Apostles of Change: Latino Radical Politics, Church Occupations, and the Fight to Save the Barrio 9781477322000

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Apostles of Change

Historia USA A series edited by Luis Alvarez, Carlos Blanton, and Lorrin Thomas

Books in the series: Perla M. Guerrero, Nuevo South: Latinas/os, Asians, and the Remaking of Place Cristina Salinas, Managed Migrations: Growers, Farmworkers, and Border Enforcement in the Twentieth Century Patricia Silver, Sunbelt Diaspora: Race, Class, and Latino Politics in Puerto Rican Orlando

« Felipe Hinojosa »

Apostles of Change

Latino Radical Politics, Church Occupations, and the Fight to Save the Barrio

University of Texas Press

Austin

Copyright © 2021 by the University of Texas Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First edition, 2021 “Armitage Street,” by David Hernandez, copyright © 1994 by David Hernandez; from Unsettling America: An Anthology of Contemporary Multicultural Poetry, edited by Maria Mazziotti Gillan and Jennifer Gillan. Used by permission of Viking Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to: Permissions University of Texas Press P.O. Box 7819 Austin, TX 78713-7819 utpress.utexas.edu/rp-form The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R1997) (Permanence of Paper).

Libr ary of Congr ess Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Hinojosa, Felipe, 1977- author. Title: Apostles of change : Latino radical politics, church occupations, and the fight to save the barrio / Felipe Hinojosa. Other titles: Historia USA. Description: First edition. | Austin : University of Texas Press, 2021. | Series: Historia USA | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020027902 ISBN 978-1-4773-2198-0 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-4773-2200-0 (library ebook) ISBN 978-1-4773-2201-7 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Radicalism—United States—Religious aspects— Christianity—History—20th century. | Hispanic Americans—Political activity—United States—History—20th century. | Protest camps— United States—History—20th century. | Church buildings—Secular use—United States—History—20th century. | Church and social problems—United States—History—20th century. | Urban renewal— Social aspects—United States—History—20th century. | Christianity and politics—United States—History—20th century. Classification: LCC HN49.R33 H55 2021 | DDC 303.48/4—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020027902 doi:10.7560/321980

For my students at Texas A&M University whose courage over the years has inspired and lifted our campus. And for my students at Emory University, who during the 2018 spring semester made history by proclaiming loudly, for everyone to hear, that consciousness is power.

Contents

Preface ix Acknowledgments xi Abbreviations

xv

Introduction. The People’s Church

1

Chapter One. Thunder in Chicago’s Lincoln Park

19

Chapter Two. “People—Yes, Cathedrals—No!” in Los Angeles Chapter Thr ee. The People’s Church in East Harlem

89

Chapter Four. Magic in Houston’s Northside Barrio

120

Conclusion. When History Dreams

Notes 161 Bibliography Index 207

195

146

56

Preface

T

he journey toward writing this book began in Chicago on the day that my good friend and fellow historian Lilia Fernández introduced me to her city. I saw Chicago through the eyes of a historian who knew the stories, the neighborhoods, and where the Armitage Methodist Church had once stood in Lincoln Park. The church is now gone, replaced by a Walgreens store. On that day some years ago, I knew that I wanted to tell the story of that church and others like it. It is a story that begins in the urban north, in the frigid midwestern city of Chicago, where Latina/o radicals first occupied a church. I did not grow up in Chicago or in any of the cities that I cover in this book, but I did grow up surrounded by churches, preachers, and activists in South Texas. This story is close and personal to me. My father was a minister, and from the time I was in junior high school, we lived in a house behind the church. Summers were spent visiting other churches on both sides of the Texas/Mexico border and across the Great Plains and the Midwest. We began every road trip, meal, and football game with a prayer. I was taught that serving people, seeking justice, and showing mercy were all necessary to live a life of faith. While I grew up as an evangélico, far from the ubiquity of Catholicism, my experience was nonetheless typical for most Mexican Americans in South Texas. Religion is central to Latina/os living in the United States: from festivals to church revivals, from altars honoring the dead to church or mass every Sunday, sometimes even more. Our knowledge of religion often comes from our upbringing, from our social experiences with God—good, bad, or nonexistent. We learn of the limits, or attempts to impose limits, inherent in religious institutions. The experience is so deep, so connected to our sense of self, our very identities, that we are of-

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ten expected to discard or discount our affinities with the supernatural capabilities of faith in order to free ourselves from the trauma involved in institutional religion, from colonialism to sexual abuse. This is at least part of the reason that studies on spirituality—on spiritual mestizaje, as Gloria Anzaldúa called it—tend to be more prominent within the field of Latina/o studies.1 These studies focus on the noninstitutional, non-Western, and non-Christian forms of faith that have sustained oppressed peoples across time and space. So I am keenly aware that to write about religion and the institutional church, as I do here, resurrects the trauma that is often associated with the institutional church. The Christian church in the United States is distant, cold, European, and rarely on the side of human liberation. The institutional Christian church is about boundaries and limits, do’s and don’ts. But my work here is neither to sidestep the disruption and chaos that religious trauma has created nor to give power and agency to religious institutions that have only hindered our opportunities. Churches can be liberative spaces, but they can also be oppressive cages for those of us who support a freedom politics open to all: LGBTQ, black, brown, undocumented, and poor. In the following chapters, I tell stories of the struggle to wholly transform the sacred space of the church, to move it into an embrace with its community, and to liberate it from its own strictures.2 I am interested in showing how we can reimagine the Chicana/o and Puerto Rican freedom movements, how we can focus on their specificities even as we draft a narrative of Latina/o activism during the late 1960s and 1970s. As the essayist Lewis Hyde argues, this work requires enacting a “subversive genealogy,” one that forgets the idealism of a single-origin story and instead remembers the thousands of small moments that made the movement in barrios, fields, factories, and churches and on the migrant trail—in those corners heretofore unexamined.3 We have many single-origin stories that we tell ourselves and tell our students: school walkouts, Los Cinco in Crystal City, Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta in Delano, a “garbage offensive” in East Harlem. Keeping our idealism focused on single-origin narratives thwarts our imagination and limits the possibilities, visions, and politics of the thousands of small moments that gave birth to the Latina/o freedom movement. In these pages I hope to reveal those small but politically vibrant moments that made up the Latina/o struggle for freedom.

Acknowledgments

T

his book is for the students: the Dreamers, radicals, artists, and liberal arts and STEM majors who have marched, petitioned university presidents, and called out racist oppression. Your commitment to the struggle—to the work against oppression and for justice—is a beautiful testament to the love you have for building a university where all students rise together. Working on this book gave me the opportunity to be in the presence of some incredible people: activists, mothers, fathers, grandmothers, and grandfathers all sat with me to teach me about the moments when they changed the world. I sat with them at their kitchen tables and in their living rooms, in restaurants with loud music, and in quiet coffee shops where we were the loudest people in the room. I am thankful for the time they gave me, for the stories they shared with me, and for the grace they granted me as I stumbled my way through this project. Apostles of Change is a labor of love. And none of it would have been possible without the beautiful people who walked with me every step of the way—the people who provided critical feedback, encouraged me in moments of exhaustion, and believed in me in those moments when I did not believe in myself. I am thankful for each and every one of you. I started my research with assistance from a number of organizations and intellectual communities. The Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research at Texas A&M University provided the coins that paid the research tolls. Special thanks to Dr. Emily Brady (director of the Glasscock Center) and Amanda N. Dusek (Glasscock Center program coordinator) for their unwavering support of this project. An Arts & Humanities Fellowship from the Division of Research at Texas A&M

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Ack nowledgments

University assisted me in finishing the project and introduced me to the brilliant research being done across the university. But it was my time at the James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, that changed everything. During that year, I worked, laughed, shared delicious meals, and made community with a distinguished group of scholars: Ashley Brown, Derek Handley, Justin Hosbey, Taina Figueroa, Alexandria Lockett, Amrita Chakrabarti Myers, Alison Parker, Ashanté Reese, Kyera Singleton, Charissa Threat, Kali-Ahset Amen, Javier VillaFlores, Gary Laderman, and Andra Gillespie, the director of the program. And a big thank you to my roommate, Greg Wickersham, for being such a gracious host and introducing me to the beautiful city of Atlanta. My experience teaching at Emory University also introduced me to smart and accomplished students. Teresa Apel Posadas and Jonathan Peraza—both gifted scholars and community leaders—provided key research assistance for this book as well as great conversations about the limits and possibilities of Latina/o politics and activism. Thank you so much, Teresa and Jonathan. Writing this book took me to several archives across the country. In each place, I met incredible librarians and archivists who made my job so much easier. Special thanks to the good people at the United Methodist Archives and History Center at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey; the University of Illinois at Chicago Archives; the Rockefeller Research Center in Sleepy Hollow, New York; and the New York Public Library. I will forever be grateful to archivists who helped me gain permission for the amazing photos in this book. Thank you, Allison Davis, at the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia; Brittan Nannenga, at DePaul University in Chicago; Matt Richardson and Mikaela Selley, at the Houston Metropolitan Research Center; Xaviera Flores, at the University of California–Los Angeles Chicano Studies Research Center; Calli Force, at the Special Research Collections at University of California–Santa Barbara; and Roisin Davis, at Haymarket Books. Special thanks also to the three amazing photographers with whom I had the privilege of working and whose photos are included in this book: Luis Garza (Los Angeles), Carlos Flores (Chicago), and Hiram Maristany (New York). I am also grateful to Samantha Rodríguez for sharing her deep knowledge of Chicana/o activism in Houston and for connecting me with activists from that era. Thank you so much, Samantha. And I’ll never forget that magical afternoon I spent in the faculty lounge at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago. There I sat, going through

Ack nowledgments

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three large boxes that Professor Ken Sawyer had collected as part of his work with the Young Lords in Chicago, as faculty members came in and out for coffee. What a moment! Thank you, Ken. Tim Matovina, Lilia Fernández, Johanna Fernández, Rudy Guevarra Jr., Samantha Rodríguez, Roberto Treviño, Jimmy Patiño, and Jorge  J. Rodríguez V. all read drafts of the manuscript. Each of these scholars well understood my passion for this project and helped me refi ne my ideas and clarify my points. My good friend Carlos Blanton believed in this project back when it was just a tiny idea in my head. And I have always appreciated Carlos’s willingness and readiness to talk politics, sports, religion, the writing process, and Chicana/o history in general. Thank you for being such a great colleague and mentor, Carlos. I also want to thank Luis Alvarez and Lorrin Thomas (who together with Carlos serve as coeditors of the Historia USA series for University of Texas Press) for believing so strongly in this project and my sponsoring editor at UT press, Kerry Webb, with whom I have enjoyed working on every aspect of this project. I’m thankful to Johanna Fernández, Darrel Wanzer-Serrano, and Jorge J. Rodríguez V., who each provided key insights into the Young Lords and helped guide me and introduce me to the multiple worlds of the Young Lords in New York City. Mario T. García, Anne Martínez, and Rosie Bermudez have on multiple occasions helped me think through ideas about this project, helped with source material, and copresented with me on a number of conference panels over the years. And many thanks to Jaime Pensado, who helped me to better understand Catholic youth activism in Latin America in the late 1950s and its connections to religion and radical politics in the United States. Mil gracias, Jaime. I would not have made it this far without the strength provided to me by the friendships, the brotherhoods and sisterhoods, and the spaces where we meet to lift each other up as we do this work. It is impossible to name everyone here, but I will just say that I am blessed to know so many incredible people who everyday are teaching, writing, and marching to build a better world. My wonderful colleagues at Texas A&M have provided so much support over the years: Al Broussard, Carlos Blanton, Sonia Hernández, Sarah McNamara, Armando Alonzo, Angela Hudson, Brian Rouleau, Dan Schwartz, Side Emre, Evan Haefeli, April Hatfield, David Vaught, Hoi-eun Kim, Andrew Kirkendall, Jason Parker, Stephen Riegg, Olga Dror, Rebecca Schloss, Terry Anderson, Kate Unterman, Erin Wood, Kelly Cook, and Mary Johnson. And I am not sure where I would be without my wonderful colleagues in Latina/o studies, who con-

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stantly work to make Texas A&M University a welcoming place for all students: Nancy Plankey-Videla, Pat Rubio-Goldsmith, Sergio Lemus, Regina Mills, Marcela Fuentes, Gregory F. Pappas, Luz Herrera, and Cruz Ríos. I admire each of you so much. And a shout-out to the amazing current and former graduate students with whom I’ve had the privilege of working in the history department: Laura Oviedo, Tiffany González, David Cameron, Daniel Bare, and Manny Grajales. Over the years I have been blessed to be surrounded by wise, smart, and compassionate scholars who inspire me: Raúl Ramos, Natalie Garza, Trini Gonzales, Jesse Esparza, Juan Galván, Carlos Cantú, Anne Martínez, Kristy Nabhan-Warren, Sergio González, Maggie Elmore, Sujey Vega, Lloyd Barba, Lauren Araiza, Gordon Mantler, Lori Flores, Delia Fernández, Omar Valerio-Jiménez, Christian Paiz, Ernesto Chávez, Sandra Enríquez, Mario Sifuentez, Eladio Bobadilla, Yuridia Ramírez, Gustavo Licón, Deborah Kanter, Max Krochmal, John Mckiernan-González, Cary Cordova, Tobin Miller Shearer, Regina Shands Stoltzfus, Jerome Dotson, Tyina Steptoe, Adriana Pilar Nieto, Eric Barreto, and James Logan. I admire all of you for who you are, for the work you do, and for the grace you show to those around you. And much love to Rudy Guevarra Jr. and Michelle Téllez, who make me laugh, inspire me to do good work, and remind me to stay grounded and committed to the people and places I love. Shout-outs to Jimmy Patiño, Johanna Fernández, and José Alamillo, whose commitment to radical scholarship and community building brings out the best in all of us. And I cannot forget Glenn Chambers, whose friendship and mentorship saved me when I first arrived at Texas A&M. I’m not sure I, or for that matter my family, would have made it without the love we received from both Glenn and Terah Chambers during those first few years in College Station. As always, I am grateful to my beautiful family. Words are not enough. Simply put, none of me and none of my work would be possible without my life partner, Maribel Ramírez Hinojosa. Te amo, mi amor. And my babies are now teenagers: Samuel Alejandro and Ariana Saraí. You are my vision, my hope, and the reason why I continue to believe, and will always believe, that a world where justice and love reign is indeed possible. May you always believe in the power that is inside of you.

Abbreviations

ACTOR

Action Committee to Oppose Racism

BPP

Black Panther Party

CORE

Congress of Racial Equality

CPLR

Católicos Por La Raza

FBI

Federal Bureau of Investigation

FSUMC

First Spanish United Methodist Church

HAI

Hispanic-American Institute

IAF

Industrial Arts Foundation

IFCO

Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization

IWW

Industrial Workers of the World

LACC

Los Angeles Community College

LADO

Latin American Defense Organization

LPCA

Lincoln Park Conservation Association

LULAC

League of United Latin American Citizens

MARCHA

Methodists Associated Representing the Cause of Hispanic Americans

MAYO

Mexican American Youth Organization

MEChA

Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán

MTS

McCormick Theological Seminary

NCC

National Council of Churches

NRSV

New Revised Standard Version

NSCM

Northside Cooperative Ministry

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Abbr eviations

PADRES

Padres Asociados para Derechos Religiosos, Educativos y Sociales

PASO

Political Association of Spanish-Speaking Organizations

PLAC

Presbyterian Latin American Caucus

PPC

Poor People’s Coalition

PSP

Puerto Rican Socialist Party

RGS

Real Great Society

RUA

Rising Up Angry

SAC

Sociedad Albizu Campos

SDS

Students for a Democratic Society

SNCC

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

SOHAM

Section of Hispanic-American Ministries

UCC

United Church of Christ

UFW

United Farm Workers

UFWOC

United Farm Workers Organizing Committee

UMAS

United Mexican American Students

UNO

United Neighborhood Organization

UPCUSA

United Presbyterian Church in the USA

USCC

Urban Task Force of the US Catholic Church

UUSC

Unitarian Universalist Service Committee

VISTA

Volunteers in Service to America

YLO

Young Lords Organization

Apostles of Change

Introduction

The People’s Church

A cry for greater economic justice rises today from a million lips. Sometimes this cry falls into a murmur. In other occasions it reaches a thunder pitch, like in Cesar Chavez and “La Raza Unida” movements. But it can all be heard today across the nation: from Delano, California, to Division Street in Chicago; from the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, to Spanish Harlem in New York. National Cou ncil of Churches, 19701

I

n late 1969 leaders from the Armitage Methodist Church in Chicago gathered to draft a theological statement. In preceding months the church had become embroiled in a public fight against urban renewal. Its building had been occupied by the Puerto Rican revolutionary Young Lords Organization (YLO), and its pastors— the Reverend Bruce and Eugenia Johnson—had been brutally murdered, stabbed to death by assailants in their home. The case remains unsolved. Shaken by the loss and preparing for the fights ahead, church leaders drafted this statement: As a church, we understand ourselves to be a people with a history. . . . We see that the process of urban renewal is directed by a few who oppress the majority for the sake of their own political and economic interest. Specifically we see the poor, especially the black and Spanishspeaking poor, are denied access to economic independence and security. As a church we are aware of the limits and possibilities in our community. . . . It is then with this Trinitarian understanding of life

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and our particular situation that we dare to be the church in Lincoln Park—in the midst of the limits and possibilities being forced to decide on behalf of all men to embrace the mission for the sake of humanness.2

The statement, which came from a largely white and liberal congregation, signaled the church’s public partnership in a grassroots movement to dream of new housing and community possibilities for a neighborhood on the brink. In Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood, the dream was housing by and for poor people.3 It was a powerful message made even more urgent by the politics that engulfed it. When the members of Armitage Methodist Church penned these words, Chicago was a city reeling from its urban renewal binge, the assassinations of several radical activists, and a progressive religious community on the verge of being dismantled. The city that was once considered the center of liberal Christianity saw its foundations rocked by a new wave of Black and Brown Power activism—bold, imaginative, anticapitalist, and antiimperialist—not impressed with the church’s verbal commitments to the struggles of poor people. To make their point, Latina/o radicals started occupying and disrupting church services in 1969. First in Chicago and later in Los Angeles, New York City, and Houston, these young radicals transformed churches into staging grounds to protest urban renewal, poverty, police brutality, and antiblack and anti-Latina/o racism.4 Choosing to occupy churches was not a random act. Latina/o radicals were out to make a point about the symbolism and power of the church in neighborhoods across the country.5 In the process, they set in motion a transformative project that temporarily reconstructed the meaning of the church as a tactical act of resistance—they introduced us to a new church, the “People’s Church.” In each of the four cities covered in this book (Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, and Houston), activists not only changed the name of the church or made bold statements like “People—Yes, Cathedrals—No!” (Católicos Por La Raza in Los Angeles). They envisioned a space where the social needs of the community could be met, where Sunday school rooms could be transformed into doctors’ offices and the church kitchen could be used to feed breakfast to kids before school. This program guaranteed that the church— the very building itself—was anything but neutral and was instead part of the larger project to push back against urban renewal, to push back against the feeling of displacement. In every conceivable way, they believed that another church was possibile.6 These occupations and disruptions, their context in the midst of an

Introduction

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urban crisis, the tensions they created, and the worlds they imagined make up the central subjects of this book. In 1969 churches became strategic sites, indeed sacred spaces, where radical groups staged their movements and proclaimed their message of community control and power to the world.7 The occupations and disruptions took place against the backdrop of Black and Brown Power movements in the late 1960s that shifted civil rights rhetoric toward a class-oriented, revolutionary nationalism that challenged economic inequality and white supremacy. It was a moment when, as historian Carlos Blanton argued, radical ethnic politics “eroded a basic underlying premise of twentieth century liberalism: pluralistic politics in which ideology and national interest subsumed ethnicity.”8 By the late 1960s it was abundantly clear that the promises of liberalism—the hope that working within the system was the best way to change the system—had fallen flat. Nowhere was this clearer than in the American city, where the urban crisis had wrought despair, destruction, and displacement for poor and working families. The American city, which for much of the twentieth century and especially in the years after World War II had provided economic opportunities for Latina/o immigrants, found itself in steep decline. As the historian A. K. Sandoval-Strausz has shown, federal policies to transform the city and subsidize the suburbs resulted in an urban crisis that triggered “population loss, economic decline, fiscal crisis, rising crime, and the racialization of all of the above.”9 This toxic mix resulted in a lack of city services, housing displacement, and the continued criminalization of black and brown bodies. Caught in the middle of this urban drama were religious institutions that debated whether they should uproot and move to the suburbs or stay and join the fight to save the neighborhood. The choice was not always clear. Urban renewal policy and programs, as it turns out, posed a significant challenge to Protestant and Catholic churches, many of which found themselves in the crosshairs as neighborhoods changed. But religious institutions were also experiencing transitions of their own. The late 1960s ushered in an era of deep ecumenical awareness and activism that shifted urban religious politics from “reconciliation to revolution.”10 This created tensions between a cohort of religious leaders interested in studying theology against the backdrop of the urban crisis and others interested in closing churches and starting over in the suburbs. In the end none of that mattered. Whether churches stayed in the city or took the highways to the suburbs, they could not escape the fact that their buildings—and their space—offered hope and possibility for activists looking for a place to stage their movements.

