The Young Lords

Fred Hampton, the leader of the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party, speaks to children during a free breakfast program at 1512 South Pulaski in the Cicero neighborhood of Chicago in April 1969.

By Sarah Coffman

The Young Lords was one of many militant civil rights groups in Chicago in the 1960s and 1970s that were inspired by the Black Panther Party. Although white people often remember the Black Panther Party as a threatening organization because the group’s leaders, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, advocated for open carry of guns and self-defense against violent police, many black people recall the community programming and services the Black Panther Party provided in cities all around the country.^[1] One of the ways the Black Panther Party created what they called “community survival programs” was by occupying abandoned or dilapidated buildings in poor areas and remodeling the structures into child care or resource distribution centers. In Chicago specifically, the Black Panthers ran free breakfast programs out of such buildings for African American children before school.^[2] 

Using the model of the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords, a Puerto Rican civil rights and community organization founded in September 1968, prioritized change in their local communities “through ‘serve the people’ programs.”^[3] For example, the Young Lords wanted to create places in the community that supported poor and working class families.^[4] One of these places was the Armitage Avenue United Methodist Church at 834 Armitage Ave, where the Young Lords organized a sit-in and permanently occupied the space.^[5] Though the church was active, the Reverend Bruce Johnson and his wife Eugenia supported the Young Lords’ initiative. They allowed the Young Lords to offer food, medical care, and day care in the facility, and eventually, the church became the Young Lords’ National Headquarters¾a crucial space for surrounding black and brown communities.^[6]

Multiple times, the Young Lords and the Black Panther Party united to act against injustices that affected both black and Puerto Rican communities, and police harassed both groups during their protests. For example, during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the police arrested eight key members of protest organizations, including Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale, for “inciting a riot” after a multiracial march to protest unequal housing opportunities.^[7] The Black Panther Party and the Young Lords also protested police brutality against black and brown men like Manuel Ramos, a Young Lord killed by a police officer in May 1969, and Fred Hampton, who was assassinated during a police raid on his home in December 1969.^[8] In both instances, Ramos and Hampton were unarmed targets of police violence. The Young Lords and the Black Panther Party expressed their discontent with repression of protest and police brutality during a large protest march on April 12, 1970. The groups marched around the Federal Building and the Daley Center with signs that opposed the violence of the Chicago Police Department and encouraged togetherness. The unity of these two groups in Chicago was powerful and showed the prevalence of oppression and police harassment in both the African American and the Puerto Rican communities.