Top 15 Iris Morales Quotes

Not everyone who commits to progressive movements as a young person necessarily sustains commitment for a lifetime. Leadership is determined by practice, by what a person does. Many leaders separate their politics from their personal lives. Yet politics has to translate into one's life in order to truly transform society. "Leaders" who work with youth and who have children must provide for them-financially, emotionally, and with time spent with their children. Leaders have to set an example. We must reevaluate our notions of leadership. Unfortunately, today's ideas of leadership are still quite patriarchal and elitist. The definition of a leader is still the lone charismatic male heading a hierarchal organization. Collective leadership models to include working people, women, youth, gays, and those who are most marginalized need to be developed.

In 1998, the United States marks one hundred years of colonial domination of Puerto Rico. I continue to believe that Puerto Rico should be independent, a free country, and I support the right of the Puerto Rican people to self-determination. Within the United States, we have a special responsibility to continue to struggle for Puerto Rico's independence and for the freedom of political prisoners who are still in prisons for fighting for a free Puerto Rico.

I revisit the past to arrive at the present. We are again in an important historical moment, a time to mobilize masses of people in order to transform society for the benefit of poor and working people, for the advancement of all humanity.

When I met Cha Cha Jiménez and other Young Lords, I was impressed with their political ideals and militancy–with their sense of urgency and need for action.

We must study and reclaim our past so that we can move forward; so we understand why and how we came to be who we are, and where we are going.

In the spirit of the Young Lords and all of our ancestors who have fought oppression and injustice, we must continue to fight for human liberation.

one of the first acts of the Young Lords in Chicago was to join the Rainbow Coalition-uniting with our allies, our brothers and sisters, in the Black Panther Party, the Brown Berets, the Young Patriots, and Rising Up Angry. The Young Lords understood the importance of collaboration and of building a broad people's movement in order to transform society.

My parents both arrived in New York City after World War II, at different times but for the same reason the search for work. They left a country they loved, but where they could not make a living. About half a million Puerto Ricans made the same journey fleeing economic despair, the result of the US colonization of the island. Government officials blamed the people for the disastrous economic situation claiming that the problem was "overpopulation." They promoted the mass exodus of Puerto Ricans and implemented policies that sterilized thousands of poor and working women. The Young Lords are the sons and daughters of this Great Migration. As young people growing up in the United States, we witnessed how our parents were exploited, degraded, and humiliated. We felt their suffering, and we too had experiences with poverty and racism. All of this propelled us into action to fight for justice.

Forty years ago, the Young Lords stepped to the forefront. They organized, advocated, took militant action to let the world know about the deplorable living conditions of Puerto Ricans and Latinos, they inspired Puerto Ricans and Latinos to organize and take to the streets in communities across the United States.

The Young Lords were first- and second-generation Puerto Ricans in the United States, also African Americans, Cubans, Dominicans, and Mexicans primarily from working class homes-people marginalized and scorned by mainstream society. Yet we dared to imagine a civilization "where the needs of the people come first, and where we give solidarity and aid to the people of the world, not oppression and racism." I end where I began, believing in rebel imagination, freedom dreams, and the power of the people to achieve human liberation. Our dedicated actions in pursuit of these ideals as Young Lords are the legacy that continues to inspire new generations.

I took the journey with the Young Lords from the group's beginning in New York through its painful decline and saw the organization crumble. We cannot forget that those in power-the ruling class, the exploiters, those who oppose justice-strike not just for one day, but relentlessly and remorselessly to incapacitate generations to come, using all their resources-every tactic imaginable or not, with no shame or trace of humanity of any kind-to annihilate and obliterate all who resist their control and domination. Silence will not free us. For us to remember and exchange experiences is to bring healing to reinvigorate the movements for social justice to take action and fight again another day.

Still, others emerged committed to the principles we had embraced as Young Lords. In 1977, former members together with other activists brought international attention to the plight of Puerto Rican Nationalists in US prisons since the 1950s by occupying the Statute of Liberty and placing the Puerto Rican flag on her crown. Two years later, President Jimmy Carter pardoned the Nationalists who returned to Puerto Rico to a triumphant welcome. Former Young Lords also organized for the freedom of another generation of political prisoners, who were released in 1999. Many former members joined to expel the US Navy from Vieques, an island off Puerto Rico's east coast used for bombing exercises. Countless others helped to form the National Congress of Puerto Rican Rights in the United States, and several built educational institutions and women's organizations. Former Young Lords organized grassroots movements against police brutality, demanding justice and supporting victims' families. Others became labor organizers providing leadership to national campaigns for a living wage and immigration reform, or become health care workers. A few became journalists or reporters. Many former women members became educators and professors in public schools and universities, or lawyers, judges, and doctors. Former Young Lords also continued to organize public events to commemorate important dates in Puerto Rican history and celebrate Puerto Rican culture.

The Young Lords represented a new chapter of Puerto Rican militancy in the United States-a powerful activism that championed a people and roused a generation. Although we did not have the Internet, cell phones, or the social media tools of today, we utilized every available resource and strategy to build a people's movement. We mobilized our communities through door-to-door canvassing, street protests, civil disobedience, mass demonstrations, takeovers of institutions, the building of coalitions and networks, and legal, political, media, and cultural work. Determined to change the deplorable living conditions of our people, we organized at the grassroots to confront powerful elites.

The move to Puerto Rico was the biggest political mistake, not only flawed in conception, but also paternalistic and arrogant toward islanders. Puerto Ricans had fought against US imperialism since 1898 and Spanish colonialişm before that. The Young Lords Party from its East Harlem headquarters would not be the savior. The proponents of the Puerto Rico project failed to appreciate the difference between providing support to Puerto Rico's national liberation movement and trying to take it over.

Out on the city streets, the police routinely stopped Young Lords as we passed out flyers, sold Palante, or attended demonstrations. Members were regularly picked up, harassed, beaten, arrested, and put in jail on any number of charges ranging from felonious assault, obstructing government administration, and resisting arrest to inciting to riot or carrying a deadly weapon.