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Apostles of Change

On their own, these occupations and disruptions were dramatic instances that faded almost as immediately as they rose. Each occupation lasted no more than five to twenty days before church officials sought legal help to force the activists out of their churches. In the case of Católicos Por La Raza (CPLR: Catholics for the People) in Los Angeles, the disruption lasted one spectacular night. Yet each story not only gripped the headlines and frightened white religious leaders across the country but inadvertently buoyed the causes of Latina/o religious insiders (Protestant and Catholic clergy and laity), whose movements for more visibility within church structures had taken root but remained marginal. That is not to say that Latina/o religious insiders supported the occupations and disruptions (many did not), but these actions did move them to the center of the discussion on race and power, which until then had centered on black and white tensions in the church. The brevity and sensational theatrics of these occupations, and what they teach us about the unlikely relationship between Latina/o radical politics and religious leaders, have remained an untold story until recently. Part of the problem is that in their immediate aftermath evangelical news outlets like Christianity Today disregarded their importance, calling the Young Lords “gangs” that trashed churches and left “extensive damage . . . including Marxist posters and stacks of revolutionary literature advocating violence.”11 These dismissals are even more pronounced in the historiography of the Religious Left, which for the most part has ignored the participation of Latina/os in the urban religious politics of the late 1960s and 1970s.12 These studies typically highlight the relationships that progressive clergy forged with urban agencies and city leaders with no real benefit in the end. I flip the script in these pages by focusing on an overlooked aspect of the urban crisis that brought two diametrically opposed groups to the negotiating table: Latina/o radicals and religious leaders.13 Latina/o religious studies scholars have also turned a blind eye, preferring instead to remain tied to large-scale events such as Vatican II and the rise of liberation theology in Latin America as the most important factors in shaping Latina/o theology and religious politics in the United States. While both developments transformed theology and politics, in this book I take a closer look at what a few relatively unknown church occupations— rooted in neighborhood struggles—tell us about religion, revolutionary politics, and the urban crisis of the late 1960s. Specifically, I outline two distinct interventions in the fields of American religion, urban history, and Latina/o history. First, in focus-

Introduction

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ing on church occupations and disruptions, the book reveals what other histories have ignored or regarded as insignificant: that the boundaries between faith and politics in the Latina/o freedom movement were frequently crossed and that, at least for a moment, a robust relationship existed between young radicals and religious leaders.14 These short but fertile political moments, and the politics that emanated from them, shined a light on Latino Protestant pastors and Catholic clergy and gave them a national platform from which to advocate on behalf of the religious communities they represented. In each of these cases, Latina/o radicals breathed life into faith politics, joined the language of liberation theology with the rhetoric of radical Latina/o politics, pushed back against urban renewal, and in the process opened new possibilities for Latina/o religious reformers, some of whom opposed the radical politics of these groups. In other words, Latina/o radical politics paved the way for reformist politics within the church. Sociologists call this the “radical flank effect,” when an action by a radical group strengthens the bargaining position for a more moderate group that makes the demands being made by the moderate group seem reasonable.15 While Latina/o religious leaders already had a long and active history of engaging their white religious leadership, most notably in the farmworker movement, the occupations and disruptions in 1969 and 1970 moved them from the margins to the centers of religious power in Protestant and Catholic churches. Latino pastors, from the Presbyterian Latin American Caucus to the Catholic group PADRES, owe their political rise to Latina/o radical activist groups. Second, I begin from the premise that an analysis of church occupations allows for a more complex reading of the Latina/o freedom movement in the late 1960s and 1970s and expands our understanding of the role that religion played. They call attention to the interrelated ways that religious reformers and Latina/o radicals clashed, collaborated, and negotiated space in neighborhoods and in churches. But this is more than simply a narrative about how faith inspired social protest. This book is about how nonreligious actors who were revolutionary activists— whom I call religious outsiders—occupied churches as a way to inspire faith communities to get involved in the struggles of the neighborhood. Rather than accept the church as an oppositional force, Latina/o activists—from Chicago to Houston and Los Angeles to New York— understood the church to be a contested public space that offered possibilities for both spiritual and social engagement. And while the Young Lords sharing space with the United Methodist Church and the Mexican

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Apostles of Change

American Youth Organization (MAYO) activists negotiating with Presbyterians in Houston might seem like an odd mix, the secret affinities between unlikely groups provide a glimpse into movements that questioned the role of churches in neighborhood politics, drew attention to interethnic coalition politics, and blurred the lines between the sacred and the profane on the streets of urban America.16 The following pages present both a religious history of the Latina/o freedom movement and a social movement history of religion. My aim here is to remind readers of, or at least make it more difficult to ignore, the religious politics that underwrote the Latina/o freedom movement. The radical and reformist strains in Latina/o communities varied and diverged but at moments intertwined and worked off each other to achieve the dreams they dreamed. I focus on church occupations and disruptions by Latina/o activists with the ultimate task of providing a deeper analysis of what radical politics looked like, its multiple expressions, and its clashes with reformers as the young radicals pressed forward to save their barrios.

El Barrio, Religious Activism, and the Politics of Occupation The neighborhood, or barrio in this case, is the centerpiece of Chicana/o and Latina/o history. From Albert Camarillo’s classic text Chicanos in a Changing Society to Virginia Sánchez-Korrol’s From Colonia to Community to more recent work on Dominicans in New York’s Washington Heights and Latina/os in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood, place matters in Latina/o history.17 It makes sense, then, that the barrio is a natural starting point as we think about conceptualizing Latina/o freedom movements that incorporate the experiences of multiple groups of Latin American origin in the United States. In this context the barrio is not viewed as a monolithic utopia but as a place where working-class sensibilities and cultural resilience come face to face with chronic poverty, uneven development, and limited educational opportunities. If the barrio is the central place in Latina/o history, displacement is its main story. As a consequence of urban renewal policy, displacement emerged out of an urban plan that worked to keep blacks and Latina/os away from commercial districts with strictly enforced segregation. In the years after World War II profound urban segregation and disinvestment in Latina/o neighborhoods led to what George Lipsitz has

Introduction

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called “social subordination in the form of spatial regulation.”18 At its core, urban renewal capitalized on rising property values and the development of commercial districts to reshape cities across the country. This process, as historian Lilia Fernández aptly put it, turned Mexicans and Puerto Ricans into “expendable populations” that experienced “repeated dislocations that dispersed them across multiple neighborhoods and geographic communities in the urban core.”19 Yet as significant as this history of displacement has been, the history of Latina/os and urban renewal policy remains sorely understudied in the field of urban history. This has changed somewhat in recent years with the works of Lilia Fernández,  Llana Barber, Eduardo Contreras, A.  K. Sandoval-Strausz, and others.20 All these texts are significant and pathbreaking in their own right. I build on them even as I delve into new territory of the urban crisis by examining the church occupations and disruptions in barrios across Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Houston, the four largest and most diverse cities in the United States. But demography has never been destiny for any of these cities. Each of these cities has large black and brown populations as well as a deep and entrenched history of antiblack and antiLatina/o racism. Martin Luther King Jr. once proclaimed that Chicago was a city plagued with more racism than the deep South; Los Angeles is the prison capital of the world; New York has a history of police violence against black and brown communities; and Houston, with its legacy of slavery, westward expansion, and Jim Crow segregation, is known best as a “western South” city.21 These cities are also tied together by a history of strong and sustained freedom movements born in Chicana/o and Puerto Rican barrios where young people organized for a better education, for political representation, and for community control. In addition, they are sites where Latina/o radical groups staged some of their most forceful movements from the pews and altars of churches in their neighborhoods. I begin my account in Chicago not only because it was the first occupation (May 1969) but also because Chicago was in many ways the vanguard of the Latina/o freedom movement in the late 1960s. With large populations of Mexicans and Puerto Ricans living in close proximity with blacks and whites, the city gave rise to the Young Lords Organization (YLO), a group that shifted from gang activity to political protest in the late 1960s. The Young Lords were predominantly Puerto Rican, but their members included Mexican, black, and white activists. Latina/o activists in Los Angeles, New York, and Houston all looked to the work

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Apostles of Change

of the Young Lords in Chicago for inspiration as they organized movements in their own neighborhoods. The Presbyterian pastor Tony Hernández in Los Angeles, Gregory Salazar in Houston, and Iris Morales in New York all pointed to meeting or at least hearing about José “Cha Cha” Jiménez (the founder of the Young Lords in Chicago) and the movements and coalitions that they organized there.22 In each of these cities, Latina/o radical groups—the Young Lords in Chicago and New York, Católicos Por La Raza in Los Angeles, and the Mexican American Youth Organization in Houston—waged smart and calculated fights against religious leaders as a way to claim space, offer social services, and push back against the displacement plans of urban renewal policies. Of course, each of these groups emerged in a different context and in a different neighborhood, but they were all driven by a love for their community and a respect for the power of religious institutions. The Young Lords emerged out of Lincoln Park in Chicago and East Harlem in New York. The Mexican American Youth Organization came out of San Antonio, the Rio Grande Valley, and Houston’s Northside neighborhood. Católicos Por La Raza (a different group altogether) represented a who’s who of activists from across Los Angeles who came together in a spectacular way in 1969.23 The politics and ideologies of these groups varied, expressed and practiced differently based on their regional contexts, but in general they all focused on racial and socioeconomic inequality and believed that their movements formed part of an international struggle not limited by arbitrary national borders. The Young Lords had clearly defined political and ideological commitments to building a socialist society as revolutionary nationalists. MAYO practiced a political pragmatism that emerged out of Houston’s location as a southern and western city. Católicos Por La Raza’s ideology was a mixture brought in by the array of activists from Los Angeles who joined the movement.24 In order to discover what linked these groups together, I categorize them together as part of the constellation of Latina/o radical activism of the late 1960s and early 1970s. In fact, each of the groups that I follow here ascribed more directly to internationalist positions that, as George Mariscal argues, “ranged from simple acts of solidarity embedded in a liberal framework to fully developed critiques of capital’s role in U.S. society with an emphasis on the imperial past and present of the United States.”25 In each of these four stories, Chicana/o and Puerto Rican revolutionaries occupied churches and disrupted services as a way to call an end to the racism and capitalist exploitation that undergirded urban renewal plans in the 1960s.

Introduction

«9»

Writing the story in this way—starting in the barrio but conceptualizing these occupations relationally rather than as isolated events—means centering on Chicana/o and Puerto Rican movement engagements with religious groups, particularly Christians. Doing so requires expanding the field of vision and taking an outside-in view (with a focus on secular and nonreligious activist engagements with the church) of Latina/o religion rather than an inside-out view (with a focus on clergy and religious leaders). Following the lead of the religious historian Josef Sorett, who argues that “one need not be IN an actual church to be OF the church,” I take seriously the claims and positions of secular and nonreligious political engagements with both Protestant and Catholic churches.26 Writing this history any other way only feeds into the myth of a secular Chicana/o and Puerto Rican movement. In his work on the relationship between black Catholics and Black Power, Matthew Cressler tackles this myth head on by pushing back against the “way in which ‘militancy’ and ‘radicalism’ come to serve as code words for ‘secular’ and ‘nonreligious.’”27 This is also the case in Latina/o history, where religion is most often ignored or simply not important enough for consideration when writing about political movements. But a closer look at the evidence reveals a deep and complex relationship. In some cases, clergy stood in solidarity with Chicana/os and Puerto Ricans; in other cases, however, religious outsiders—Latina/o radicals—took the fight to a church and forced it to reconsider its relationship to the neighborhood. In other words, the radicalism and nationalist politics of Latina/o activists reinforced the need to reform the church rather than ignore it as an irrelevant institution. This political and religious engagement forces us to reconsider the importance of religion in the Chicana/o and Puerto Rican struggles and breaks down the assumption that cultural nationalism is solely to blame for religion’s absence in much of the historical literature. In the late 1960s and 1970s Latina/o radicals recognized that everyday forms of religious devotion provided an “orientation,” a way to make sense of the world, and a catalyst to the forms of resistance and adaptation that have defined the Latina/o experience in the United States.28 After all, this was the period that witnessed the largest and most expressive form of clergy activism in the United States. Clergy, of all faiths, took to the streets in solidarity with those advocating for social change. The church—the collective body of believers—became the staging ground for the black freedom struggle in the 1950s and 1960s and also provided the institutional support necessary for the farmworker movement in cen-

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Apostles of Change

tral California to launch the most successful agricultural rights movement in US history. This was no accident. Religious leaders had access to large networks, had ministerial authority to sway the opinions of people in the pews, and centered segregation, labor rights, and racial injustice as more than social issues in need of a democratic remedy. In the early 1960s Pentecostals were on the front lines helping Cuban refugees adjust to their new surroundings and establishing refugee centers in Florida. When over 14,000 Cuban children were boatlifted from Cuba during Operation Pedro Pan, Pentecostals were there to provide refuge and minister to the needs of the children.29 Most scholars agree that these movements were energized by theological and ecclesiastical movements that promised to transform the Catholic church. The decisions that came out of Vatican II (1962–1965) moved the Catholic church away from its fortress-like presence to become a church that vowed to engage the world and initiate a dialogue across faith traditions and practices. Vatican II was indeed a revolutionary move for the church that spoke of “the whole people of God.” In 1968, at a meeting of Latin American Bishops in Medellín, Colombia, bishops denounced “institutional violence” and made a clear and decidedly theological “preferential option for the poor.” This structural change came on the heels of a global realignment whereby Christians in the Third World began questioning the authority of the institutional church and its role in the world.30 This movement, and most notably the writings of the Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutiérrez, laid the groundwork for liberation theology, which stresses that the church must do more than simply empathize with and care for the poor: it should work for fundamental political and structural changes to eradicate poverty. Poverty and economic injustice were no longer simply an economic condition but were now labeled as “sin” by liberation theologians. This made an important impact on Latina/o Christians in the United States and moved the church to deal with its exclusions in ways that it had not done before. The civil rights movement in the United States confirmed the post– Vatican II idea that all Catholics—not just the leadership—could be a force for change within the church. For mainline Protestants, the support emerged most strongly within the farmworker movement. In fact, it was mainline Protestant groups, specifically the California Migrant Ministry, that Cesar Chavez first called to get his support for the boycott that the National Farm Workers Association joined in 1965 in Delano, California.31 In the 1960s and 1970s the Virgen de Guadalupe’s image was often front and center for the largely Catholic Mexican and Mexican

Introduction

« 11 »

American population of farmworkers fighting for better wages and better working conditions. Latina/o clergy and leadership played small, but significant, roles in many of these movements as advocates for their own religious traditions on behalf of farmworkers. But outside of the token recognition of the exploitation of farmworkers, Catholic and Protestant leaders—black and white—had little or no understanding of the issues that affected the Latina/o community in terms of housing, segregation, and education. Liberal Protestants who started joining the critiques of urban renewal and became enamored with the black freedom struggle remained wholly ignorant of the conditions in which most Latina/os lived and worked. This ignorance has seeped into the literature of the Religious Left, where Latina/os are at worst completely ignored or at best seen as marginal to the larger story of civil rights, religious renewal, and Black Power.32 This is surprising, given the coalitions, movements, and collaborations that Latina/o revolutionaries created with Black Power advocates. To tell the story of the urban crisis without placing it within this multiracial context is to ignore one of the movement’s most powerful strategies: black and brown coalition building. Much of this coalition building took place in the spaces and places that activists chose to occupy as a way to reclaim their neighborhoods. And in the 1960s few other movement strategies captured the imaginations and hearts of urban communities more than occupation did. To occupy—to reclaim space—emerged as a powerful strategy as marginalized groups claimed dignity and citizenship rights and fought for the right to stay in the neighborhood. The bigger the space, or the more iconic the building, the better. The factors that make a building or space a symbol of great power, as Tim Cresswell argued, “simultaneously make them ripe for resistance in highly visible and often outrageous ways.”33 In this sense, 1969 gave us some of the most iconic occupations in social movement history. The group known as Indians of All Tribes occupied Alcatraz island in November 1969. The nineteen-month occupation launched the Red Power movement and inspired more occupations across the country, from Wrigley Field to Fort Lawton. At the very moment when Católicos Por La Raza disrupted Christmas Eve mass in Los Angeles and the Young Lords occupied the First United Spanish Methodist Church in East Harlem (both in 1969), the Red Power activists who occupied Alcatraz island were decorating their Christmas tree with ornaments that represented the love and struggle of previous generations

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Apostles of Change

and held a celebration with “Indian singing, Indian music, Indian food, and speeches.”34 The occupation of Alcatraz island has become perhaps the most wellknown case, but in examples across the country occupation served as an important strategy to reclaim space, claim dignity and citizenship rights, and fight for the right to stay in the neighborhood. The move to occupy the church—as a symbol of power—and to disrupt Christmas Eve mass in Los Angeles was itself an outrageous argument against displacement. In each of the stories in this book, Latina/o activists ultimately were pushed out and, in the end, defeated, but the optics and rhetoric of occupation have lingered. Seeing these young radicals serve breakfast inside the church, cite Bible verses, and proclaim that the church belongs to the people shocked and motivated religious leaders to take action at some of the most iconic and historic institutions in the country: the Methodist, Presbyterian, and Catholic churches.

Sacred Space, Sacred Resistance One of the most poignant scenes in the Gospels is Jesus turning over tables and driving out the money changers from the temple. Each gospel tells a slightly different story from a slightly different vantage point. In the Gospel of John, Jesus walked in with a “whip of chords” (John 2:15, New Revised Standard Version, NRSV), angered at what he saw, driving out animals and merchants and demanding that they “stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” (John 2:16, NRSV). Chaos ensues. The Gospels of Luke and Mark note that Jesus shut down the temple, occupied the building, and continued teaching. This was impressive, given that on this day thousands of pilgrims, priests, men, women, Gentiles, and merchants would have populated the area. The temple had become a “den of robbers” (Luke 19:46, NRSV) where only a selected few were welcome: the notion of “a house of prayer for all the nations” (Mark 11:17, NRSV) was lost. The temple was transformed into an exclusionary place under the control of the priests and the Pharisees. This event marked an important part of the ministry of Jesus: his stance against religious authorities. The Alexandrian exegete Origen argued that “Jesus’ overturning of the tables was a feat even greater than his changing water into wine.” The theologian Nicholas Perrin called the action a “self-defining” moment for Jesus that brought all his ideas about the Kingdom of God into one particularly violent action at the temple.35

Introduction

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The action was critical to Jesus’s ministry and one of the reasons why he was arrested and later crucified. His actions were seen as a threat to the established religious order and thus a threat to the Roman Empire. The fight was about religious insiders and outsiders in the temple, those welcome and those unwelcome, and about Jesus’s anger at these exclusionary practices. To fully understand the politics of Jesus, in other words, we must fully grasp the power, violence, and anger displayed at the temple cleansing. The drama of Jesus storming the temple, driving out the merchants, and occupying it as a way to restore it provides a powerful parallel to the actions of Latina/o radicals in 1969 and 1970. Like Jesus’s action in the temple, the church occupations are one piece of a large and complex puzzle that illustrates the relationship between religion and radical politics, a relationship rooted in struggle. In Latin American independence movements especially, religion has served as a major force of inspiration. On the morning of September 16, 1810, the Catholic priest Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla invoked the powerful and unifying symbol of the Virgen de Guadalupe to promote the cause of Mexican independence as he gave el grito de Dolores and called people to join in the cause of Mexican independence.36 In the twentieth century the Puerto Rican nationalist Pedro Albizu Campos equated Puerto Rico’s independence movement with the highest of Christian aspirations. Other Puerto Rican nationalists followed this trend as they organized the Arizmendi Society (named for the first Puerto Rican bishop) as a way to promote their cause of independence. They believed that the key to gaining a national consciousness was having more native priests and gaining a militant connection to independence groups, clearly linking their Christianity with revolution.37 In the modern era the link between revolution and Christianity has not always been as clear. Perhaps the most familiar instance was the Black Manifesto in May 1969, which demanded reparations for the historic role of religious institutions in the enslavement of black people. Drafted by former Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) activist James Forman, the manifesto demanded $500 million from white churches and synagogues in reparations.38 The effects were felt almost immediately. By the end of May 1969 Forman had placed demands before the United Church of Christ (UCC), United Presbyterian Church in the USA (UPCUSA), Lutheran Church in America, American Baptist Convention, United Methodist Church, and Episcopal Church. By the first week of June black and white seminary students and activ-

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Apostles of Change

ists had occupied the offices of the National Council of Churches, UCC, UPSCUA, and Reformed Church in America in New York City. Protestant denominations were caught flat-footed as Forman’s movement inspired a wave of support from young and progressive Christians. But the response was mixed. The American Lutheran Church noted that the manifesto was rooted in “anguish and frustration in a segment of our society but added that portions of the document were inflammatory, filled with hate and must be repudiated.”39 Negative reactions also came from some black religious leaders. The Reverend J.  H. Jackson, president of the national Baptist Convention USA, the nation’s largest group of black religious leaders at the time, argued that the manifesto is “the same old Red manifesto painted black and an echo of the Communist demands of Karl Marx.”40 Some called Forman a modern-day prophet; others ridiculed his bombastic behavior and chastised him for what they believed were ridiculous demands. While the manifesto did not come close to reaching the $500 million figure, it did compel Protestant denominations to fund more moderate projects related to racial reconciliation, community development, and economic empowerment in black communities. Groups like the Episcopal Church gave $200,000 for the National Committee of Black Churchmen, the United Presbyterian Church in the USA pledged to raise $50 million for antipoverty work, the World Council of Churches created a $200,000 reserve fund for oppressed people, and the Riverside Church in New York City, which was specifically targeted by Forman, created a fund for social justice work among New York City’s poor.41 While the Black Manifesto sparked much debate on the relationship between Black Power and American Christianity, and justifiably garnered significant attention in 1969, it was only one part of a larger push to reclaim sacred space in the United States. In the late 1960s churches and religious institutions found themselves in the middle of the fights against urban renewal, poverty, and the lack of health care in cities across the United States. The story of Latina/o freedom movements at these holy sites across the country forcefully illustrates how the church became the site of a dramatic and important struggle. The right to stay, the right to live freely, the right to gather for the common good, and the right to reconfigure space—to crash the sacred and the secular—and to think of the church as both a holy site and a community site—were at the heart of the matter in each church occupation and disruption. This explosion in the role of the church as a site of struggle in the late 1960s points to the

Introduction

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complex relationship between religion and radical activism. While biblical references were often absent in the Chicana/o movement narrative, activists understood the sonic, visual, and artistic power of spirituality and religion. From Reies López Tijerina’s spiritual visions to Martha Cotera’s notion of “Diosa y Hembra” (Goddess and Female) to describe Chicanas in the movement, the role of faith and spirituality has always lingered in the back—shaping rhetoric, infusing hope—even as movement leaders rejected the implications of the supposed reformist ends of religious leaders.42 It never ceases to surprise me that the Chicana/o movement in particular has generally been portrayed as unconcerned with, if not opposed to, religion and religious institutions. Where religion has figured into the story, it has almost always appeared as inconsequential, tangential, or only in figures and symbols of Guadalupe leading a group of farmworkers. Perhaps this is because the movement cast itself as secular humanist, with Marxist-Leninist leanings. But those ideological commitments were uneven, especially when activists engaged religious leaders. As much as Latina/o radicals chastised the church as an oppressive institution, they remained open to working and collaborating with religious leaders. Activists often relied on the church for space, for support from clergy, and for financial support. In this regard, no religious organization was more active in funding Chicana/o movement projects than the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO). Between 1968 and 1971 IFCO contributed well over $250,000 to projects that ranged from community organizing in San Juan, Texas, to farm labor organizing in Toledo, Ohio, to union work in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.43 But to be clear, I am not suggesting that activists in the Young Lords or the Mexican American Youth Organization considered themselves religious or that these were religious movements. I do not believe that they were. But I believe that activists in these movements did carry with them a spiritual consciousness developed in them during their own upbringing. Many of the activists I cover in this book were raised in homes where Catholicism and/or Protestantism was an essential element of life. For many of these activists, spiritual consciousness was rooted in a sense of peoplehood that opened possibilities and relied heavily on the memories of a radical and revolutionary Christ as portrayed in the Gospels. This is why many of the activists were able to cite biblical justifications for their church occupations, especially in the People’s Church in New York City. Their spirituality broke down institutions, recognized the power of the community, and believed in the shared religious author-

