Chicago, January 13 (RHC)-- The founder of the Young Lords, José “Cha Cha” Jiménez, has died at the age of 76.  In the 1960s, Jiménez turned a Chicago street gang into a Puerto Rican political organization inspired by the Black Panthers.

José “Cha Cha” Jiménez: “So, the Young Lords were a gang in the Lincoln Park neighborhood that first came in there and was being beaten up by other existing ethnic gangs at first and felt the need to organize.  So they were a gang. And then, in 1968, we reorganized.  I was the president of the group then.  And I kind of led — I was a catalyst for reorganizing the group into a political movement, modeled after the Black Panther Party because we wanted the same concept, but in the Puerto Rican community.”

After starting in Chicago, the Young Lords would expand to New York and other cities.  Jiménez also worked closely with Black Panther Fred Hampton before Hampton was assassinated by the FBI in 1969.

[ SOURCE: DEMOCRACY NOW ]