often in subservient positions but it all changed when the women of the Young Lords demanded that their voices be heard. Photo credit: Michael Abramson for the New York City Life publication, 1970. Because they saw that the leadership was composed of largely males, they formed a women’s caucus to combat oppression within the group and also bring to light women's issues. They also formed an organization called the Third World Women’s Alliance which challenged racism, imperialism, and sexism. They defined the Third World women as colonized women in their “Position Paper on Women” where they wrote about their threefold oppression: “First, they are oppressed as Puerto Ricans or Blacks. Second, they are oppressed as women. Third, they are oppressed by their own men.” Their intersectional feminism was radically important especially in the age of second-wave feminism that clearly excluded working-class women of color and lacked intersectionality. They even advocated for gay and trans rights and collaborated with trans activist Sylvia Rivera, who played a pivotal role in the Stonewall Riots, to fight back against police repression. But before this, there simply was not a space for working-class women of color to discuss their issues in New York or back on the island. Women in Puerto Rico were being sterilized for population control. Women of color in New York did not have access to proper reproductive care because they could not afford it and they were getting abortions that were killing them. Working class women of color are some of the most oppressed people in the world, stated the Young Lords women in their article titled “Position on Women’s Liberation.” But the reason they joined the Young Lords was not necessarily for feminism but rather for the revolutionary nationalist ideas and the community activism. Once they were in the Young Lords, as Jennifer Nelson writes, “gender conflict emerged as women pursued a greater role in determining the direction of the movement.” They demanded that the women’s struggle be included in the Young Lords’ revolutionary platform. A year later, their demands were met and the women had radically altered the politics of the Young Lords to include feminism. They were able to make an amend to one of the points on their thirteen point platform that stated that “machismo must be revolutionary.” Machismo and male chauvinism can never be revolutionary in any way, shape, or form. The new point stated “We want equality for women, down with machismo and male chauvinism!” They had started a “revolution within the revolution.” Photo credit: Máximo Colón. Partido Young Lords, c. 1970. As I learned more and more about the women of the Young Lords, I realized how important my work is. I am reclaiming the history of activist women that hasn't been told yet. Like Minerva Solla told me, “la lucha continua”, the struggle continues. One of the 13 points of the Young Lords Platform before it was amended. Clearly written by a man.