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Apostles of Change

ity of clergy and laypeople alike. A spirituality has always existed outside of the realm of the institutional church that is pragmatic and focused on this world, rather than the one to come. In each story discussed in this book, the occupied churches, whether made up of working-class Catholics or Protestants, were always treated with respect and with great care. Members of the Mexican American Youth Organization in Houston immediately replaced the window they broke as they entered the building. Yes, these activists were pointing out the beam of wood in the eye of the church, but that was not the complete story. They also showed a deep sense of love and respect for the sacred space they occupied. The story of church occupations and radical politics is intertwined with another important element in this book—sacred space. Latina/o radicals imagined the sacred space of the church as more than a building where salvation is found: they saw it as a physical space to meet the community’s social needs, which offers refuge to the oppressed and is committed to a preferential option for its neighborhood. The church became a resource: not simply something to occupy, but something to protect. While in each case Latina/o activists were forced out of the church, drowned out, beaten by police, with lights cut and gas cut—in every case they were driven out by religious authorities—the occupations struck a nerve. They not only moved entire religious institutions but also strengthened moderate religious groups.44

Itiner ary This book travels through four different cities as a way to weave together the narrative of Latina/o freedom movements. Chapter 1 stops in Chicago to examine the occupation of the McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood in May 1969. The Young Lords assembled a “rainbow coalition” of black, brown, and white activists who occupied the seminary for five days and in the months that followed secured funding for a legal aid office, a health clinic housed at the nearby Armitage Methodist Church, and a proposal for low-income housing in Lincoln Park. While the occupation only lasted five days, it started a local and national conversation that for the first time put Latina/o urban politics at the center of a larger conversation about race, urban space, and theology. Chapter 2 investigates the politics that led a group of Chicana/o ac-

Introduction

« 17 »

tivists to disrupt Christmas Eve mass in the beautiful new St. Basil’s Church in Los Angeles. That evening in 1969, only months after the occupation of the McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, the group known as Católicos Por La Raza clashed with police and church leadership in an effort to make the wealthy St. Basil’s Church respond to the social needs of the surrounding Chicana/o community. As you will notice, this story is somewhat different for two reasons. First, Católicos did not occupy a building but instead disrupted a Catholic mass. Second, the chapter is focused more on the actual event and delineating a complex moment that provides a view into the diversity of the Chicana/o movement in Los Angeles. The story of the CPLR follows the thesis of the book by investigating how this revolutionary action opened doors for religious reformers within the church but also points to the diversity within the movement—a coalition of Immaculate Heart nuns and Chicana/o radicals—at this particular moment in 1969 in Los Angeles. Chapter 3 follows the occupation of the First Spanish United Methodist Church (FSUMC) by the Young Lords in New York City. The church, which was located in the historic Puerto Rican neighborhood of El Barrio in East Harlem, remained in the control of the Young Lords for two weeks during the last days of 1969 and into 1970. During that time, they managed to offer a variety of social services, including a free breakfast program and cultural identity classes. The church was not only located in the center of El Barrio on the corner of 111th Street and Lexington Avenue but was used only a few hours a week, remaining empty the rest of the time. The political indifference of the FSUMC was even more pronounced when compared to the work of Catholic churches in the neighborhood, all of which operated some kind of antipoverty program. This chapter examines the legacy of the occupation of the First Spanish United Methodist Church on the Puerto Rican religious politics that emerged in New York in the 1970s. Chapter 4 travels south to Texas to follow the politics and engagements of the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) in Houston. The chapter focuses on the long and drawn-out occupation of the Juan Marcos Presbyterian Church in 1970 by MAYO. The occupation of the Juan Marcos Church, located in the heart of Houston’s Northside neighborhood, lasted the longest of any covered in this book (twenty days) and took place in a church that was empty at the time. When it was occupied, the Christ Presbyterian Church (later changed to Juan Marcos Presbyterian Church) was in the midst of a demographic transition, fifteen years in the making, that saw white residents leave and black

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and brown residents move into the barrio. This chapter examines how white Presbyterians and Chicana/o activists negotiated the politics of a neighborhood in transition even as they fiercely debated the role that the church could and should play in community activism, politics, and social change. In the process, the occupation helped transform MAYO from an unknown organization in the Northside to a major player in Houston’s civil rights politics in the early 1970s. The final chapter assesses the major findings of the book, points forward to the implications of the occupations for Latina/o religious politics in the 1970s and 1980s, and provides an analysis of the political and religious ideas that tug at the heart of the Latina/o freedom movement. I end with a nod toward the future and a reminder that the Religious Left did not die, diminish, or lose power. Instead, the Religious Left got to work at the grassroots level, back to the roots of Latina/o activism, back to the barrio. While religious studies scholars mourned the loss of the Religious Left and the meteoric rise of the Religious Right, they missed the reality that the Religious Left emulated and was a reflection of the local and barrio politics that have always been the centerpiece of the movements for liberation and freedom of Latina/os in the United States. Telling these stories reinforces once again that the power of the Chicana/o and Puerto Rican freedom movements resides in local spaces and neighborhood struggles, guided and inspired by national and transnational movements, where the ideas for social and political liberation are firmly planted. I hope to show how Latina/o activists imagined a new future, their struggle to build the People’s Church, and the negotiations and political moves that they made along the way. They were savvy political actors who took seriously their responsibility to dream new dreams and envision new visions. My further hope is that this book might compel us to take seriously the role of sacred spaces in our collective efforts to build a better world. One of the most inspiring aspects of writing this book was learning what went on inside the occupied churches. Inside these churches, young people sang together, read poetry, imagined a new world, and strategized for a total transformation of society. They joked, played together, and cried together as they fought for their barrios. I wrote this book to tell these stories, not only because they are inspiring, but also because they provide a way to shift how we remember the Chicana/o and Puerto Rican movements. Despite the problems, failures, rejections, and limits of these movements, they remind us always to keep the faith, to never give up hope.

Chapter One

Thunder in Chicago’s Lincoln Park

This is a new style of confrontation . . . not only poor, but black or brown. . . . We are frightened by their demands. We want them to behave like us, to play the game as we do, to listen to what we tell them is for their own good—and, if they will not, we respond as frightened men, violently. Arthur McK ay, pr esident, McCor mick Theological Seminary1

Poor people in the Lincoln Park area got it together like no mixed group of poor people in this country. . . . Latin, Black, Southern White, and other poor and working class whites held the Manuel Ramos Building (called the Stone Building by the Seminary). . . . They questioned the legitimacy of the institution and its power. Lincoln Park Press2

If in fact you are interested in eliminating racism, then we should not leave here until there are some answers to the demands made by Spanish-speaking and black people of this country. James For man, Black Economic Development Cou ncil, at the 181st Gener al Assembly of the U nited Pr esbyterian Church USA, 1969

T

he people gathered at Orlando Dávila’s home on the night of May 3, 1969, saw it all happen. First they heard shouting from the street in front of Dávila’s house, then they realized that it had come from a man with a gun pointed right at them. The next

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moment two shots were fired. One of those shots hit Manuel Ramos in the head, near his right eye. Another shot hit Rafael Rivera in the neck. Chaos ensued when the man with the gun, later identified as an off-duty police officer, James Lamb, was seen walking away; some reported seeing him walk back into the apartment that he was painting at the time. Lamb later testified that he fired his weapon only after he heard shots fired from across the street. When he proceeded to investigate, he reported, he saw three men and heard one of them say, “Get away from there or I’ll blow your head off.” He said that another man reached for a weapon. Witnesses refuted Lamb’s testimony, arguing instead that the police officer was the aggressor. The remaining details of that night are murky, but we know that Manuel Ramos and Rafael Rivera were taken to the hospital. Four of their good friends—Pedro Martínez, José Lind, Sal De Rivero, and Orlando Dávila, all part of the group that called themselves the Young Lords Organization (YLO)—were arrested, taken into custody, and tried for assaulting a police officer. Manuel Ramos died later that night. James Lamb, the police officer who shot and killed him and wounded Rivera, was cleared of any wrongdoing by a coroner’s jury.3 Manuel Ramos was a father, a husband, and a brother. His death robbed his two children, a two-year-old daughter and six-month-old baby boy, of their father. Those who knew him best described him as a quiet, mild-mannered man.4 He served as minister of defense for a Young Lords Organization that in 1969 was still trying to find its way, still working to see how best it could help the community, still learning the intricacies of revolutionary politics. Ramos’s death, however, would serve as a turning point for the young activist group. His death brought together his fellow Young Lords from the Lincoln and Humboldt Park neighborhoods as well as members of the Black Panthers and the white Appalachian group known as the Young Patriots at his memorial service at St. Teresa’s Catholic Church. Together they stood silently in respect, observing religious rituals in Ramos’s honor. His death, and the solidarity that came from black and white revolutionary groups, sparked a political fire in members of the Young Lords Organization. It was also a key moment for the young leader of the YLO, José “Cha Cha” Jiménez, who later confessed to the journalist Frank Browning that the murder of Manuel Ramos was the “point that I became a real revolutionary.”5 Manuel Ramos’s death added fuel to an already active organizing presence in Chicago neighborhoods—from Uptown to Lawndale to Lincoln Park—as multiple groups turned up the heat in the summer of 1969. Black, Latina/o, and white activist groups occupied institutions, estab-

Thu nder in Chicago’s Lincoln Park

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Figur e 1.1. The Young Lords and others protesting the fatal shooting of Manuel Ramos, May 5, 1969. Photo, Chicago Sun-Times Collection, Chicago History Museum/Getty Images.

lished breakfast programs for schoolchildren, organized rallies, opened health clinics, and published newspapers that promoted solidarity. Each of these movements was significant, but none more so than the takeover and occupation of McCormick Theological Seminary. Days after Ramos’s death, members of the YLO, together with a coalition of community groups known as the Poor People’s Coalition (PPC) and with help from seminary students, walked onto the campus of McCormick Theological Seminary, located in the heart of Lincoln Park, and occupied the newly renovated Stone Academic building. They chose to occupy the seminary rather than DePaul University or the Children’s Hospital, two other institutions in Lincoln Park, because McCormick was the weakest institution in the triad, and the YLO believed that it could exploit the seminary’s hypocrisy. With placards that read “I was cold and alone, and the Christians took my home,” activists accused seminary leaders of standing idly by as urban renewal displaced low-income families in Lincoln Park.6 After the occupation, the activists renamed the structure the Manuel Ramos Building as an homage to their good friend and a signal to the institutions in the neighborhood that urban renewal, or “urban removal” as they called it, was not going to happen without a fight.7

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Apostles of Change

Much of the literature on the Young Lords specifically and on Latina/o Chicago more generally treats the McCormick Theological Seminary as a one-dimensional space, as a conduit for urban renewal, and as an isolated institution with few ties outside of Chicago. Scholars’ assessment of the McCormick occupation has been limited by their failure to engage religious archives and primary sources written by religious leaders themselves. This not only has shortchanged the important work of the Young Lords and the Poor People’s Coalition but also has limited our understanding of this turbulent moment in US and global urban religious politics. Religious groups in the United States and across the world experienced a metamorphosis in the 1960s and 1970s. Anticolonial movements globally, the civil rights movement at home, Vatican II, the rise of liberation theology in Latin America, religious pluralism as a result of increased immigration, and the “Death of God” movement shook religious institutions to their core. When the Young Lords led a coalition to occupy McCormick Theological Seminary, which belonged to the United Presbyterian Church in the USA (UPCUSA), one of the wealthiest religious groups in the United States, they unwittingly walked into a struggle that was much bigger than their fight against urban renewal in Lincoln Park. This chapter focuses on the struggle against urban renewal in Lincoln Park by zooming in on the occupation of McCormick Theological Seminary in May 1969. I argue that the McCormick occupation propelled the Young Lords and Latina/o radical politics onto a national religious stage in two primary ways. First, the Young Lords and their coalition were successful in winning some of their demands from the seminary and the UPCUSA. Led by their chief negotiator, Obed López, who was raised in a Protestant home in Mexico, the Young Lords secured funding for a proposal for low-income housing in Lincoln Park, a legal aid office, and a health clinic housed at the nearby Armitage Methodist Church. While the occupation only lasted five days, it started a local and national conversation that for the first time put Latina/o urban politics at the center of a larger conversation around race, urban space, and theology. Second, the occupation of McCormick seminary paved a political path for the historically reformist Latina/o Presbyterian leadership in Chicago. Almost overnight Latino clergy found themselves the darlings of the Chicago Presbytery, which prior to the occupation had ignored their proposals for church service work. Latina/o Presbyterians, whose

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voice had always sounded “like far off thunder” coming from a group whose issues were “only just beginning to come to the surface,” positioned themselves to lead the church both theologically and politically in the 1970s.8 The twists and turns of this story reveal the deep love that the Young Lords had for Lincoln Park and how their “act of love,” as Obed López described the occupation, kicked off a trend across the country as Mexican American and Puerto Rican activists took their struggle to the very centers of American political and religious life. This story starts not with the McCormick occupation but with the story of a city seduced by the appeal of urban renewal in the postwar era.

Displacement as Prologue The origins of the Young Lords Organization in Chicago, which transformed from a street gang organized in 1959 to a revolutionary nationalist group a decade later, are rooted in fighting for a particular place: the Lincoln Park neighborhood. As social servants and revolutionary nationalists, members of the YLO organized a local movement with an eye toward anticolonial movements in Puerto Rico and across Latin America and Africa. “Our mission was self-determination for Puerto Rico and other nations in Latin America,” Cha Cha Jiménez, one of the group’s founders, explained, “and neighborhood empowerment, that was our mission.”9 At the center of this neighborhood empowerment was Lincoln Park. The Lincoln Park neighborhood is located in the North Side of the city, enclosed by Diversey Parkway to the north, North Avenue to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, and the Chicago River to the west. In the 1960s the neighborhood was defined by both its ethnic mix and the shared experiences of displacement.10 From Victorian brownstones near the lake on the east to immigrant housing units to the west, and with plans for a shopping district with restaurants and entertainment possibilities, Lincoln Park was one of the most competitive real-estate markets in the city. In addition, the triad of institutions in the neighborhood—McCormick Theological Seminary, DePaul University, and Children’s Memorial Hospital—made significant investments. Properties sold quickly in this market, so urban renewal hawks targeted Lincoln Park. But the urban renewal trend started much earlier as a move to keep the triad of institutions from leaving Lincoln Park for greener city

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blocks. In 1954 the Lincoln Park Conservation Association (LPCA) requested an urban renewal designation for the neighborhood, which included a $43 million budget, 50 percent matching funds from the federal government, and a four-stage ten-year plan.11 By 1957 federal and local legislation had raised a total of $160 million for urban renewal in Chicago.12 In its plans for radical transformation of Chicago neighborhoods, urban renewal operated in phases, with plans revealed a year at a time and longer-range plans sometimes unavailable for public criticism.13 The urban renewal trends in Chicago were part of a larger national project that began with the Housing Act of 1949. Housing Acts in 1954, 1959, 1961, and 1968 focused on the redevelopment of what investors identified as crumbling neighborhoods in prime locations near business districts or attractive landscapes. This translated into the demolition of old buildings, raising rents to push poor people out and making it almost impossible for poor and working people, mostly Latina/os and African Americans, to stay put regardless of how long they had lived in the neighborhood. In cities across the United States, the majority of housing demolitions took place between 1949 and 1967: as many as 400,000 units were demolished in areas designated for urban renewal by the federal government. The supposed renewal that followed rarely made room for poor people, as only a limited number of low-rent housing units replaced demolished housing.14 Between 1960 and 1966 the population of Lincoln Park fell from 88,836 to 82,631, while median income rose from $6,000 to $8,000; property values increased as well as rent.15 By the end of the 1960s, in a city with nearly 250,000 Latina/os, urban renewal policies had normalized displacement, pushing Latina/os in Chicago from neighborhood to neighborhood—out of the Near North Side, the Near West Side, and Lincoln Park—to areas in the west side of the city and often into substandard housing units where they paid higher rents in some cases. The moving around was captured in the poetry of David Hernan-

M ap 1.1. McCormick Theological Seminary and Armitage Methodist Church, Lincoln Park neighborhood, Chicago. In 1974 McCormick Theological Seminary sold its campus buildings and relocated to Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood. Today the former seminary buildings serve as the home for the DePaul University School of Music. In 2012 the Armitage Methodist Church building was torn down to make way for a Walgreens corner drugstore. Map by Erin Greb, Erin Greb Cartography, Doylestown, PA.

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dez, whose memories of Armitage Street epitomized the feelings of the moment. “Armitage Street,” by David Hernandez It seems just like yesterday on Armitage Street that Alfredo and Cha-Cha played hide and seek with Quinto the cop while Cosmo and Aidita made love in the gangway. When radios blared out open windows dressed in five and dime lace curtains. When staccato Spanish bounced between buildings high above the rolling traffic because telephones were insultingly impersonal and it was no secret that eyes expressed the heart. When rice and bean smells roamed the hallways covering up the tracks of other ethnics who had since faded into the American Dream. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . When the last summer days were spent under street rainbow firehydrant showers and that night you overheard your parents whisper about moving out because the rent was going up.16

Forcing Puerto Ricans out of neighborhoods by pricing them out of their homes was part of a long tradition in Chicago, whose residents, as Mérida Rúa put it, were caught in an “episodic pattern of constant movement: of loss and finding and more loss.”17 Chicago was a world made by displacement. In May 1969, when the Poor People’s Coalition occupied the seminary, plans for urban renewal included a shopping center on the corner of Fullerton, Halsted, and Lincoln and the expansion of DePaul University just south of its present campus. The fast pace of transition moved the Reverend Bruce W. Johnson Jr. of Armitage Methodist Church to predict that the entire Puerto Rican population could be gone from Lincoln Park by the early 1970s.18 For members of the Puerto Rican community, who first started settling in Lincoln Park in 1946, the situation carried deep consequences: yet another round of displacement loomed on the horizon.19 But as dire as the situation was, the political context taking shape in Lincoln Park evoked a different response. Members of the

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Puerto Rican community had experienced the exploitation of landlords and the waves of urban renewal and yet remained steadfast in their desire to make a home, to keep their neighborhood. Even as plans to reconfigure the entire neighborhood moved forward, the residents of Lincoln Park refused to go without a fight. Realizing the implications that urban renewal carried for the poor, mostly Puerto Rican residents of Lincoln Park, neighborhood activists such as Patricia Devine-Reed started organizing. Originally from a working-class family in Aurora, Illinois, Devine-Reed often participated in “consciousness raising” trips to Chicago as a high school student with a group called Young Christian Students. She visited with families to learn about their struggles with poverty and discrimination in the windy city. Those experiences fundamentally changed her life and were a major reason why she decided to move to Chicago in 1964 after graduating from college.20 Through her work with Young Christian Students, Devine-Reed became familiar with the Lincoln Park neighborhood and became close friends with Puerto Rican, black, and white families living in the community. It was not long before she became the lead organizer for the Concerned Citizens of Lincoln Park, a group organized by a coalition of churches in the neighborhood to push back against the urban renewal plans for Lincoln Park of Mayor Richard Daley, or “old daddy Daley” as Devine-Reed called him. A broad multiethnic, multiclass coalition was exactly what Lincoln Park needed if it was going to put up any kind of a fight against a mayor whose tenure spanned twentyone years, from 1955 to 1976. Daley was a masterful politician whose vision for urban renewal transformed low-income neighborhoods and wove racial segregation into the very fabric of the city.21 While DevineReed’s coalition was weak on political power, she did manage to organize a broad base of support that brought together mothers, brothers, business leaders, and clergy. Devine-Reed was a natural organizer: nowhere was this more evident than in her ability to interact with and engage the Puerto Rican young men who regularly hung out on the corner of Halsted and Dickens.

The Young Lords Organization and Religious Progressivism in Chicago It was on that very street corner, Halsted and Dickens, where DevineReed first met the leader of the Young Lords Organization, José “Cha

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Cha” Jiménez, in 1968. As she remembered, it was Jiménez who first approached her as she and others were making signs for an upcoming protest: “I invited him and the other guys to help us . . . and I explained to him how the Puerto Rican community will be the first to be affected by this [urban renewal].”22 What started out as a meeting on a street corner soon turned into a close friendship between Devine-Reed and Jiménez and other members of the up-and-coming YLO. Over the next few months, in late 1968 and 1969, the political development of the YLO as an organization that believed in the power of ordinary people to bring about social change took shape. Late-night conversations in people’s living rooms, education classes, and strategy sessions with other activist groups helped forge the political philosophy of the YLO.23 The members of the group had a “sense of brotherhood,” former YLO member Omar López remembered, “formed by our common experience in the neighborhoods.”24 Common experiences of police harassment, displacement, and poverty brought non–Puerto Ricans, especially Mexican Americans like López and whites, to join the YLO. Kenny Smith, who described himself as “Appalachian white,” joined the YLO out of a desire to fight against a system stacked against poor people.25 As revolutionary nationalists, they built coalitions with groups such as the Black Panther Party, Young Patriots, and Students for a Democratic Society, among others. They followed the example of the Black Panthers by setting up breakfast programs for kids, day-care centers, a free health clinic, and a legal-aid office. This work formed part of a larger network of other organizations across the city, including Rising Up Angry (RUA) and the Young Patriots, which united to form the Rainbow Coalition (a term coined by Fred Hampton in 1968) of black, brown, and white activists all working within their own communities.26 Their belief in interethnic coalition building, as historian Lilia Fernández argued, remained grounded in the idea that “a strictly race-based vision was not politically strategic . . . [and] Puerto Ricans’ own physical and phenotypical diversity made a rigid understanding of race and racial boundaries untenable.”27 The making of this antiracist class struggle created solidarity networks across multiple neighborhoods—from black activists in North Lawndale to poor whites in the Uptown community to Latina/os in Lincoln Park—all with their own specific political fights. These political strategies of coalition building came out of their own experiences as colonized Puerto Rican and Mexican young men who, like the Black Panthers, gained strength and inspiration from anticolonial movements in

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Latin America, Africa, and Asia. They were political pragmatists whose movement emerged out of their own histories of displacement and police harassment, even as they were savvy enough to envision their struggle extending from Lincoln Park to Puerto Rico, Cuba, and places across Latin America.28 These radical movements were only one part of the wide range of community activism that emerged in Chicago’s neighborhoods in the 1960s. The faith-based social movements that emerged out of Catholic and Protestant churches throughout the city of Chicago are frequently overlooked. Grounded in the early twentieth century formulations of the social gospel, these movements blended faith and direct political action as a means to bring about social change. Chicago is the birthplace of the settlement house movement that started as a way for religious groups to help European immigrants reside in, study, and engage their community. During the late nineteenth century, Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr co-founded Hull House in the Near West Side. By 1920 it had become the model for some 500 settlement houses that operated across the country. The social impulses in the city were equally matched by a missionary zeal where places like the Moody Bible Institute served as a training ground for evangelical missionaries destined for urban centers in the United States or places such as Latin America, Asia, or Africa.29 By the 1960s the Westside Christian Parish, the Westside Organization, and the Urban Training Center all received financial backing from the liberal Protestant group the National Council of Churches. This eclectic mix of social gospel service and evangelical missions made Chicago one of “liberal Protestantism’s urban bases” during the first half of the twentieth century.30 That trend continued with Latina/o churches in the postwar era, such as the Primera Iglesia Congregacional de Chicago (First Congregational Church of Chicago), whose history of social action and faithinformed activism focused on the plight of the city’s growing Puerto Rican population in the Humboldt Park neighborhood.31 No religious group in Lincoln Park was more active or more committed to the fight for affordable housing than the North Side Cooperative Ministry (NSCM). The group organized churches whose declining memberships, unstable finances, and deteriorating buildings made them somewhat irrelevant to rapidly changing neighborhoods in Lincoln Park, Near North, Lake View, and North Center. Through volunteers from a number of churches, the NSCM organized an education task force and provided housing assistance, peacemaking classes,

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youth programs, head start, and an outreach program to the elderly in the community.32 The ministry formed part of the ecumenical movement sweeping the United States in the 1960s as a result of some of the legal victories of the civil rights movement. With new legislation in place, the everyday workings of racial injustice became even more clear on the ground, which forced many urban churches to address these issues. In areas where they did not respond, activists in the community would take them to task by either disrupting services or occupying an entire church building. In the late 1960s community organizing became a central tenet of urban ministry.33 NSCM volunteers, who were mostly white religious progressives, remained beyond the fray for the most part, rarely making political noise outside of the neighborhoods in Lincoln Park or Lake View where they worked. But in the late 1960s it was their close relationship to Black and Brown Power groups that brought accusations of funding “violent or subversive organizations” from James Eastland’s Senate subcommittee on internal security.34 Senator Eastland’s investigation targeted the NSCM generally but focused on the activities of the Holy Covenant Methodist Church, led by the Reverend James Reed. The church also served as a coordinating center for groups such as the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the Young Lords, and Black Panthers to gather. These connections, along with the fact that the church hosted a nude theatrical version of Peter Pan in 1970, made Holy Covenant Methodist Church and the NSCM an easy target. Later that year politicians accused the NSCM coalition of funding radical groups.35 NSCM leadership denied the accusations and pushed back against some Lincoln Park residents for working to make Lincoln Park a “little slice of suburbia” where a select few stood to make money from the neighborhood’s transformation.36 The “clergy-radical linkup,” as the Chicago Tribune called it, was central: it was through this association that the idea first emerged to occupy the McCormick Theological Seminary as a way to call out the hypocrisy of a Christian institution that supported urban renewal in 1969 and by association the continued displacement of Puerto Ricans and other poor people in the neighborhood.37 While much has been written about the coalitions that the YLO formed with other radical groups such as the Black Panthers, SDS, and the Young Patriots, scholars have for the most part overlooked the coalition forged with religious progressives. But it was this coalition, which started when Jiménez and other YLO members first met the community organizer Patricia Devine-Reed,

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that would set them on a path to organizing a real and pragmatic plan to fight for low-income housing in Lincoln Park. What started out as a small neighborhood movement would soon take the Young Lords and the multiethnic, multiclass coalition that they led to the halls of one of the wealthiest and strongest mainline Protestant denominations in the United States. The history of resistance to urban renewal in Lincoln Park includes not only religious progressives or revolutionary nationalists taking center stage but the ways in which both movements or ideologies joined together out of necessity to fight a common cause. In the midst of this struggle, it was hard to separate the religious from the nonreligious.38 Understanding this complex relationship not only helps us make sense of the occupation of McCormick Theological Seminary as a fight against urban renewal but also introduces us to a cadre of Latino ministers intent on serving as chief negotiators between the church and the Young Lords.

Occupation as an Act of Love On May 14, 1969, just minutes before midnight and with the help of seminary students, the Young Lords Organization led an effort to take over and occupy the Stone Academic Administration building at McCormick Theological Seminary. With help from seminary students, members of the YLO moved in. After learning the layout of the building, they sealed all the entrances and set up patrols to control who came in and out. The initial group that occupied the building that night numbered around eighty, which included a good mix of mothers, fathers, Black Panthers, YLO members, and clergy and religious leaders from the NSCM. “The groups who have seized the building,” the local socialist press reported, “are black, Latin, and white. . . . Little red books are in evidence and the clenched fist is the accepted greeting.” They quickly renamed the building the Manuel Ramos Memorial Building in memory of their good friend and brother killed by an off-duty police officer just a few days earlier.39 This occupation was led by the YLO, but with the support of the Poor People’s Coalition (PPC), seminary students, Black Active and Determined (BAD), Black Panthers, Students for a Democratic Society, Concerned Citizens of Lincoln Park, Welfare and Working Mothers of Wicker Park, and the Latin American Defense Organization (LADO). They believed McCormick was particularly vulnerable. “It was

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Figur e 1.2. José “Cha Cha” Jiménez (bottom right) and the Young Lords in front of the Stone Academic Building, renamed the Manuel Ramos Memorial Building, at McCormick Theological Seminary. McCormick Theological Seminary collection, box 2A, folder 21, Special Collections and Archives, DePaul University, Chicago.

easier for us to zero in,” as Omar López described it. “DePaul was doing the same thing [supporting urban renewal], but they weren’t training priests . . . and McCormick had a group of seminarians that were collaborating with us, and they guided us, and even told us which buildings were vulnerable.”40 The movement to occupy the Stone building started a week earlier, when close to one thousand people rallied on May 6 to protest the dedication of the Stone building. Black, Puerto Rican, and white community leaders joined McCormick students and faculty to voice their frustration over the $2 million price tag for the new building and to present seminary leaders with a set of demands.41 In dramatic fashion, seminary students set up a tent-village on campus: twenty-nine students and their families camped out as a “symbolic act” of solidarity with the “mostly black and Puerto Ricans who have to move out” of Lincoln Park as a result of urban renewal. The Young Lords and other community organizations joined

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the students by staging a “mock-dedication” in front of the seminary’s library complete with a cardboard replica of the Stone building.42 The seminary’s newsletter described the scene at the Stone building dedication: “a Wheaton insurance man and a north suburban pastor brushed shoulders, as it were, with a young militant Puerto Rican leader and welfare mothers.”43 Another observer noted the children playing while their parents, some carrying Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) flags, shuffled back and forth between watching their kids and condemning seminary leaders. This was a family affair. Students, children, and members of the Young Lords all gathered to provide a powerful visual for the forty or so members of the McCormick Seminary Board of Trustees in town to celebrate the opening and dedication of the Stone building. The very next day (May 7), as McCormick’s administration met with its Board of Trustees, a coalition of students and community leaders presented the Board of Trustees with a set of demands: . . . . .

$601,000 for low-income housing in Lincoln Park. Facilities for a day care center. Tear down the iron fence around McCormick Seminary. Space for a Puerto Rican cultural center. $25,000 for the Young Lords Organization to develop cultural programs. . $25,000 for a legal aid office led by the Latin American Defense Organization (LADO). . The seminary publicly condemn the governmental attacks and FBI surveillance of groups like the Black Panthers, Young Lords, and LADO.44

Each demand was carefully crafted with the help of McCormick students under the close guidance of Obed López, the leader of LADO and brother of Omar López, a member of the Young Lords. In the next few days Obed López would become the lead strategist for the PPC and a chief negotiator. His skills earned him praise from the chair of the board, Herbert Walker, who called López “the most eloquent spokesman for the Coalition.”45 In addition to being eloquent, López helped draft demands that were both reasonable and in the seminary’s best interest. One example of this was the $601,000 that the coalition demanded for low-income housing. While this seemed high to some board members, the figure actually represented McCormick’s share of a mandate that came from the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the USA a year

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Figur e 1.3. The Young Lords and the Poor People’s Coalition placed two of their demands (for low-cost housing and a legal aid office) outside the newly renamed Manuel Ramos Memorial Building. McCormick Theological Seminary collection, box 2A, folder 21, Special Collections and Archives, DePaul University, Chicago.

earlier for institutions to invest 30 percent of unrestricted funds in projects that would benefit poor people. If McCormick followed this mandate, its share came to exactly $601,000.46 Except for the demands for a legal aid office and a cultural center, these goals fell in line with what McCormick students had already been pushing for in previous years. In the end, none of that mattered. Five days later the Board of Trustees rejected every single demand. At the Board of Trustees meeting the following day (May 13), López expressed his disappointment and warned the trustees and administrators that the YLO and the coalition “would be undertaking a certain undefined ‘educational’ activity and asked that this be understood by the McCormick Community as an ‘act of love.’” López made it clear that this “educational activity” would be directed at the “institution of McCormick Seminary” and that faculty, staff, and students were welcome to join with them.47 The occupation was on—and the entire neighborhood was invited.

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The convergence of a student protest with the dedication of a new building capped off a prosperous and turbulent decade for McCormick Theological Seminary. In the 1960s the seminary, which was affi liated with the United Presbyterian Church in the USA (UPCUSA), enjoyed a financial prosperity that allowed it to hire new faculty, raise $10 million for campus development, and begin construction on a new $1.2 million student dormitory.48 Economic prosperity, however, masked larger institutional problems involving race and racism on campus. In the 1960s students demanded that the seminary hire black faculty and staff, provide courses in black history and culture, and break its tight relationship with that “oh-so-white” Lincoln Park Conservation Association (LPCA). Students accused the seminary of being in the business of driving poor families out of Lincoln Park and cited numerous examples where it turned down opportunities to work collaboratively with the NSCM. To make matters worse, students presented evidence that the seminary had also rejected opportunities to work with neighborhood groups and pro-

Figur e 1.4. Flyer inviting Lincoln Park residents to the “People Power Festival” to protest against the McCormick Theological Seminary’s failure to stop urban renewal. McCormick Theological Seminary collection, box 2, folder 19, Special Collections and Archives, DePaul University, Chicago.

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gressive churches on campus.49 In November 1968 thirty students representing the Action Committee to Oppose Racism (ACTOR) carried picket signs into a chapel service as a way to protest the seminary’s policies toward the community.50 McCormick’s troubles were not unique. Theological schools across the country faced strong challenges from their students in the midst of a changing political and theological atmosphere in the 1960s. As the historian David Cline argued, the late 1960s were an “era of theological confusion” for seminaries, churches, and mainline Protestant denominations that shook their very foundations.51 Even as seminaries and churches celebrated record financial surpluses that spurred new construction, soaring enrollment, and new programing in the postwar era, they froze in the face of the moral questions raised by the black freedom struggle. Frustrated with their own theological education, young mostly white seminarians insisted on putting their theology to work by marching against segregation, boycotting nonunion grapes and lettuce, working with churches on antipoverty campaigns, and registering voters. For these students, the rage of the Old Testament prophets and the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament had something important to say about power, injustice, and social change in the 1960s. Progressive seminary students believed, as one articulated, that the “churches are in for a shocking century—at least that is my hope. It will be a century in which the churches died and the church was born again.”52 So imagine the thrill of the students when the YLO and other community members shared their plans to occupy the Stone building and provide support to the students’ causes. Seminary students offered all the insider information needed for occupation: access to the walkietalkies, layout of the building, and areas that the administration deemed valuable. Cha Cha Jiménez became so enamored with the student support that he returned the favor by threatening more occupations, all across the city of Chicago, if any seminary students suffered repercussions for being in solidarity with the occupation. As soon as seminary leaders got word of the occupation, they moved slowly, allowing the activists to remain in the building that night. The next morning (May 15) seminary leaders agreed to meet with another important negotiator for the YLO, Luis Cuza. With Obed López at the General Assembly of the UPCUSA in San Antonio (more on this later), Cuza took center stage and became the main negotiator. Seminary administrators feared him. Like López, Cuza admired Fidel Castro, was a revolutionary nationalist, and stoked similar fears in seminary administrators, who described him

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as “brilliant, but a radical Latin . . . [with] piercing eyes and an articulate tongue.”53 In exchange for assurances that seminary administrators were making progress on the demands, Cuza assured them that the YLO and the coalition would be out of the building by the next evening, May 16. While promises were made to Cuza, behind the scenes seminary administrators and board members struggled to make sense of a tricky situation. The problem centered on a board policy that made each board member personally liable for any losses that resulted from taking a financial risk with potentially poor results. Regardless of whether or not board members supported the cause of the occupiers, they were warned by their legal counsel that a breach of their duty to care for seminary funds “makes [the] board of directors personally liable for losses which result.”54 For McCormick the risk in making funds available was not only institutional: every administrator and every member on the board of trustees also would have to take on the risk. Knowing full well that they could not deliver on the demands being made on them, seminary administrators and their board chair called in a favor from the Chicago Tribune. They wanted to secure the services of its lawyer, Don Ruben, in order to intimidate the YLO members into leaving the building. Ruben, whose list of powerful clients included professional sports franchises like the White Sox and Bears, the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, and the Illinois Republican Party, was brought in to scare the YLO and in particular their leader, Cha Cha Jiménez. Once Ruben arrived on campus, he met with President McKay and Herbert Walker (board chair) to plan a strategy of intimidation. The scene that Walker described in his notes was almost Mafia-like: “Twirling a medallion and with a smile on his face, he [Ruben] warned Cha Cha: you don’t like the establishment, well I’m going to show you how the establishment works. We will get an injunction against you if you are not out of here by Saturday afternoon. You will be thrown out and put in jail.”55 That was all Ruben needed to say. He and Walker turned around and walked back to the president’s office. While it is not clear whether Ruben would actually have followed through on his threat, none of that mattered. His threat was enough to fire up the will of Jiménez and the coalition: instead of leaving, they decided to remain in the building indefinitely. And they shot back by threatening to break into and seize the adjacent library building, followed by a “systematic seizure of Presbyterian institutions all over the country” if the intimidation tactics of Ruben continued. Seminary administrators called the move a “breach of good faith” and immediately

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Figur e 1.5. Photo taken at the 181st General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church USA in San Antonio, Texas, May 15, 1969. “Challenge and Response,” Presbyterian Life (July 1969): 8, MI P97.v

ended negotiations, demanding that the group leave the building no later than Saturday morning (May 17).56 The next few hours were tense, but the YLO had a secret weapon: a backup plan in case the seminary tried to muscle its way out of the negotiations. Obed López, the well-dressed chief spokesperson for the coalition, had made his way to the 181st General Assembly of the UPCUSA being held in San Antonio just as the occupation began. On a tip from another member of the Latin American Defense Organization, Cathy Logan, whose Presbyterian connections ran deep, López made the trip as a strategic move to gain leverage over the seminary. McCormick was one of several seminaries under the auspices of the UPCUSA, so the occupation was of major concern for the Presbyterian leaders who had gathered from across the country. López had the opportunity not only to address the delegates at the General Assembly but also to meet James Forman, the author of the Black Manifesto—the radical document de-

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manding $500 million in reparations from white Christian denominations for their participation in slavery—and leader of several church service disruptions and occupations. López also met Eliezer Risco, the Latino activist and editor of La Raza newspaper. The movement to hold churches accountable, López quickly learned, was much larger than the occupation of McCormick Theological Seminary. López shared the stage in San Antonio with a black/brown coalition that included Gayraud Wilmore, the Reverend Antonio Medina, and the Reverend Roger Granados as well as Forman and Risco. Despite a warning from UPCUSA that it would not “negotiate with black and Mexican-American demands for church funds,” López’s clear and direct demand for church funds for low-income housing in Lincoln Park and a variety of other social programs made quite an impression on the delegates.57 As the YLO waited to see what its next move would be after the tense exchange with Ruben and seminary administrators, López recommended that the occupation should end, as national Presbyterian leaders, with deeper pockets than the seminary, agreed to meet some of their demands. The YLO and the coalition had reached the center of power: no one was better equipped than López to speak to a room full of mostly white delegates from the Presbyterian Church. Five days into the occupation, López assured his comrades in Chicago that it was time to end the occupation. Shortly thereafter, the YLO instructed everyone to vacate the Stone building. The occupation ended peacefully on Sunday evening, May 18.

“Like Far Off Thunder”: Obed López, Presbyterians, and the Invisible Minority When Obed López arrived in San Antonio for the UPCUSA General Assembly he was met by Eliezer Risco. In addition to his work as editor of La Raza newspaper, he also served as a consultant to Spanishspeaking ministries in US Protestant churches. Risco quickly informed López of when and where he would be addressing the delegate body. A special black/brown session had been organized. López, Risco, and James Forman were set to address the delegate body. With no knowledge of what was brewing in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood, Risco had already been meeting with Latina/o Presbyterian clergy and a who’s who of Chicana/o activists that included Raul Ruiz, Corky González, and Maria Varela to develop a clear list of demands in the spirit of the Black

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Manifesto in preparation for the UPCUSA General Assembly.58 Together the members of this impressive group developed what they called the Brown Revolution Manifesto, which called for $500,000 for church programs in Latina/o communities and disinvestment in oppressive movements and included a statement of solidarity and support for people of the “third world” and the Black Manifesto.59 Designed as an equivalent to the Black Manifesto, the Brown Revolution Manifesto built on the momentum of James Forman and served as a bridge for coalition building between black and brown activists and clergy.60 Although Risco hoped to make a splash, the star of the show at the UPCUSA General Assembly in San Antonio was undoubtedly Forman. The former SNCC leader and author of the Black Manifesto had put white church leaders on high alert with his bold demands and church disruptions in places like Detroit, New York, and Atlanta. At the invitation of the UPCUSA, he was there to make his demands to the church power brokers and undoubtedly had the attention of this predominantly white denomination. To add to the theatrics, as Forman spoke, his supporters in New York City occupied the offices of the United Presbyterian Church National Board of Missions. The special session where Forman was scheduled to speak attracted significant attention from anxious Presbyterians, who worried that the occupation of their church offices would not end until Forman’s demands were met. As Forman addressed the assembly, buoyed by the bold theatrics of occupation in New York, it was clear that his charisma had captured the day. Those who heard him speak described his talk as “witty, knowledgeable, and scathing . . . couched in much milder language than the Black Manifesto.” If the presence of Forman at the General Assembly felt “like a storm breaking around the heads of the church,” the Latino contingent seemed to pale in comparison.61 Probably few in the audience that day felt threatened by the Brown Revolution Manifesto or the quiet and unassuming style of the largely unknown Risco. As passionate as he was that day, his seven-point list of demands for the most part fell flat. For many in the room that day, the Brown Revolution Manifesto simply lacked the historical weight and urgency of Forman’s manifesto; it was a document without a history delivered by a group that was considered the invisible minority in the late 1960s. So López carried a heavy burden when he addressed the assembly. He not only had to compete with the charisma and power of Forman’s demands but had to do so in a way that filled in the huge gap in

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most of the delegates’ awareness of Latina/o activism and politics. On his own terms, in his own voice and his own rhythms, López opened his remarks: “Last night, the poor community of Lincoln Park, under the leadership of the Young Lords Organization, a Latin American community—a political action group—took under its control the McCormick Theological Seminary of Chicago.” He went on to present the list of ten demands on behalf of the poor people of Lincoln Park. For many Presbyterians at the General Assembly, López’s words sounded “like far off thunder,” coming from an activist whose grievances as a Mexican immigrant, as a Latino, were “only just beginning to come to the surface.”62 López might not have upstaged Forman’s fiery and charismatic style on that day, but he did enough to compel the assembly to take his demands seriously. With support from the black caucus, Gayraud Wilmore, James Forman, and others, the concerns of Lincoln Park and those articulated in the Brown Revolution Manifesto were on the UPCUSA agenda. Why did López become the voice of Lincoln Park and the YLO at the Presbyterian church assembly? Well, he was older and more mature than most of the YLO and coalition activists. He was pragmatic, well spoken, an organic intellectual. His experiences as an activist in Chicago, a city where Latina/o politics and struggles remained out of view in the late 1950s and early 1960s, had prepared him for yet another audience whose ignorance he expected. But another characteristic also set him apart: his fashion sense. The man was always dressed to the nines. His buttondown Oxford shirts, thin ties, and perfectly tapered pants earned him the reputation of being a “dapper, little man” from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which watched him and labeled him a Communist activist in Chicago.63 López carried himself with confidence and commanded the respect of the younger activists in the Humboldt Park neighborhood. He had first arrived there in the 1950s as a teenager, one of the few Mexicans living in an increasingly Puerto Rican neighborhood. López came to the United States from San Luis Potosí, Mexico, in 1956, when he settled with his brother and sister in Chicago. He and his siblings grew up in Mexico as one of the few Protestant families in the predominantly conservative Catholic city of San Luis Potosí. Life in multiethnic Chicago was simply another iteration, albeit much more frigid and urban, of that early experience in Mexico.64 As a young boy, López was fascinated with the politics and intrigue of the Mexican Revolution, which he credits with instilling in him a strong nationalist pride as a Mexicano. But it was Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution that captured his

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spirit as a young adult and transformed him into one of Chicago’s most important Latino activists. “Before I came to Chicago,” López remembered, “I listened to a radio transmission from Cuba.  .  .  . The idea of Cuba being another country that had this revolutionary atmosphere was inspiring for me.” Soon after arriving in the city, López joined the Chicago chapter of the 26th of July movement and in 1962 was elected chairman for the Cuba chapter of Fair Play for Cuba. But his firm belief in panethnic and multiethnic coalitions took shape during the summer of 1966, when Puerto Rican activists rioted along Division Street in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood for three days in June. According to Mirta Ramírez, the riot started as a result of police treatment of Puerto Ricans during the city’s Puerto Rican day parade. “They chased two people up an alley and shot at them,” Ramírez remembered. Police cars were turned over and burned, as the frustration of being “treated like dirt, like we were not human beings, with total disrespect” reached a boiling point.65 The housing discrimination, police brutality, and invisibility that Puerto Ricans suffered in the city added to the anger and frustration in the Division Street riots.66 As the first public and forceful demonstration led by Puerto Ricans tired of the police harassment and housing discrimination, the Division Street riots showcased the power of the growing Puerto Rican community. “This was not a simple street fight, this was something bigger,” Obed López remembered. “There were Polish kids and other ethnic groups that identified with Puerto Ricans also involved. . . . I remember an older woman from the windows shouting encouragement. . . . I had a sense that something extraordinary was happening.”67 The Division Street riots are considered a turning point. They called attention to the plight of Puerto Ricans and other Latina/os in the city and inspired the development of several social movement organizations. “The riots,” López argued, “were what gave birth to the political movement in this community.”68 One of the most important outcomes of the riots was the emergence of LADO, started by López in 1966. The organization focused on a range of issues, including poverty and discrimination, but with a focus on building coalitions across race and ethnicity. The most visible Puerto Rican organization to that point, the Spanish American Committee, focused all of its organizing efforts on the Puerto Rican community, with little desire to build broader coalitions. The committee was an established organization with citywide recognition, including the city’s approval for a Puerto Rican day parade.69 After the Division Street riots,

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however, it was clear that what the neighborhood needed was a broader coalition that represented all Latina/o groups in the city, could fight against the invisibility of Latina/os in the city, and could bring muchneeded attention to a community that had long been ignored and displaced and pushed around the city. Organizing LADO was also a deeply personal move for López. As a Mexican immigrant he never lost his love for his home country and considered it his responsibility to stay connected to his homeland. In a letter addressed to LADO volunteers, López explained why remaining connected to Latin America mattered to the political work of LADO in Chicago. “Aunque viva fuera de mi patria,” López wrote about his beloved Mexico, “todavía tengo la responsibilidad y la obligación que el hijo tiene por su madre” (Even if I live outside my homeland, I still have the responsibility and obligation that a son has toward his mother). He described his desire to visit Puerto Rico as a way to meet LADO members who live on the island but also to see “la patria de las personas que me han enseñado con su trato a ser un ser humano más humilde y más sincero” (the homeland of the people who taught me with their example/ dealings to be a more humble and sincere human being).70 López’s personal reflections formed part of a larger web of political commitments that defined LADO’s transnational commitments: “Todos los pueblos de Latinoamérica tenemos un mismo pasado, un mismo presente y un mismo porvenir. Tenemos los mismos sufrimientos y las mismas esperanzas. Y como tenemos el mismo enemigo que es la pobreza y la explotación debemos tener la unión para una misma lucha” (All the people of Latin America have the same past, the same present, the same future. We have the same hardships and the same hopes. And as we have the same enemy, which is poverty and exploitation, we should unite for a common struggle).71 As he stood before the General Assembly, versed in the discourses of Latin American politics, López brought with him the case of one neighborhood in Chicago that resembled the colonial plight of all Latin Americans. Chicago’s Lincoln Park was one case of a long history of colonial rule that spurred displacement and forced people to leave their homelands. Soon after López spoke at the General Assembly, the Presbyterian leadership assured him that his demands would be seriously considered. In its reports, the General Assembly made it a point to say that it did recognize “the existence of a new dynamic cadre of indigenous community leaders . . . among Hispanic-Americans.” It further recognized that the “destiny of our nation lies with the whole continent of the Americas, and

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that better communication and understanding of Spanish-speaking peoples must begin now.”72 Th is meant a number of things. First, the assembly reaffirmed its commitment to support farmworkers fighting for labor rights in California and across the nation. Second, they promised that the General Assembly would begin working with the Chicago Presbytery and the offices at the National Board of Missions to continue negotiations with the YLO and the Lincoln Park coalition. Third, and probably most important, they linked McCormick Seminary administrators and Chicago Presbytery leaders to the newly formed group of Latina/o Presbyterians in Chicago: the Presbyterian Latin American Caucus (PLAC), which until then had not been involved with the occupation. And as it turned out, one of the biggest challenges to moving forward with a proposal for low-income housing in Lincoln Park—and to meeting any or all of the demands made by López at the General Assembly—would come from Latino Presbyterian clergy.

Insiders and Outsiders: On the Legacy of the YLO and the McCormick Occupation The months following the occupation, during the rainbow summer of 1969, were both magical and tragic. McCormick Theological Seminary, with help from the Chicago Presbytery and the National Board of Missions, in June started delivering on the demands that López had made at the General Assembly. First came $3,000 to hire Howard Alan and Associates to draw up a competitive bid for low-income housing in Lincoln Park. In an interesting twist, the Young Lords and the Poor People’s Coalition embraced urban renewal, but they did so on their own terms and with their own visions for what the neighborhood should become. With funding from the Presbyterians, they worked with Howard Alan and Associates to pitch their own vision for the neighborhood.73 That was followed by another check of $5,000 for a legal aid office to be administered by the Latin American Defense Organization led by Obed López. Funding for the low-income housing bid and the legal aid office continued, with checks deposited on a monthly basis through January 1970. Even so, López and the YLO remained frustrated with the pace of church leaders who stalled or completely rejected the remaining eight demands outlined at the General Assembly. One of those demands included space at the seminary for the YLO and other community groups

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to hold their planning sessions. When the seminary closed the door to that demand, the Young Lords moved on to another religious institution in the neighborhood, the Armitage Methodist Church.74 This time, however, the occupation was not about money but about space to build a breakfast program, provide an area for community groups to hold their meetings, start a day-care center, and open a health-care clinic managed by Alberto Chivera, who at the time was a third-year medical student at Northwestern.75 While the McCormick occupation turned hostile, the occupation of the Armitage Methodist Church, or the People’s Church as it came to be known, had the full support of the Reverend Bruce Johnson and his small congregation. The clinic saw up to fifty people on a typical Saturday afternoon, with services ranging from prenatal care to eye examinations. More importantly, the work that the YLO did that summer—in addition to continuing the negotiations with a slow-moving Presbyterian church—helped build trust with business and community leaders who might otherwise not trust a group of former gang members. In addition to the support of local grocers—who provided food for the breakfast program—the leadership of the Armitage Methodist Church took on an identity as the People’s Church and staked out a theological identity rooted in dignity and led by the community. The Statement for the Future: The People’s Church We have a Dream! This Church led by the community; Confronting the powers that limit our destiny; Keeping rulers responsible; Assisting man to claim dignity; And celebrating in worship the birth of that power Is our dream of a People’s Church. The Good News of Jesus Christ is that each man is of worth As a special creation of God And Christ’s resurrection means that There is no power or establishment Which can control a man who claims his own dignity. This is your faith and your church; Claim them both And join us in this dream.76

As the dream for a church rooted in justice and dignity began to grow, tragedy struck when, in the early morning hours of September 30,

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Figur e 1.6. Armitage Methodist Church, the People’s Church. © copyright Carlos Flores; courtesy of Carlos Flores.

1969, the Reverend Johnson and his wife, Eugenia “Genie” Ransier Johnson, were found murdered in their home, stabbed to death by intruders. Authorities suspected that the killers were known to the Johnsons. The Johnsons had already been under attack from residents in Lincoln Park who had accused them of “promoting revolution,” even though they had the support of a majority of religious leaders in the neighborhood.77 The church overflowed for the memorial service. The representative crowd came from the suburbs, rich and poor, convents, and the South Side. The turnout was a sharp contrast to the twenty or so people who attended the church service where Johnson had preached his final sermon. Cha Cha Jiménez, who was in solitary at the Cook County jail at the time of the murders, was bonded out by Bishop Thomas Pryor and joined more than 1,500 mourners at the Johnson memorial service. The crowds came from the city and the suburbs: black, white, and Latina/o supporters came out to honor the minister, who was only just beginning his radical ministry. Jiménez delivered part of the eulogy, honoring Johnson with these words: Bruce came down from the mountain tops of the rich to be with the poor people. He was not a regular minister but a “slick-talking, cool,”

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the way we do in the ghetto. . . . Sometimes we read about Jesus Christ and forget what he came here for . . . to free men’s souls, to free men spiritually and physically. . . . Most people are like boats in a harbor, always tied up to the dock. Bruce and Eugenia left the dock and tried to cross the ocean.78

The murders of the Johnsons shook Jiménez and the members of the YLO to the core. And just as the community mourned the loss of two of its religious leaders, it also celebrated the birth of a low-income housing proposal that promised to pose a serious challenge to Chicago’s urban renewal plans for Lincoln Park. As if that drama were not enough, a new roadblock emerged. Latino Presbyterian clergy from Chicago, organized as the Presbyterian Latin American Caucus (PLAC), entered the picture in late fall 1969, dead set on blocking any collaboration—financial or otherwise—between Presbyterian institutions and “outsiders.”79 Formed in 1969, PLAC started as a way to facilitate dialogue between Presbyterian institutions and Latino clergy. So PLAC members’ frustration when they were left out of the negotiations between McCormick and the YLO is understandable. Even PLAC leaders who had graduated from McCormick were not invited to provide their council on the matter of occupation or on the demands laid out by the YLO and the coalition. But this was about more than being left out of a negotiation. PLAC clergy saw this as an aff ront to their leadership and as a tactic “to divide the Latin American brethren in the city of Chicago and to this we protest as a low way of dealing with the Latin American people.”80 PLAC members claimed that in the last few years they had also drafted proposals for day-care centers, free health-care clinics, and social services, only to be rejected every time by the white Presbyterian leadership. But demands from radical outsiders, they argued, had opened the denomination’s treasure chest in a way it had never been open for religious insiders. When asked by white Presbyterian leadership for their thoughts on the demands from the YLO, LADO, and the coalition, PLAC members made it clear that their organization would not support any of them. The Reverend José Burgos, who would later champion LADO and the YLO, initially argued that “these proposals are another example of the Presbytery funding outsiders not insiders, that is faithful Presbyterian pastors, there are higher priorities in Mission Development for Latin Communities than the funding of these two organizations.” Another PLAC representative, the Reverend William Qui-

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Figur e 1.7. Young Lords inside the Armitage Methodist Church commemorating the Masacre de Ponce (Ponce Massacre) in March 1970. The Masacre de Ponce took place on March 21, 1937, when police opened fire on a peaceful civilian march of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party commemorating the abolition of slavery and protesting the imprisonment of its leader, Pedro Albizu Campos, in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Nineteen people were killed and two hundred wounded. © copyright Carlos Flores; courtesy of Carlos Flores.

ceno of the Ravenswood Presbyterian Church, after consultation with the members of the Board of Puerto Rican Affairs, made known his disapproval of LADO and “the kids from the Young Lords Organization,” who were scaring a lot of “naïve, guilty, gringo suckers around who don’t know the score.”81 And the attacks kept coming. The Presbyterian minister Ezequiel Alvarez completely dismissed the YLO as a media creation that had more leaders than it did followers. Disciples of Christ minister Ruben Cruz went after Obed López’s brother, Omar López, and Cha Cha Jiménez as leaders who had at best twenty-five followers, most of whom were “hippies who [did] not represent the Puerto Rican and Mexican American communities.” Cruz added, “If Cha Cha Jiménez is one of the three big revolutionaries, then you have nothing to worry [about].”82 The frustration aimed at the YLO and LADO, in other words, was not coming simply from white Presbyterians but from a cadre of Latino Protestant

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clergy who felt that they had been upstaged by a group of religious outsiders. In many ways, they had been. The official Latino Presbyterian response to the demands of the YLO and LADO came from the Reverend José Hernández, who argued: The Presbyterian Latin American Caucus has read the proposal of the Young Lords Organization and LADO and finds value in some of the programs. The needs of the Spanish community are indeed great. In times past, the Caucus has asked for funds to put into programs for our people, as well as for ministers to serve them in areas not now served by a Spanish-speaking ministry. But the Presbytery has not responded to our pleas. Therefore we recommend no funding of the proposals presented by the Young Lords Organization or LADO at this time. If the Presbytery of Chicago wishes to deal effectively with the Spanish community, we, the Presbyterian Latin American Caucus, will be glad to help resolve the problems in our community and to submit a proposal of priorities for your consideration.83

Rev. José Burgos then directed his frustrations to Obed López, reminding him that “nosotros estamos aquí luchando también para conseguir programas de ayuda a la comunidad” (we are also here fighting to create programs to serve the community). This was Burgos’s way of letting the coalition know that Latino pastors were not silent: they too were working toward building social programs that could help the community. Burgos went so far as to pitch a coalition between Latino clergy and LADO and the YLO, perhaps as an attempt to latch onto a movement that had seemingly left Latino clergy out of the discussion and privileged activists from outside the denomination.84 Nothing came of the coalition pitch, but it was enough to motivate PLAC to issue its own set of demands. The number one demand on the list was that PLAC leadership would be the first to review any proposals or demands for funding of Latina/o programs that came to the denomination from outside groups.85 It is not as if Latina/o Presbyterians were new to the political scene. Since the mid-1960s they had organized their congregations to work for school reform, encouraged churches to focus on developing a healthy cultural identity, and helped immigrants get oriented to life in Chicago. Burgos, one of the strongest voices for the development of an active church, believed that Latina/o churches should follow the lead of African American churches, whose blending of faith and politics had produced positive change in black neighborhoods. In 1968 the group called

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the Spanish Ministerial Association addressed the city of Chicago in support of Latina/o students and a Latina/o curriculum in the public schools: “By only teaching about their American heroes and the American way of life and nothing about Latin American people and culture,” the schools “by their sin of omission” were creating in Latin American students “a sense of inferiority and hatred for their own culture.”86 Latina/o religious leaders offered their support to students as a way to stay connected to community concerns but also as a way to help tamp down the ethnic militancy that they worried was on the rise. Within their own denomination, however, they dealt with a paternalism that saw Latina/os as a people that “do not organize . . . that do not bring with them a sense of identity .  .  . and are used to subservience.”87 This was the same paternalistic attitude that López and the brown caucus faced at the General Assembly from a predominantly white denomination that knew little about the struggles, movements, and politics of Latina/os in the United States. PLAC’s protest against supporting the YLO came out of a sense that white Presbyterian leaders had ignored the long and hard work of this group only to succumb to pressures from religious outsiders. They had a point. And the frustration was not only coming from Latino Presbyterians. Latino Methodists also chimed in with a letter that addressed their loss of funding only to see their denomination funnel that money to projects with which they had little or no connection. “The big Protestant denominations in Chicago have been cutting every year in a substantial way the monetary aid that in times past the Latin American churches received,” Latino Methodists argued, “and they are reverting this help along with other big sums of money into social projects of the community, which are not even under the supervision of the church.”88 These pastors lived in the community, struggled with their fellow community members, and saw themselves as directly connected to them yet felt slighted because of the lack of consultation by white denominational leaders. The concerns raised by PLAC and other Latina/o Protestants emerged as even mainline Protestant churches—including the UPCUSA—sought to build better relationships with a Spanish-speaking constituency that they knew little about.89 In fact, the National Council of Churches section on Hispanic American ministries organized a planning committee in late 1969 to bring together Latina/o religious, community, and political leaders to help make sense of and develop an agenda for Latina/o Christians in the 1970s. White religious progressives—many of whom were

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intimately involved in the black freedom struggle—now scrambled to catch up to Latina/o activists who demanded more than a Sunday school curriculum in Spanish or ideas for new missionary strategies in urban communities. For Latino clergy, who initially feared that activists had drowned them out, the rise of radicalism, and in this case the occupation of McCormick Theological Seminary, actually worked in their favor. In the years after the occupation, the seminary moved to become a leading institution for Latino Theological Studies. In 1973 it hosted a consultation on “Latino Strategies for the ’70s Midwest” that attracted over 300 Latina/o clergy members, community activists, and politicians from across the Midwest. Sponsored by the Spanish Coalition for Jobs, the conference was deemed to be a “diálogo entre Iglesia y Barrio” (a conversation between the church and the neighborhood) to discuss issues such as racism, mental health, community control, and education.90 There were performances by Chicago’s El Teatro del Barrio and El Teatro del Desengaño, from Gary, Indiana, and the conference began with a declaration of solidarity with the American Indian Movement.91 Attendees left with a platform to vote for Latina/o candidates at all levels of government and begin the process of organizing Latina/o neighborhoods to bring people together under the banner of “The Spanish Coalition for Jobs.”92 The following year, McCormick seminary took a historic step when it joined several seminaries across the United States in launching a “Latino Theological Studies Program.” Dr. Davíd Carrasco, now one of the foremost experts on Mesoamerican religions, taught a course titled “The Religious Community” in 1974. Other courses that made up the curriculum included “The Chicano Religious Experience” and “Latino Cultural Heritage” courses that only a few years earlier would have been unthinkable at McCormick.93 The transformation of McCormick Theological Seminary and the new alliances forged between Latino clergy and nonreligious activists should be remembered as part of the important legacies of the McCormick occupation. But they are often forgotten. What is remembered, and where the story tends to be denigrated as yet another instance of activism that failed to produce results, is the moment when the bold and imaginative housing proposal pitched to the city of Chicago was rejected. Let’s revisit this. The proposal from Howard Alan and Associates called for a seventyunit apartment complex on the 1800 block of Larrabee Street that would include both ramps to make the laundry area accessible to all residents and “community streets” where people could host parties or hang out

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in the evenings.94 Under this plan 28 units, or 40 percent, would be available for low-income residents, far surpassing the 15 percent allocation that was included in the other two proposals that the city was considering. While it is not surprising that the YLO supported this plan, its creativity and boldness made it appealing to a broader audience. The Chicago Sun-Times called the proposal “imaginative” and urged the city to seriously consider the “new concepts being proposed by this indigenous group of Chicagoans. They are the voice of the people in the neighborhood and they are entitled to be heard.”95 Along these same lines, but without the politics attached to this bid, came support from a coalition of professional architects across the city that called the proposal “exciting as architecture” and pleaded with the city to approve the proposal.96 Of course, resistance to the proposal emerged from the usual suspects. One Lincoln Park resident, Donald Blivas, found the proposal to be “sociologically and architecturally appalling,” as it “completely neglects the aspect of greenery and instead, has created what appears to be in the presentation, a 490-foot long, three-story concrete mass.” A well-known architect in the area, Milton Horn, described it as a “dehumanizing structure, little more than glorified cattle pens, where all units open out on a common area and deprive all residents of any privacy.”97 It is clear that the proposal drawn up by Howard Alan and Associates faced stiff resistance. Supporting it would affirm the cause of the YLO and the Poor People’s Coalition and, some worried, set a poor precedent for future debates about urban renewal. The chances that this bid would actually be approved by the City of Chicago were undoubtedly low. This was a vision of possibility for Lincoln Park that countered all the negative associations with the neighborhood held by urban renewal hawks. It would fundamentally alter business plans both in its imaginative housing design and in its aim to end the historic displacement of Puerto Ricans and other poor people. So imagine the surprise when the conservative and pro–urban renewal Community Conservation Council of Lincoln Park—appointed by Mayor Daley himself—overwhelmingly supported the proposal with an 11–2 vote.98 The members of this group, which from the beginning had been the biggest roadblock, were now on board, supporting a proposal that even they recognized had promise.99 Out of the three proposals that were being considered, only the YLO and Poor People’s Coalition proposal received full community support, from people on both sides of the debate. This should have sealed the deal for Lincoln Park’s future, but instead it only fired up city leaders, who

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at the end of the day ignored the community’s choice—something they had never done before—and instead selected the Hartford Construction Company. Its proposal fit better with the city’s development plans, although its low-income housing designation barely met the minimum of 15 percent of total housing. This was a crushing loss for the Young Lords and for the poor people they represented in Lincoln Park. They could not have scripted a better plan of action: they occupied and demanded funding from McCormick Theological Seminary, hired an architect, and got the Chicago housing authority to ensure that they would secure 40 percent of units for lowincome families. And, in what is perhaps their greatest victory, their proposal won the support from their enemies, the pro–urban renewal group in Lincoln Park. As the more than 300 members of the Poor People’s Coalition crowded into city hall, a group that included Patricia DevineReed, Obed López, and Cha Cha Jiménez, the news that the Department of Urban Renewal had rejected their bid brought an audible gasp from the community. The YLO, and Lincoln Park in general, would never recover and would never be the same again. The movement died that day, along with the seeds of whatever future it carried for Lincoln Park. This loss, the failure of this valiant push to put the brakes on urban renewal in Chicago, is perhaps what has kept the Young Lords in Chicago from their place among some of the most important revolutionary groups of their generation. The decision came down in the spring of 1970 after more than a year of nonstop organizing, coupled with stints in jail by several YLO members—nonstop twists and turns in one of the most important stories in the fight against urban renewal.100 The sense of loss would prove to be the most difficult hurdle for this group—frustrated, angry, and flat-out exhausted—to cross.

Conclusion This chapter began with the brutal murder of Manuel Ramos. The loss of a dear friend, a comrade in the struggle, a husband, and the father of two babies changed the course of his family’s history and that of the Young Lords. Days after Manuel’s death, the Lords occupied McCormick Theological Seminary and renamed it the Manuel Ramos Memorial Building as a concrete reminder of his murder and the seriousness of their cause. Backed by an army of supporters from the Poor People’s Coalition and LADO, whose multiethnic volunteers represented the desires

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of Lincoln Park residents, the Young Lords joined the long fight to challenge urban renewal in a city where displacement had become a major part of Latina/o life.101 And they did so armed with the memory of their friend and the lived experiences of the people they represented in Lincoln Park. The occupation of McCormick Theological Seminary is a familiar story to historians and scholars of Latina/o Chicago. Yet its intricate tale and multiple characters have for the most part remained out of view, because at the end of the day the Lords—and Lincoln Park—lost their fight to redefine urban renewal and carry it out on their own terms. If Chicago is a world made by displacement and perpetual loss for poor people and people of color, then the occupation of McCormick Theological Seminary was just another example of how powerful machine politics drowned out dissent in order to feed the city’s voracious appetite for urban renewal. In the days after the low-income housing proposal from the coalition was rejected by the city, activists continued to pay a heavy price. On March 23, 1970, the LADO offices were ransacked and burned to the ground. Their files and furniture—all that López had worked to build in the wake of the Division Street riots in 1966—were lost forever. And as quickly as their fame and fortune had risen, the Young Lords started their own steady decline in the spring of 1970. YLO members spent time in and out of jail, remained under strict FBI surveillance, and feared for their own lives as they witnessed the loss of people close to them—Manuel Ramos (May 1969); Bruce and Eugenia Johnson of Armitage Methodist Church (September 1969); and Fred Hampton, chair of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party (December 1969). By 1971 the YLO had come apart, plagued by a lack of organization, internal differences, and changing political environments. What are we to do with a group whose light shined bright for such a short period? More importantly, how are we to understand one of the YLO’s most important actions, the occupation of McCormick seminary? The Young Lords worked at a dizzying pace to reduce gang violence in Chicago, to make sure that kids did not go to school hungry, to provide access to free health care, and to participate in a collaborative project to build a “people’s park” in the neighborhood. They were revolutionaries and pragmatists who provided social services even as they linked their struggles against colonialism with the struggles of activists in Latin America and the Third World. They waged their battles out of their own sense of loss as they sought to make the invisible visible, to make Spanish-

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speaking communities come alive, and to highlight their experiences of police brutality, segregation, and poverty. They were our muckraker journalists, documenting the ills of society in newspaper articles, by showing up to city council meetings, by claiming their place in the neighborhood, and by building trust with families in the community.102 The Young Lords are not often remembered for their role in envisioning their own dreams for Lincoln Park, negotiating with religious leaders, and in the process boosting the place of Latina/o Presbyterians within their denomination. But this chapter adds to their litany of accomplishments. Latino religious leaders could no longer be ignored. While Latino clergy had already been quite active in denominational politics in the 1960s, spurred on by their support of Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers movement, their movements remained stalled by church leaders who knew nothing about their struggle, much less the history of anti-Latina/o racism in the United States. Few white church leaders knew anything at all about this invisible minority whose words sounded “like far off thunder.” The occupation of McCormick Theological Seminary started a conversation between Latino clergy and Latina/o radicals that emerged first in Chicago and later spread across the country. By the end of 1969 what had started in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood had spread to Los Angeles, Houston, and New York as Puerto Rican and Mexican American activists laid claim to a colonial institution whose own foundations were cracking under the weight of rapid change. As I demonstrate in the following chapters, activists in each of these cities used the McCormick case to stage their own church disruptions and occupations. More importantly, in mapping out the intricacies of the relationship between outsiders and insiders—religious reformers and radicals—what emerges are Latina/o radical politics rooted with visions for a barrio where neighbors fight for each other and for their right to stay and live lives of dignity. And they were not alone. Religious leaders and activists alike in Los Angeles followed the occupation story in Chicago closely as they devised their own plans to disrupt one of the most powerful colonial institutions in human history: the Catholic church.

Chapter Two

“People—Yes, Cathedrals—No!” in Los Angeles

Blessed are the Poor for they shall inherit the kingdom of heaven. The Church, it seems, is quite satisfied in inheriting Los Angeles County. Católicos Por La R aza1

It is Christmas Eve in the year of Huitzilopochtli, 1969. Three hundred Chicanos have gathered in front of St. Basil’s Roman Catholic Church. Three hundred brown-eyed children of the sun have come to drive the money-changers out of the richest temple in Los Angeles. Oscar Zeta Acosta, The Revolt of the Cockroach People

T

he news about the Young Lords occupying a seminary and a church in Chicago, reports about James Forman’s Black Manifesto being read aloud at Riverside Church in New York City, and images of Union Theological Seminary students occupying church offices in May 1969 all spread quickly. The Chicana feminist writer and activist Anna NietoGomez remembers first hearing about the church occupations at strategy sessions held at the offices of La Raza newspaper in Los Angeles, where she was a regular volunteer in 1969. Housed first at the Church of the Epiphany and later in the East Los Angeles neighborhood of City Terrace, La Raza was the hub of Chicano movement activity in the city. Once or twice a week NietoGomez would drive her red Volkswagen bug late in the evening out to City Terrace. There she met activists from all lifestyles—and all political stripes—as well as art-

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ists, writers, photographers, educators, organizers, and leaders from the greater Los Angeles region. La Raza had strong ties to religious institutions. Eliezar Risco, who stood next to Obed López in Chicago at the Presbyterian Annual Meeting (discussed in the previous chapter), was an editor at La Raza and the person most clued in on the church occupations. The strategy sessions at La Raza were organized by a law student, Ricardo Cruz, and a group of his peers from Loyola University Law School. They included activists from MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán), staff from La Raza newspaper, and students from Los Angeles Community College (LACC), all gathered to discuss strategy in confronting the Catholic church in Los Angeles after witnessing the kind of attention and response that the Young Lords and James Forman had garnered from Protestant denominations.2 If activists in Los Angeles were watching the occupation drama unfold, you can imagine the fear of Protestant denominations, who worried that their church might be next or at the very least that activists would disrupt Sunday morning services. The Catholic church had similar concerns: clergy, inspired by the Chicana/o movement and the church’s own liturgical transformation in the 1960s, intensified their critiques of a church hierarchy that they believed lacked a concern for and commitment to the human rights of Mexican Americans. In 1969 activists from the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) in South Texas painted a statue of the Virgin Mary brown.3 A year earlier, the farm labor leader Cesar Chavez had chastised the Catholic church for its absence during the first few years of the boycott. In a characteristically Chavez move, he emphasized that it was Protestants, and not Catholics, who had developed a clear conception of the church’s responsibility to serve the poor. Chavez described the Catholic church as a “source of power” that Mexican American activist groups ignored at their own peril.4 That message resonated with Ricardo Cruz, who like Chavez believed that the Catholic church should play a larger role in the Chicana/o movement. Cruz, who described himself as a deeply religious person in the late 1960s, first met Chavez in Salinas, California, where he worked for California Rural Legal Assistance. Meeting Chavez made an impression on Cruz, who in 1968 organized a movement to demand that Catholic church leaders become more involved in the farmworker movement. One year later, around the time of the strategy sessions at the offices of La Raza newspaper, Cruz brought together a coalition that included law

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students, college students, laborers, welfare mothers, Immaculate Heart nuns, white Catholics, and Chicano militants from the Brown Berets under the banner of Católicos Por La Raza (hereafter Católicos).5 From the beginning, everything about the way Cruz envisioned Católicos was reformist. The name of the group was an intentional move to prove that it was not anti-Catholic and to assert that it wanted to make the church Christian, to call out its hypocrisy.6 In doing so, Católicos was clear that it was not “attacking the Church’s theological concepts . . . but asserting that the Church has failed in its worldly responsibility.”7 At the core of its nascent philosophy, Católicos saw the church as an institution for the people, a place where people come together, and a physical space that belongs to the people and the community, as their comrades in Chicago had articulated. Yet the actions of Católicos reflected a revolutionary ethic in every way. How could they not? Católicos was an eclectic mix of activist political streams—radicals and reformers, law students and artists, barrio leaders and clergy—that reflected the diversity within the Chicana/o movement in Los Angeles and enacted a revolutionary politics on the steps of St. Basil’s. Activists became members for different reasons. Anna NietoGomez joined in an effort to fight to keep East Los Angeles Catholic schools from closing down. Ricardo Cruz was motivated by his anger about the Catholic church’s lackluster support of farmworkers. Católicos came together in the fall of 1969. The group’s fire dimmed almost as quickly as it was lit, but the story remains somewhat of an enigma, misunderstood and overshadowed by the secular politics of the Chicana/o movement in Los Angeles and by the religious activism that emerged in the Catholic church in the 1970s. Lost in this mix are not only the legacy of the group’s remarkable disruption of Christmas Eve mass at St. Basil’s Church in Los Angeles in 1969 but also the prosecution of activists in the spring of 1970. This chapter follows the events that led up to the Christmas Eve disruption and the subsequent arrest and prosecution of twenty-one Católicos accused of a number of offenses, from disrupting a religious service to assault and battery. Both the disruption and the court trials that followed are singularly important events in Chicana/o Catholic history: as I argue in this chapter, they made public—through television cameras and coverage in the Los Angeles Times—the tensions that have defined the relationship between Mexican Americans and the Catholic church for generations. In the wake of the disruption, those tensions played out in contradictory ways. The Catholic church showed its contempt for Católicos by

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Figur e 2.1. Anna NietoGomez (center) holding sign that reads, “People—Yes, Cathedrals—No!” in front of St. Basil’s Catholic Church. © Luis C. Garza. From the La Raza Photograph Collection. Courtesy of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center.

moving forward with prosecution orders for twenty-one activists that it believed were responsible for the disruption. Remarkably, as twentyone young people sat through two trials in the spring of 1970, the Catholic church made several very public concessions, promising to deliver on a number of demands and to become a stronger advocate for Mexican American civil rights. The biggest move came less than a month after the disruption, when the leading conservative of the church, James McIntyre, the cardinal that the New York Times called “the most reactionary prelate in the church,” retired from his position as leader of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.8 This move, along with the appointment of Patricio Flores as the first Mexican American bishop in May 1970, opened the door for reformist groups such as PADRES (Chicano priests) and Las Hermanas (nuns), which not only pushed for change in the church but also penned the first drafts of Latina/o theology. In the wake of the church takedown of the twenty-one activists from Católicos, Chicano clergy and women religious stepped in to become the new—and reformist—voices for Mexican American and Latina/o Catholics. The types of faith-rooted political struggles that Católicos engaged in remain largely understudied in Chicana/o history specifically and Amer-

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ican Catholic studies generally. With regard to Latina/o social movements, scholars have focused much of their energies on internal groups such as PADRES and Las Hermanas and the important work that they did in the 1970s to create Latina/o theology and reform the politics of the Catholic church. Both groups were essential to a religious renaissance in the 1970s that saw a strengthening of the Latina/o leadership and voice throughout the Catholic world. In addition to the work on the civil rights era, historians such as Lara Medina, Richard Martínez, Roberto Treviño, Mario T. García, and Timothy Matovina have provided a longer view by stressing the Catholic church’s engagements with the Mexican American and Latina/o population in the twentieth century.9 Católicos, however, was an entirely different movement. Made up of a coalition of Catholics and non-Catholics, Chicana/os and white progressives, the group represented a who’s who of activists from across Los Angeles—Raul Ruiz, Alicia Escalante, Lydia López, Richard Martínez, Sister Duana Doherty, Gloria Chávez, and the flamboyant and controversial lawyer Oscar Zeta Acosta—united in their anger at the exorbitant costs of the newly constructed St. Basil’s Church and Cardinal McIntyre’s arrogance. Women were especially prominent in Católicos, making up more than half of the Católicos coalition and an important part of its legacy. While the men of Católicos have garnered much of the attention, the important contributions of activists such as Lydia López, Marie “Keta” Miranda, Anna NietoGomez, and Alicia Escalante have been overlooked. Escalante, a welfare rights activist, was much maligned in the local news media for her work on behalf of poor and working mothers.10 The concerns of Miranda and NietoGomez revolved around Catholic education and its importance to the Mexican American community. For Miranda in particular, who grew up attending Catholic schools in downtown Los Angeles, the closing of Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic High School was devastating. The all-girl school of nearly 400 mostly Mexican American students was closed by the archdiocese in the fall of 1968. “For many of us from the downtown area this was our school,” remembered Miranda, “this was the school of our barrio, our area, our neighborhood.”11 Lydia López, who did not become part of the movement until late, cites the experience as a transformative point in her life: it set her on a path to become one of the most important voices for immigrant and refugee rights in Los Angeles. Católicos framed its struggle around the hypocrisy of the Catholic church, which spent millions for a new church building while defaulting on its primary function—serving the poor people of Los Angeles. While

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Figur e 2.2. People attending a Católicos Por La Raza outdoor mass celebration at St. Basil’s Catholic Church, 1969. © Manuel Barrera Jr. From the La Raza Photograph Collection. Courtesy of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center.

the new St. Basil’s Church became the target of criticism, members of Católicos pointed out the deficiencies of the entire Catholic church in Los Angeles. They claimed that the church ignored the Mexican American population, which forced many to find alliances with Protestant ministers, who in some cases were on the front lines of the Chicana/o movement.12 But this was clearly more than a religious movement. The members of Católicos believed that if they could get the Catholic church to be more attentive to the needs of the poor, those efforts would carry over to the entire society.13 There was no better place to start than at the newly constructed St. Basil’s Church, whose opulence and $3 million price tag represented the latest scandal for a Catholic church that seemed out of touch with its largest constituency in Los Angeles—Mexican Americans.

BEVERLY

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Map 2.1. St. Basil’s Catholic Church, Los Angeles. Map by Erin Greb, Erin Greb Cartography, Doylestown, PA.

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Silencing Vatican II and Liber ation Theology With its three-dimensional glass windows, seating capacity of 900, and thirteenth-century crucifi x hanging above the altar, the newly constructed St. Basil’s was “a magnificent statement of faith” when it opened to the public in 1969.14 Praised for its fortress aesthetics and the contemporary artwork that graced its walls, the church quickly became Los Angeles’s de facto cathedral.15 Located off Wilshire Boulevard just west of downtown, the striking church was the culmination of tremendous growth in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in the years after World War II. Between 1948 to 1963 seminaries were full of students, the number of parochial schools had doubled from 159 to 327, and parishes in the Los Angeles area increased from 221 to 297.16 But underneath the veneer of growth was a growing discontent with the Catholic church. In 1969 that discontent focused on the opulence, power, and price tag of St. Basil’s Church. At the church’s dedication service in June 1969, concerned Catholics—both white and Mexican American—showed up carrying placards that read: “$1,000,000 for glass and stone, but for the poor?” and “We are concerned about this waste” and “Where is the concern for the poor?”17 The outspoken Chicano lawyer Oscar Zeta Acosta called the church a “monstrosity” with a “fantastic organ [that] pumps out a spooky religious hymn to this Christ Child of Golden Locks and Blue Eyes overlooking the richest drag in town.”18 The kind of protest and community backlash that emerged around St. Basil’s came as a surprise to some of the Catholic leadership in Los Angeles. While the city had become a center of the Chicana/o movement, with the memory of the school walkouts only a year old, the Catholic church remained tied to another era, when the theological revolutions coming from Latin America remained distant and irrelevant. The tight grip of the Catholic church in Los Angeles had limited Vatican II’s impact in 1969 and kept the issues of the urban crisis out of view. At the head of the archdiocese was the conservative bulwark James McIntyre, whose all-encompassing power made him the central target of Católicos as it moved in to disrupt the Catholic church in Los Angeles. Since 1948 Cardinal McIntyre had governed the Archdiocese of Los Angeles with an iron hand, remaining unmoved by the new spirit in the church engendered by Vatican II. Cardinal McIntyre carried an air of invincibility and did not flinch when confronted with the new theological currents coming from Latin America and from progressive clergy in the United States. The cardinal suppressed dissent in the Archdio-

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cese of Los Angeles and forced progressive clergy to keep their theological viewpoints to themselves.19 At eighty-three, Cardinal McIntyre was the oldest bishop in the Catholic church and showed no signs of slowing down as the 1960s came to a close. To be fair, the cardinal was not always hated. In fact, much of his legacy after arriving in Los Angeles was rooted in his ability to match church growth with the population boom in the postwar era. At one point, McIntyre was building a new church every “66 days and a new school every 26 days.”20 With his experience as a broker on Wall Street, Cardinal McIntyre was the perfect person to lead the growth of the nation’s fourth largest archdiocese in the postwar era. But a progressive Catholic he was not. In 1964 he refused to join other bishops in their opposition to efforts to repeal California’s fair housing laws and prohibited the Immaculate Heart nuns from any participation in archdiocesan schools because he disapproved of their work and their politics. His conservative politics forced many progressive clergy to create an underground church movement, where they met in secret to celebrate mass.21 In 1964 black and Mexican American Catholics from St. Albert the Great Catholic church in Compton picketed outside his office and pledged to keep the pressure on until “the cardinal commits himself to racial issues.”22 On a visit to Los Angeles the following year, Dr. Martin Luther King criticized Cardinal McIntyre for forbidding priests from becoming involved in the civil rights movement and for keeping them from preaching on the subject. All of this created a deep resentment of Cardinal McIntyre by black Catholics, Immaculate Heart nuns, and Mexican American Catholics.23 As a result of McIntyre’s approach to leadership and political orientations, most Mexican American Catholics in Los Angeles were shielded from the radical teachings coming out of Latin American liberation theology in the late 1960s. Most, in fact, would have had regular contact with their more traditional parish priest. In the early 1970s sociologist Leo Grebler found that 73 percent of priests in Los Angeles had no exposure to the social teachings of the church in seminary and did not preach on these topics. In addition, Grebler found that Mexican Americans in Los Angeles fell below the national average for attendance at mass and that priests tended to be older, not engaged in the social teachings of the church, and not as involved in local political and social matters outside of the church. Some of this could have been related to the fact that only 5 percent of the 720 priests in the city spoke Spanish.24 But while the Archdiocese of Los Angeles remained locked into business as usual, the Catholic church in the United States moved to stay relevant in a cultural milieu where Mexican Americans and other

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Latina/os had reached a critical mass. Throughout much of the twentieth century the Catholic church had reached out to Latina/o communities—spurred on by social doctrines, World War II, and a wish to thwart Protestantism—but this time was different. The resistance coming from Chicana/o and Puerto Rican activists in the late 1960s had reached a critical mass and had become too important to ignore. In June 1969, just as activists gathered to protest the dedication of St. Basil’s Church, the Urban Task Force of the US Catholic Church (USCC) came together to prepare a document addressing “racism in the church.” The document, promoted by Antonio Tinajero, executive director of the USCC division for Spanish speakers, called on the church at every level to invest itself in moving beyond a black/white paradigm for understanding race and to begin the practical work of bringing people together. It called on every corner of the church, from parishes to community affi liates, to mobilize and develop a program to address racism. In particular, Tinajero and others called for more Latina/o representation in the church hierarchy, a concern for the social needs of the community, and updated and accurate research. Even though Latina/os made up the largest ethnic minority in the Catholic church, their place closely resembled the place of Latina/os in the Protestant churches, where they remained a “forgotten minority.”25 But national movements rarely swayed Cardinal McIntyre. Following the summer of 1969, Católicos took very careful and methodical steps as they attempted to gain his attention. In the months leading up to the disruption, the group held multiple prayer vigils outside the church, listed a set of demands through the Congress of Mexican American Unity, and brought together a coalition to address the needs of the community.26 The fall of 1969 witnessed the maturation of Católicos. From October to December a dizzying array of strategy sessions, meetings, demands, disruptions, and fights characterized the group’s politics. But most impressive is the pace at which Católicos moved from confronting the cardinal to holding an outdoor mass outside of St. Basil’s. In the following section I trace the theatrics from the attempted meetings with the cardinal to the disruption on Christmas Eve, as told by Lydia López, who found herself there that evening, not knowing exactly what to expect.

Chasing Cardinal McIntyre The first attempt to meet Cardinal McIntyre took place on October 15, 1969. The cardinal, however, refused to see members of Católi-

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cos and instead ducked out the back door and called the police. Two days later they tried again, but the cardinal scoffed at them: the meeting went nowhere.27 After these two failed attempts, Católicos organized a meeting at the Euclid Heights Church in East Los Angeles on November 1, 1969, attended by approximately twenty-five Protestants and Catholics, hosted by Presbyterian pastor Tony Hernández. The meeting was organized under the theme of “making the Church more relevant to the Chicano community and its contemporary problems in the fields of education, housing, employment, and the political awakening of our peoples.”28 Here Católicos refined its list of demands to present to Cardinal McIntyre and mapped out a strategy for the next month. Strategy became key: members of Católicos were keenly aware that their movement might be linked to other church occupations and disruptions. In particular, they worried that their movement might be considered an extension of James Forman’s Black Manifesto or the occupations by the Young Lords taking place in Chicago. They knew that those linkages might create problems for them, marking them as guilty before they even started, so they devised a plan that included meetings, consultations, demonstrations, presenting a list of demands, and civil disobedience to gain the attention of the cardinal. The group wanted a “creative and new and radical plan” that would not “emulate the recent demands of SNCC.”29 Católicos wanted to play it safe, or at least started out by playing it safe, by drafting a list of demands that would be implemented by the creation of a Commission on Mexican American Affairs within the church: Católicos Demands, 1969 . Education: The Church should cease the charge of fees for parochial schools at all levels. . Housing: The Church should establish a lending agency, controlled by the community, with the funds to approve loans or outright grants for building homes or repairs. The Church should establish a housing agency to build low-cost housing. . Health: The Commission would control all Church hospitals located in the Mexican American community and provide insurance or free health care to low-income Mexican Americans. . Shared Governance: Except for purely spiritual matters, the community should have the right of self-determination within the institutions of the Church. . Leadership and Orientation: The Church should provide orientation classes in Mexican American history and culture to seminary

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Figur e 2.3. Members and supporters of Católicos Por La Raza outside St. Basil’s Catholic Church. © Luis C. Garza. From the La Raza Photograph Collection. Courtesy of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center.

. . .

.

students and to priests assigned to communities with large Mexican American populations. Use of Church Facilities: That the church building would be made available to the community for meetings and events. Freedom of Speech for all Priests and Nuns: Freedom of speech for nuns and priests without fear of retribution. Assignment of Clergy to Chicano Movement: Assign progressive priests and nuns to serve as allies in the different aspects of the movement. Public Commitments: Farm workers, the Walkouts, Reies Tijerina and the Alianza, the disproportionate deaths of Chicanos in Vietnam, and the Biltmore 6 and other political cases.30

By the end of November the movement was in full swing and even inspired the formation of another Católicos group in San Diego. On November 30, 1969, that group occupied the main building at Camp Oliver in Descanso, California, and renamed it Centro Cultural de la Raza (People’s Cultural Center). They called on the Catholic church to place Chicana/os in church leadership positions, fund social programs in the

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Chicano community, and “align itself economically and spiritually to the Chicano movement.” Emulating the careful work of Católicos in Los Angeles, the group in San Diego made the following statement: “We do not attack the Church’s theological concepts or Church teaching concerning the spiritual welfare of the people. However, we do assert that the Church has failed in its worldly responsibility.”31 After the occupation of Camp Oliver in San Diego, members of Católicos in Los Angeles picked up the pace and started to make public pronouncements against the church. In a press release dated December 4, 1969, they published a letter calling on the Catholic church to live up to its Christian values.32 “We are confused[,] our dear Priests, nuns and brothers because when we have attempted to discuss our desperate needs at the chancery office, we were lied to and had the police called on us.”33 This came after repeated attempts to engage Cardinal McIntyre and a series of candlelight vigils that began on Thanksgiving Day, 1969. Three days after the press release, close to three hundred people held a demonstration outside St. Basil’s Church. They once again attempted to visit the cardinal, only to be denied. The difference this time was the television cameras that covered the demonstration. The coverage put the cardinal and the Catholic church in Los Angeles on the defensive for the first time. The very next day, the archdiocese made its own televised pitch at a groundbreaking ceremony for a 100-bed, $4 million hospital to serve a portion of the Mexican American community. “In coming to Los Angeles,” Cardinal McIntyre asserted, “my first commission was to serve, and serve well, the Mexican people.” While this was a small concession, his statement at the groundbreaking ceremony admitted the possibility that he might be interested in meeting with Católicos. Even if the cardinal had refused to listen to the demands and meet with Católicos members, television and newspaper coverage in the Los Angeles Times had made this an important story. In addition to pointing out the church’s community activities, archdiocesan priests tried to discredit Católicos, characterizing the organization as an “articulate professionally organized minority (plotting) revolution.”34 To their credit, members of Católicos remained fi xed on the message that “the Church be Christian” and articulating a theology that sided with the “spiritual struggle of and for the poor.” They justified their theopolitical aspirations by aligning their movement with the work of priests like Father Mark Day (who served as chaplain and aide to the farmworkers), Father James Groppi in Milwaukee, and Bishop Antulio Parrilla in

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Puerto Rico.35 They highlighted the progressive politics of clergy members even as they chastised the Catholic church for manipulating “Christianity to teach our own poor . . . to fear the very movement to liberate, feed and educate nuestras familias Mexicanas [our Mexican families].”36 But even as Católicos prompted the archdiocese to respond publicly in the press, its movement had not yet secured the one thing it wanted: a meeting with Cardinal McIntyre. It was clear to some that a change in strategy was necessary, perhaps even including more direct confrontation, as Mario T. García has argued.37 That strategy took hold on December 18, 1969, when a group of about twenty activists representing Católicos entered the chancery at the main offices of the archdiocese, demanding to see the cardinal. Ricardo Cruz chronicled the events of that night in a short essay written three years afterward. The writing is so vivid—so clear and poignant— that I included it here as a way to try to capture the spirit of this fundamental change in Católicos. Playing by the rules and trying to appease Catholic leadership had resulted in no movement whatsoever. If Católicos wanted to catch the cardinal, it had to do something much more dramatic to grab his attention. The group did just that on December 18. Here is the history of the event written by Ricardo Cruz himself, three years after the disruption. Católicos Por La Raza Revisited —three years later— Sometime toward the end of 1969, about 20 Chicano activists paid an unannounced visit to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles. We were determined to see and talk to the Cardinal McIntyre himself, even though we knew that his richly-decorated offices at the chancery, 1540 W. 9th St downtown, had never seen the likes of us. Outside, as we began waiting for each other to arrive from various barrios (San Fer, Longo, East Los, etc.) and colleges (Valley State, ELA, L.B., CSCLA, LACC, among others), a Brinks armored truck pulled up & stationed itself directly in front of the Church’s headquarters. “Mira no más,” we mumbled to each other as two armed men hastily entered the offices with half a dozen or so empty money bags.38 Moments later they were to emerge & the bags would be full—in fact, stuffed. Our emotions rose as some carnal said, “Blessed are the poor!” . . . Vámonos, carnales! And within a few heartbeats we were beyond the marbled entrance-way and facing the elderly receptionist who greeted us on the second floor.39 “I’m sorry,” she said, “His Reverence

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is not in at the moment and you would simply have to have an appointment to see him even if he were.” She was amazed at our bluntness when we informed her that we knew he was in because we had seen his black limousine parked in the back. Two nuns sitting patiently nearby (looking like saints I might add) began exchanging confused and disturbed glances. . . . “We’re Chicanos from various parts of L.A.,” we told her (todo proud), “and we’ve been trying to see the Cardinal for a long time to talk to him about the poverty of our people and what he and the church are doing about it!” “And we are not going to leave until we see him!,” someone insisted from the rear of our small, bold group. In the distressful look of this petite secretary, her hesitation and total bewilderment at our mere presence could be seen a reflection of the tragic relationship of the Chicano and what is called “his” holy Mother the Church. In her eyes an entire spectrum of history and emotion and drama unfolded—a people and their Church, and in our own minds and hearts there paraded an avalanche of words: missions, gold, Indians, mestizo, exploitation, Tonantzin, La Virgen, Hidalgo, Juan Diego, education, Milagros, sangre y revolución, poverty and hypocrisy, first communion & Las Posadas, savages, civilization, Blessed are the Poor, wealth, Junípero Serra, jail, chaplain, curanderas, brujos, sacrifice, cursillos, chancery, His Eminence the Cardinal. . . . She spoke once again. “Now let me get this straight, young men, you’re from Chicago and . . .” “No,” we interrupted, and stumbled all over each other with comments. “You’ve never heard the word Chicano?” “There’s barrios full of Chicanos and all kinds of raza surrounding this area.” “You know, Mexicans, Mexican Americans!” “Órale, Chicago, chingou!”40 (We were sure good militants in those days, remember?)41

Denied entry to see the cardinal, the members of Católicos reunited with the rest of the group and decided to force their way in. By now somewhat familiar with the layout of the chancery, members of the group forced a door open and ran down a corridor, knocking down a priest who tried to stop them along the way. As they reached the cardinal’s office, Richard Martínez managed to force the door open long enough for Raul Ruiz, Pat Borjón, Mike Garcia, and Anna NietoGomez to enter the office and come face to face with the cardinal, who was nervous, visibly shaken, and asking for the police. NietoGomez recalled sitting around the cardinal’s desk as he reluctantly listened to the group talk about the closure

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of Catholic schools with high numbers of Mexican American students. “When McIntyre said he had no intention of reopening the schools,” NietoGomez remembered, “Raul Ruiz asked him, ‘What about the education of Mexican American children?’; McIntyre responded, ‘I don’t care what happens to the Mexicans!’”42 With that, the meeting ended. Members of Católicos, who had now done the impossible and might have broken a few laws along the way, were also visibly shaken. Rosa Martínez remembers feeling as if “the Holy Ghost was going to come down, as all of my Catholic upbringing came back to me, and I was in terror of being struck down by God.”43 For the group that rushed the cardinal’s office that day, this was a small but hard-fought victory. That rush to catch the cardinal changed the movement and gave it a new and revolutionary character. The energy seems to have inspired even more Chicana/o activists to support Católicos. In the days after that initial clash, Católicos received support from all sides: progressive clergy, welfare mothers, students, community organizers, and Chicana/o militants such as the Brown Berets. This was a rare feat, given that the church had elicited both feelings of antagonism and deep respect. For Católicos, and the coalition that supported it, institutional religion—the code of ethics, the hierarchy, the rules and regulations—stood as a barrier to the kind of free and imaginative thinking that gave rise to the Chicana/o movement. The Catholic church was an oppressive institution that suppressed free thought and admonished its followers to respect authority, to fear God, and to move with caution in every endeavor. For an immigrant people, for a Mexican community navigating the hostile geography of Los Angeles, the trappings of religious structures seemed appealing. They oriented and situated immigrants in their new surroundings, connected them to social networks, and helped them adjust to new geographies. This relationship, which on the one hand restricted and on the other connected, is at the core of the allure of religion and why many are willing to put up with the church’s institutional limits. Of course, these social networks are not devoid of a deep and personal faith that includes a close relationship to the sacred. Ricardo Cruz himself acknowledged this in an interview in 1976, in which he stated that he believed in “mysticism as a power that I respect.  .  .  . There is spirit. There is power. There is reality.”44 This duality is what makes studying and writing about Católicos a difficult task. While highlighting its revolutionary politics, it behooves us also to acknowledge that much of this work was driven by a love for the church, a respect for the sa-

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credness of the space, rituals, and traditions. That is very clear even as Católicos stormed the cardinal’s office to present its demands. When the Puerto Rican bishop Antulio Parrilla celebrated a mass with over one hundred Chicana/o activists in a vacant lot across the street from St. Basil’s Church, he made a point to note: “This is not a Mass of confrontation. It is a Mass of solidarity. It is a Mass of love.”45 But where did these politics—or better yet these theologies—come from? The easiest answer points to Latin America and the emerging politics of liberation theology. The radical changes of Vatican II and the bishops’ meeting in Medellín in 1968 confi rmed the idea that all Catholics— not just the leadership—could be a force for change within the church. These are important factors that have become almost axiomatic in explaining the religious activism of Latina/os in the United States. This makes sense except that Vatican II and liberation theology were also still new ideas, still being fully articulated, and still coming up against strong resistance from some US Catholic leaders in 1969. For the activists who made up Católicos and the progressive clergy who supported them, the Gospel teachings and message of grassroots Catholicism that emerged out of the Cursillo movement, which predated Vatican II, made an equally important impression. Ricardo Cruz and other activists would have been more familiar with this grassroots movement that “revitalized the faith of numerous grassroots Catholics and their parish communities” in the 1960s and 1970s, as Timothy Matovina argues.46 The Cursillo movement very much solidified what was to come: a more grassroots theological vision and a Catholic church that not only took up real estate but was integrally involved in the lives of its parishioners and, according to Gilberto Hinojosa, “contributed to the transformation of the community from Mexican to Mexican American.”47 Cursillos consisted of weekend retreats for laypeople that allowed them to explore their faith on a deeper level or to reconnect with their faith altogether. Cesar Chavez, the farm labor leader, was himself a cursillista whose Catholic faith was formed out of this grassroots leadership.48 Here laypeople would have spoken not only about the importance of faith but also about the social responsibilities rooted in faith. Caring for the poor, living a humble life, and practicing empathy were equally important teachings that left an important mark on members of Católicos. But the Cursillo movement is important for another reason as well. When Cardinal McIntyre did not respond to the demands laid out to him by the group members who crashed into his office, they turned to a more direct call that would bring to life the Christmas story on the

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steps of St. Basil’s. As I show in the following section, the disruption of Christmas Eve mass in 1969 shocked the Catholic leadership and cracked the doors of the church open for the reformist groups that would rise to prominence in the 1970s.

Disrupting Mass on Christmas Eve, 1969 Lydia López had never been to a Catholic mass before. The daughter of a Baptist church planter, she had only known the worlds of Mexican Protestants in Los Angeles. When her then husband Fred López invited her to Christmas Eve mass at the fancy new St. Basil’s Church off Wilshire Boulevard, she came dressed to the nines, wearing a pink dress, a pink turban, a white coat, and heels and gloves to match. What López did not know was that Fred had been organizing with Católicos for the past few weeks and was now set to hold an outdoor mass on Christmas Eve. That night Católicos and other supporters gathered at Lafayette Park, about a mile away, then marched to St. Basil’s Church, led by Ricardo Cruz. He kicked off the march by shouting, “We’re the people, let’s go to church!”49 As Lydia and Fred walked down Wilshire and approached the church, they noticed Father Blase Bonpane leading mass outside, surrounded by nearly 300 people gathered outside the church. Fred then says to me, Lydia, “Go and stand on the corner across the street,” and I am a bit shocked initially, then the guys start bringing me their keys and their address books. Then I see the police on horseback, and there’s a movement to go into the church . . . turns out the church ushers are sheriffs, and all I hear is “Let the poor people in, let the poor people in!” Apparently people had gone into the chapel, and I’m still in my corner; not long after that the police clear people out, and then Fred reappears to let me know that they arrested Alicia (Escalante), and so the next thing I know we are on our way to Alicia’s house to make sure we are there when her kids wake up Christmas morning.50

From the beginning the demonstration was peaceful. Católicos members would later testify that they did not arrive with any intention to disrupt the mass. They insisted that the demonstration was about calling out the church for spending millions on a church building “with all its stained glass windows, instead of for education, to stop the war in Vietnam and to help the farm workers.”51 The strategy was to hold a

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Figur e 2.4. Lydia López (right) with Conchita Thornton at the San Francisco State demonstration for the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC), December 1968. © La Raza Staff. From the La Raza Photograph Collection. Courtesy of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center.

mass and celebrate communion—and to shout—but not to disrupt. Cardinal McIntyre had received word that Católicos would make an appearance and brought in undercover law enforcement to serve as ushers. That move created a dangerous situation and turned a peaceful protest into a violent confrontation. Multiple stories have emerged about that night. According to court transcripts, the crowds of churchgoers started to gather around 11 p.m. Sometime before midnight the lower part of the church was fi lled to capacity. Just after midnight the doors to the church were closed and locked, prohibiting anyone else from coming in. At that point a woman in the church stood up and screamed, “Why won’t you let the poor people in?” That set off a panic inside, just as some of the demonstrators had found a side door open and started coming in. Mike Garcia, who had been there the day they rushed the cardinal’s office, described the moment when the demonstration turned from peaceful to, in his word, chingazos. What I remember is being there [St. Basil’s], getting there, there was a mass being said outside, and there were tortillas being given instead of

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the eucharist. . . . I cased out the place and went to the parking lot and I noticed a door that I went in through. . . . Later on in the demonstration, when we decided we wanted to go in and the doors were closed on us, then I let some people know that there was another way to get in. There was a group of us that went in through that door, which included a fellow that always wore black, we called him “karate,” he wore a hat with a lot of buttons, . . . yeah, I guess you could call it chingazos.52

Chaos ensued as law enforcement physically assaulted the demonstrators and tried to chase them off church grounds. At their trial a few months later, the prosecution alleged that demonstrators acted unruly and intentionally disrupted mass by chanting, “Let the poor people in,” “Kill the pigs,” and “Get into the church,” a claim that Católicos denied. The prosecution also charged Alicia Escalante with inciting a riot and claimed that she “hurled a cement canister” at the front doors of the church, shattering the glass and spewing sand inside. Movement lawyer Oscar Zeta Acosta, representing a group of Católicos, argued in court that it was actually the ushers and church officials who prevented the people from attending the mass that ultimately caused the disruption.53 Acosta called the event a “police riot” and argued that demonstrators were told they could go inside the church as long as they did not take in their lit candles or signs but were attacked with brute force as soon as they entered. At one point Escalante “was held by two police officers from behind holding her arms back”: “I don’t know where she got her strength,” one of the witnesses remembered, “but she picked up her right foot and kicked the cop right in the huevos.”54 The prosecution denied all the accusations and instead argued that it was the demonstrators who attacked first and provoked the violence.55 While much of the commotion remained on the periphery of the church and somewhat out of view of the parishioners (much of the drama took place in the vestibule), the shouting and verbal assaults were audible enough to elicit a response from Cardinal McIntyre: he chastised the demonstrators from the pulpit and addressed the congregation: “We are ashamed of the participants and we recognize that their conduct was symbolic of the conduct of the rabble as they stood at the foot of the cross shouting, ‘Crucify Him!’”56 But mass continued even in the midst of the cardinal’s reprimand in a scene that the Los Angeles Times described as one of “fist-swinging, pushing, screaming and kicking.”57 The choir director, Paul Salamanuvich, attempted to outshine the demonstrators. As the screams and chants of the demonstrators echoed inside

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Figur e 2.5. Oscar Zeta Acosta. © Luis C. Garza. From the La Raza Photograph Collection. Courtesy of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center.

the church, the services continued. Salamanuvich testified that church leaders tried their best to maintain order after Father Connolly’s reading of the Nicene Creed was seemingly drowned out by the back-andforth chants of “Let the poor people in!” After a few more adjustments to the order of the mass, Salamanuvich turned to the organist with the instructions “Play ‘Oh Come All Ye Faithful’ as loud as you can,” then turned to the choir members and told them to “forget the harmonizing, just sing it.” The choir director described the noise coming from the vestibule right before “O Come All Ye Faithful” as being like the sounds at a college football game after the home team has just scored a touchdown.58 According to Salamanuvich, the hymn had a calming effect: much of the chanting had stopped by the time the choir stopped singing. The irony of the hymn’s invitation to the faithful was not lost on the defense.

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During the cross-examination, and in his typical sardonic style, Zeta Acosta asked Salamanuvich, “Of course you believe in the words being sung by you and the congregation?” “Yes,” Salamanuvich responded. Zeta Acosta followed that up with another question: “Would it be a fair characterization of that hymn as an invitation to people to come and do something together?” “I don’t understand your statement,” Salamanuvich responded, to which the lawyer replied, “I take it, of course, there was no football game being played down there?” (in reference to Salamanuvich’s earlier statement).59 Approximately fifteen demonstrators were beaten and maced and six were arrested that night, all while the congregation sat nervously inside the church listening to the creeds and singing Christmas hymns.60 Later that evening, Lydia and Fred López worked the phones, trying to find out who had been arrested and what it would take to have them released. The next day, Christmas morning, many of the same protesters, including Fred and Lydia, returned to the church to picket once again. This time, however, the police were ready with cameras to capture all they could in order to identify as many protesters as possible. Tensions rose once again when a brief scuffle broke out between parishioner John Sharkey and Católicos members when he demanded that they leave the church premises. This incident, however, was overshadowed by the antics of Gloria Chávez, who was arrested by police after they claimed she ran to the front of the church frantically waving a golf club and then yanked the cloth off the altar table, causing the items on the table to hit the floor. For a group whose members prided themselves on being committed Catholics, Chávez went too far. But her move did not surprise those who knew her and described her as a “gutsy woman.”61 The following day, Ricardo Cruz extended an olive branch to Cardinal McIntyre and apologized, trying to explain why Católicos had taken action: “Father, what we seek is a reformation of our church even as our Savior sought to regenerate the Pharisees and the Scribes whose concern was not with the kingdom of God.”62 In the final days of 1969 Católicos planned a hunger strike, had a Puerto Rican bishop join the group to celebrate mass, and built up solidarity among a variety of progressive Catholic groups. The mass with Bishop Antulio Parrilla was especially important because it signaled the first official support that Católicos had received from the church hierarchy. Bishop Parrilla was joined that day by the Reverend Mark Day, a Franciscan who also served as chaplain for the farmworker movement,

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and the Reverend William Davis of the Jesuit mission in New York City. Bishop Parrilla gave the mass in English as a way to honor the solidarity shown by white Catholics and as a way to expand the vision that Católicos was projecting. The clergy also took the opportunity to speak out against the Vietnam War and in favor of the release of political prisoners. As important as this occasion was, it happened secretly, without the local chancery’s knowledge. Bishop Parrilla’s name was not released until right before the mass out of fear of backlash from clergy and parishioners.

Archdiocese of Los Angeles vs. Católicos By the end of 1969 this small movement had captured the imagination of both Chicana/o and white Catholics, evoking hope as well as concern. Letters started pouring in from Mexican Catholics in the Los Angeles area, who called the actions of Católicos “shameful” and told these “communists” to “go back to Mexico.” Another letter writer expressed frustration and disbelief: “I thought that we are a lot better than negroes,” he wrote, “but even I myself don’t quite believe this anymore.”63 Mexican American clergy also criticized Católicos; Jesuit priest Luis Peinado was “dismayed” by the protests and warned that the leaders might be socialists or Communists. The Reverend David Herrera also commented that he wished that Mexican Americans would “be taught to work within the American culture” instead of always wanting to protest against it.64 To his credit, Cardinal McIntyre did offer forgiveness to the demonstrators, but it was partial: he insisted that the charges against Católicos would not be dropped. “Under no circumstances,” wrote the cardinal, “would we interfere with the performance of duty by the police and other officers of the government in prosecuting persons charged with crimes.”65 But even with the dissent that emerged from some sectors of the community, and with the potential for jail time, Católicos garnered a tremendous amount of support. It was very clear from the beginning that this was not solely a Chicana/o movement political project. Católicos had gained support from multiple sectors across Los Angeles, including from the Coalition of Concerned Catholics, a group made up of primarily white progressive Catholics who also stood in solidarity with farmworkers across the state and nation. That solidarity would come in handy for Lydia López when she received a phone call in mid-January

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1970 from attorney Stan Leavey, who told her about warrants out for the arrest of herself and twenty of the activists associated with Católicos. Those warrants came directly from the police’s photographs of the Christmas Day picket. López, who previously had no connections to Católicos, now found herself under a warrant for her arrest. The charges came directly from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles against Católicos for actions that the church claimed included rioting, assaults, and verbal threats. The next day López and others from Católicos turned themselves in. López, who was pregnant at the time, was sent to the Sybil Brand Institute, a woman’s jail located in nearby City Terrace. There she joined Sister Duana Doherty, who was also charged for her participation with Católicos. Doherty, who was described as looking like “Julie Andrews,” and López, dressed in a maternity outfit and head scarf, clearly stood out. “Some of the women there asked us what we were in for,” López remembered, “and I remember being shy but answering that we were in for disturbing a religious service.” The women responded: “What? They arrested you in church?”66 Both López and Doherty were subjected to a humiliating and painful delousing, put in a cell, and forced to sit on the floor. A few hours later bail came through from a Los Angeles–based coalition of Church Women United, Jewish women, and black women that had become an important source of support for López as she began to work more diligently in the Mexican American community. The arrests of Católicos came about some twenty days after the Christmas Eve disruption at the hands of an archdiocese that was set on making them pay for their actions. Yet even as the Catholic church flexed its muscle, it also showed its vulnerabilities in a rather significant way. On January 22, less than a month after the disruption, Cardinal McIntyre retired from his position. The retirement of this stalwart supporter of conservative Catholicism in Los Angeles and across the country for over fift y years came as a surprise to some. As recently as 1967 and 1968, the cardinal had successfully deflected rumors that he was retiring or that the Vatican was forcing his resignation.67 In fact, the cardinal projected strength and vitality even in the face of staunch opposition from a variety of constituent groups. But after years of several nasty and public fights, first with black Catholics and Immaculate Heart nuns and now with Católicos, the cardinal sensed that his time was up. At his retirement press conference he admitted that “the spirit of today demands a greater realization of the need for religion in social action.” McIntyre had served Los Angeles since 1948 and was only the second archbishop and first cardinal

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to serve in the “Southland.” Without question, throughout those years he was the strong arm in the Los Angeles religious scene, known for telling his “priests what to think.” Liberal priests did not last long in Los Angeles and were usually sent to Latin America or someplace else in the United States if McIntyre disagreed with their politics or theology.68 So his retirement less than a month after the disruption at St. Basil’s should not be taken lightly. Even this religious bulwark was not strong enough to weather the impression made by Católicos. His successor, Archbishop Timothy Manning, wasted little time in acknowledging the important work that needed to be done by making it known that “the church in Los Angeles will take a fresh look at social problems and other issues which have wracked it in recent years.”69 The newly appointed cardinal at least carried himself and spoke very differently, believing that the church “must engage in conversation about these problems, apply the light of the gospel to their healing, rescue rather than sit in judgment, serve rather than come to be served.”70 On matters of doctrine he aligned well with the most conservative elements of the Catholic church, but on social matters he was much more progressive. Manning was a safe choice, no doubt, but was at least willing to listen and seriously consider the points that Católicos raised. He made it a point to praise Ricardo Cruz and the work of Católicos and showed an openness to a movement militancy that he believed was nothing more than a “youthful fad” that would dissipate and eventually move its focus away from the church.71 Others did not trust Manning. Zeta Acosta, one of the group’s lawyers, called the move a public relations stunt that would make little difference in the long run. “Archbishop Manning speaks with a soft tongue,” Zeta Acosta told the Los Angeles Times, “but there has been no change, no action.”72

PADRES While the retirement of Cardinal McIntyre was big news for Los Angeles, across the country Mexican American cultural expressions in religious services began to flourish. Nowhere was this more apparent than in Houston, Texas, where in 1967 the parish-priest of St. Joseph Catholic Church—Father Patricio Flores—introduced “la Misa Panamericana” (Pan American Mass). In Houston it became the “mariachi mass.” When Flores became the first Mexican American bishop in the United States in

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1970, he encouraged churches everywhere to institute mariachi mass as part of their services. Nicknamed “the mariachi bishop,” Flores was on the cusp of a cultural revolution that contextualized the visual, auditory, and physical spaces of the Catholic church in the United States.73 The cultural expressions that sprouted up in the spring of 1970 were joined by a political flare not seen before as Mexican American communities throughout the country pushed for a greater involvement of religious leaders in the social problems of the day.74 One of the first movements to rise out of this energy started in San Antonio, where Mexican American clergy forged ahead with the establishment of an organization to push forth their reforms. PADRES (Padres Asociados para los Derechos Religiosos, Educativos y Sociales) was organized in late 1969 but became a full-fledged movement in February 1970. PADRES arrived on the scene in dramatic style. One writer described its members as resembling the campesinos who rose up during the Mexican Revolution and as a group of priests destined to do great things and turn the Catholic church upside down. Drawing on the metaphor of the sleeping giant, these Chicano priests were ready to awaken this bilingual and bicultural world of Latina/o Americans and overtake this “white, middle class, Irish” Catholic church.75 They came from San Antonio, Chicago, El Paso, and Los Angeles, and their organization would in fact bring attention to the long-overlooked Spanish-speaking constituency within the church. Certainly the situation was dire. Los Angeles, New York City, and New Mexico, areas with large Latina/o Catholic populations, had never had a native Spanish-speaking bishop. In 1969 Latina/os made up 23 percent of the US Catholic population and 67 percent of the population in the southwestern states. Yet not one of the 270 ordinaries who made up the National Council of Bishops was Latino.76 In order to bring about the change it desired, PADRES put together its own set of demands: . . . . .

Full representation in the Catholic Church The establishment of social programs for the community Funding for clergy work in the community Autonomy for Chicano Priests Greater and better use of church facilities for community education, cultural and social programs . Better opportunities for Seminary training for the Chicano community.

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Figur e 2.6. La Raza staff photographer Raul Ruiz speaking to a crowd at a mass held for the trial of the St. Basil’s defendants at Grand Park. Victor Mendoza, La Raza staff photographers Luis Garza and Larry Hahn, and Oscar Zeta Acosta, lawyer to the twenty-one St. Basil’s defendants, stand beside him. March 15, 1970. © Manuel Barrera Jr. From the La Raza Photograph Collection. Courtesy of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center.

Emboldened by the activism and confrontational politics of Católicos, PADRES hit the ground running. The group took credit for being a progressive voice in the church but was often more talk than action: some saw PADRES as nothing more than another “snobby boy’s club.”77 PADRES criticized Católicos as “anti-clerical” even as it praised “the militants” for their activism. “I am thankful for the militant groups,” Bishop Flores emphasized, “the young people getting up and speaking out and marching. This is good.”78 Even so, the nationalist politics of PADRES, which extended full membership only to Chicano priests, seemed to be rooted in an out-of-date philosophy that failed to acknowledge the coalition politics that revolutionary nationalist groups had embraced. Notably, at the very time when PADRES was emerging and taking the Catholic church by storm and the church was putting up a façade of progressive politics, the church was bringing the prosecutorial hammer down on Católicos in Los Angeles. This point is often overlooked by scholars who have written about Católicos or Latina/o Catholics in the 1970s.

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God on Our Side Meanwhile, Lydia López walked out of the Sybil Brand Institute jail, free on bail. She would later be acquitted and cleared of any wrongdoing. The same cannot be said for the remaining “St. Basil’s Twenty-One,” as Zeta Acosta called them. After two trials that both brought their share of theatrics and lasted more than three months between February and May, twelve were found guilty and forced to serve jail time, while the rest paid small fines or were placed on probation for their part in the disruption.79 Joe Razo, Richard Martínez, Sister Duana Doherty, and Ricardo Cruz served three to four months in jail, while Alicia Escalante was hit especially hard, with three years’ probation for battery, rioting, malicious mischief, and disrupting the mass.80 From the court transcripts of the trial, it is apparent that the theatrics were not limited to the disruption on Christmas Eve: Zeta Acosta stole the show and became the star. He had earned a reputation as the Chicana/o movement lawyer for other high-profile cases where he defended Chicana/o activists and as someone who was not afraid to be bring movement tactics into the courtroom. At the Católicos trial Zeta Acosta openly accused one of the judges of being racist, thrilled the jurors with his off-the-wall humor, and made sure the courtroom was packed with movement activists to disrupt the prosecution. At one point, the courtroom had to be cleared because some of the spectators started shouting “oink, oink” whenever someone mentioned the police in court. Zeta Acosta was cited for contempt of court for arguing with the judge about a court date after he insisted that he had to be in Chowchilla that day to take care of a “traffic matter.”81 That contempt charge drew chants of “racist, racist” from the spectators, who later were asked to leave the courtroom. At another point in the trial Zeta Acosta called out Mexican American police officers for taking the side of the prosecution, saying that “it is bad enough to be busted; you know . . . but when it is your own people it is really rough, and it is a hard thing to accept.” He also admitted that Alicia Escalante had called him out for keeping a juror on—during jury selection—simply because “she was pretty.”82 Zeta Acosta was a character unlike any other, and some of his judgments were questionable, but there is little doubt that he was emotionally spent by the end of the trial. During his closing argument he noted that this had been one of the most difficult cases he had ever engaged in. More than attacking the supposed criminality of the Católicos defendants, the prosecution painted a picture of them as militants seek-

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ing to overthrow the church and conspiring with Latin American revolutionaries and Black Panthers. According to the prosecution, this type of activism did not match the supposedly passive and quiet presence of most Mexicans in Los Angeles, so Católicos supporters should not be considered “members of the Mexican people.” Instead the prosecution called them “thugs on the prowl” who would be “prosecuted as criminals.” That courtroom drama was only eclipsed by Zeta Acosta’s singing, live and during his closing argument, the eighth stanza of Bob Dylan’s song “With God on Our Side” (1963). Zeta Acosta followed up his performance by arguing, “You see, we don’t have God on our side: ‘Let the Poor People In’ and at the same time ‘O Come All Ye Faithful.’ And at the same time, ‘bang, bang, bang.’” He called out the church leadership for not taking action, for sitting there as “people were getting clubbed.” As unorthodox a move as this was, it was cathartic for Zeta Acosta, who admitted that music like this “prevents me from getting too angry.” His closing argument went on for two and a half hours, during which he attacked the criminal justice system, highlighted the power of Chicana/os in Los Angeles, and gave two musical performances where he sang and read out loud the lyrics of Bob Dylan songs. He ended his closing argument with lyrics borrowed from Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War.”83 After Acosta’s closing argument, the court took a recess. The verdicts were certainly a disappointment, especially because they were delivered almost exactly as Patricio Flores was being appointed as the first Mexican American bishop in the United States. Against that historic decision, the Católicos defendants were hit with jail time, probation, and fines. The PADRES organization had become a star, riding a wave of new militancy in the Catholic church. But it did so only after the ragtag group of activists from across Los Angeles—from Immaculate Heart nuns to Chicana/o radicals—disrupted the conservative politics of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The arrests did not stop Católicos from keeping the pressure on the church. Throughout 1970 it organized religious fasts, a bautismo de fuego (baptism of fire) where participants burned their baptismal cards, and other events to embarrass the church and move it to action on behalf of Mexican Americans. Unfortunately, the focus on Católicos ended almost as quickly as it had started. The summer of 1970 saw escalation of the war in Vietnam and an increasing focus on the Chicano Moratorium in Los Angeles, one of the largest antiwar marches in the country. The focus of many activists returned to the antiwar cause, which attracted thousands of protesters. One of the finest journalists in Los Angeles, Ruben Salazar,

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Figur e 2.7. Part of the group known as the St. Basil’s Twenty-One leaving the courtroom in Los Angeles. From back (left) to front (right): Oscar Zeta Acosta, Gloria Chávez (in front and to the right), Father Larry Hahn, Victor Medina (with arm extended), Connie Nieto (in front and to the right), Joe Razo, Luis Pingarron, and Lydia López. © Luis C. Garza. From the La Raza Photograph Collection. Courtesy of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center.

lost his life. Salazar had been one of the few journalists to document not only the work of Católicos but also many causes of the Chicana/o movement in Los Angeles. His death was a huge loss for the movement, which hit many of the Católicos activists especially hard.

Conclusion By the fall of 1970 the flare and energy of Católicos had faded. Ricardo Cruz, the leader of Católicos, would later face resistance when he tried to be certified as a practicing attorney in the state of California because of his history with Católicos. Cruz would eventually leave the faith and become an atheist, even though he never gave up his quest for justice and his deep commitment to spirituality and the sacred. Most of the other activists moved on to activism in different sectors—from welfare rights to labor rights—with a focus that rooted their fights in a deep

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moral cause. Lydia López’s fight for Latina/o communities in Los Angeles and later in the sanctuary movement was rooted in a theology that was born on the steps of St. Basil’s Church in December 1969. All the people involved in the coalition that made up Católicos were in essence children of the movement: they had come of age during the school blowouts in Los Angeles in 1968. The following year they not only called out the Catholic church but injected the Chicana/o movement with a politics rooted in the idea that their fight was a moral one, not simply secular. In a movement that saw itself as secular humanist, the actions of Católicos represent the most dramatic instance of a historic clash 500 years in the making. The Catholic church is the most permanent institution in the lives of Mexican Americans. Even though a small percentage of the population turned to mainline Protestantism or Pentecostalism throughout the twentieth century, Catholicism has always been home and has always had an overwhelming presence in the lives of Mexican Americans. The Católicos movement was not only a battle against a wealthy cathedral and an uncaring cardinal but also about the children of the conquest coming back to reform a church that “is largely responsible for the destruction of our ancient Indian cultures.”84 They were able to bring the Catholic church in Los Angeles to its knees, not with spectacular tactics or organizing skills, but with the way they carried the delicate balance between anticlericalism and church devotion.85 In the end, Católicos members never let go of the love/hate relationship with “the god-damn Catholic Church” that they all shared in one way or another.86 So, what are we to make of the legacy of Católicos? And why does it matter not only to Chicana/o history, but also to American religious history? In the years after Católicos, the Catholic church has become more, not less, important to the struggle for Mexican American and Latina/o civil rights. While it might be a stretch to credit the Catholic church’s awakening in the 1970s to Católicos, there is little doubt that the group accelerated the process. Throughout much of the 1970s, Latina/o Catholics built on the tradition of the Cursillo movement by organizing gatherings on a much larger, more national level. Of particular importance were the encuentros (encounters) organized by Latina/o religious leadership. These were essentially gatherings where Latina/o clergy began to map out a future for themselves within the Catholic church. The encuentro in 1972 was especially significant because it was the first time that bishops, delegates, and Latina/o leaders had met together. By the mid-1970s efforts were made to hire Latina/os in professional and

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support positions in the church, such as in general services, justice and peace, the print shop, and the Secretariat for Latin America. Moreover, the work of inclusion included the recruitment and ordaining of Latino bishops. By 1977 bilingual and bicultural programs for priestly formation, education, and training were in place in locations such as Miami, Santa Fe, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and San Antonio.87 On the theological front, Latina/o priests and nuns, such as Father Virgilio Elizondo and Ada María Isasi-Diaz, helped lead a theological revolution with the development of Latina/o theology that also began in the 1970s. The convergence of growing Latina/o political power in the Southwest, the seismic changes that followed Vatican II, and the rise of liberation theology were all critical moments that unmasked the church’s complicity with poverty, violence, and white supremacy. The postwar years were also a time of deep ideological divide: the Catholic church experienced an ideological split that pitted progressive elements against conservative ones like Cardinal McIntyre. The rise of Católicos emerged at a particularly troubling moment for the Catholic church as it struggled with how best to engage both a raging Chicana/o movement in California and a farmworker movement led by the deeply religious Cesar Chavez, which by 1970 had gained national attention with its multiethnic and ecumenical support. The activism of Católicos tapped into a post–Vatican II idea that all Catholics—not just the leadership—could be a force for change within the church. Much of what gets written on resistance in Latina/o religious studies is tied to popular religiosity: what people believe and how those beliefs affirm cultural identity and resist white supremacy. Católicos reminds us that religious lives are both political and spiritual and that churches are not neutral spaces.88 The actions taken by Católicos provided a spark that exposed the inherent contradictions of Catholic social teachings and the opulence of St. Basil’s Church. The visuals of young people carrying placards that read “Jesus did not drive a Cadillac” or “Chicanos are God’s children too” brought the frustrations out into the public arena—into secular spaces—and in the process brought Chicana/o movement politics into the sacred spaces of the church. In doing so, they helped propel reform movements within the church that in the 1970s led to a Latina/o religious renaissance through cultural expressions such as “mariachi mass” and the development of a theology rooted in the experience of Mexican Americans and other Latina/os. But while these national trends in church development and activism are an important barometer for the legacy of Católicos, perhaps we

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need look no further than the tireless efforts of Lydia López, who in the 1970s and 1980s became an important voice for immigrant and refugee rights in Los Angeles. The night she walked down Wilshire Boulevard toward St. Basil’s Church and witnessed the outdoor mass being celebrated by Father Bonpane changed her trajectory forever and inspired her to live a life of activism rooted in faith. This is even more remarkable because this person, who probably most kept the fire of Católicos alive, was not even Catholic herself. She grew up a Mexican Baptist and later became a member of the Episcopal Church in Los Angeles, the Church of the Epiphany. Her experience with Católicos and that night on the steps of St. Basil’s essentially made her into a religious activist and later an American prophet. Her activism and partnership with Father Luis Olivares helped lead the sanctuary movement in Los Angeles.89 Only a few days after Católicos disrupted Christmas Eve mass, a new organization of Young Lords in New York City, modeled after their comrades in Chicago, was not only disrupting services at a Spanish Methodist Church in East Harlem but occupying the church building and making national headlines for a movement that was quickly bringing American Christianity to its knees.

Chapter Three

The People’s Church in East Harlem

“A guy walks in and he’s not so sure what the Lords are all about,” says Yoruba [Guzmán]. He comes out of that church and says, “They’re all right, they gave me a sandwich and they got some pretty hip music.” . . . All the Lord leaders have amused, impressed, radicalized, and charmed the pants off their audiences. . . . The Lords had executed an extraordinary coup— they had stormed El Barrio’s Winter Palace—and too much energy had been generated to begin to examine its consequences. “Whatever happens to us now,” said Yoruba, “we have a victory here, and they’re never going to wipe us out of people’s minds and hearts.” Jonathan Black, Village Voice, Ju ne 8, 1970

S

tanding approximately 100 feet from the First Spanish United Methodist Church (FSUMC) on a cold December morning in East Harlem, Felipe Luciano started preaching. That was the closest that he or any member of the Young Lords could get to the church, per the terms of their bail. Two weeks had passed since December 7, 1969, the Sunday morning when violence broke out inside the church between the police and the Young Lords, which resulted in the arrest of thirteen people, including Luciano. That morning he stood in front of approximately 100 to 150 supporters, trembling from the cold but still managing to maintain the rhythm and cadence of a seasoned Pentecostal preacher. Luciano chastised church leaders for calling the Young Lords “satanic,” a “devilish influence in the community,” and essentially “communism in disguise.”1 He spoke clearly about the wrath

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coming from church leaders in retaliation for the Young Lords’ request to use the space of the church for a breakfast program, a medical clinic, and a liberation school. He cited the New Testament to make his point that the Spanish Methodist church leaders were behaving like the Pharisees of Jesus’s day, hypocrites who criticized Jesus for breaking the letter of the law. Christ, Luciano emphatically argued, was a revolutionary who violently kicked the moneylenders out of the temple and showed little patience for hypocrites. This was a call to action: a warning of what was to come from a former Pentecostal gang member turned poet and political activist with the Young Lords. Raised Pentecostal in the “island within the city” neighborhood of East Harlem, or El Barrio as it is also known, Luciano spent much of his childhood in his neighborhood church, seven days a week and three times on Sunday.2 Those close to Luciano knew him as someone with an “uncommon knowledge and wisdom of sociopolitical issues,” which he first picked up in church. If you were raised in East Harlem, Luciano preached, you were a “Bible scholar,” part of the legacy of a Bible that is “forced down our throats.”3 From the time he was in the fift h grade, Luciano attended the Bible institute at Iglesia Pentecostal La Sinagoga, one of the pioneering churches in the city. Those Bible classes transported the young Luciano to Asia Minor, Jerusalem, Greece, Syria, and Phoenicia and moved him to proclaim: “I’m saved, I submit, and I serve.” By the time he reached the age of fourteen, gang life had replaced his church life. Pentecostalism offered prayers and faith in a powerful God; gang life offered the freedom to fight back. “I didn’t understand their Christian ethic of vamos a orar ahora mismo, porque Dios es poderoso [now let us pray, because God is powerful] . . . what?, your son is on the ground bleeding, your daughter has been called all kinds of names by a bunch of white chumps and you’re standing there saying que Dios va curar todo esto [God will cure all this] . . . meanwhile your house still looks like a hobble, and the cops are not listening to your complaints.”4 But on that cold December day in 1969, as he stood outside the First Spanish United Methodist Church preaching a revolutionary Gospel, Luciano was very much his Pentecostal self. That kind of religion is hard to shake. This time, however, he was part of a collective of women and men, mostly Puerto Rican but also African American, Dominican, Mexican, and Cuban, who called themselves the Young Lords Organization. Connected to but independent of the Chicago Young Lords discussed in chapter 1, this group formed during the summer of 1969 and quickly be-

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came the biggest news story in the world’s most glamorous city. While its activities were many, the occupation of the FSUMC—that “gingerbread church”—looked different, felt different, and elicited emotions that had these revolutionary nationalists reciting scripture and quoting Jesus Christ.5 The occupation brought national and international attention to a group whose politics of reform and revolution made it the most important Latina/o civil rights organization in New York City in the late 1960s and early 1970s.6 Of all the church occupations and disruptions covered in this book, the takeover of FSUMC has received the most attention in the popular press for good reason. The takeover received intense coverage from television and newspaper outlets at the time, photographs have since graced the walls of museum exhibits, and in 2014 the intersection where the church is located, E. 111th Street and Lexington Avenue, was renamed “Young Lords Way,” giving weight to the importance of the occupation in the Young Lords’ history. Yet, for all the celebration and commemoration, much of this story remains misunderstood, left out, and understudied. Perhaps more than any other occupation, this takeover gained significant public approval over time. It captured the hearts of an entire neighborhood and city and elicited the sympathy of Methodist church leaders across the country, who were offering their support to the Young Lords by its end. The occupation of the FSUMC turned into one massive press release about how community control begins with the institutions that people in the community perceive to be the most sacred. It ignited a debate about the responsibility of institutions to their surrounding communities and, according to the Young Lord activist Iris Morales, became the event where “demands for justice and an artistic vision converged.”7 Television cameras, documentarians, and news reporters captured the theatrics throughout the entire eleven-day occupation in a city already saturated with drama. The entire city was fi xated. According to political scientist José Ramón Sánchez, 40 percent of all news stories covered by the New York Times during the first two months of 1970 focused on the occupation of the FSUMC. The occupation received more coverage than the “garbage offensive”—the first major political action by the New York Young Lords—and remained the main story, outpacing coverage of the Puerto Rican mayoral candidate Herman Badillo.8 The residents of El Barrio knew the Young Lords for their work on the garbage offensive, but it was the occupation of the First Spanish United Methodist Church that made their name across the city and the world. Media coverage shaped public perception and tilted it in the Lords’ favor.9

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Figur e 3.1. Young Lords as they offered to negotiate at First Spanish United Methodist Church to end their week-long occupation, January 4, 1970. Photo by Fred Morgan; New York Daily News archive/Getty Images.

Whatever preconceived notions people had about the supposed violent, dangerous, or radical views of the Young Lords were quickly wiped out when television cameras showed them—wearing dark shades and berets—serving breakfast, offering free medical care, folding clothes, and quoting scripture. This was a group of radicals and revolutionary nationalists, bold and unapologetic, who, as Johanna Fernández noted, were “deferential to elders, and [had] a deep sense of moral and cultural obligation to family and community.”10 Their philosophy was steeped in a revolutionary nationalism that grew out of their experience in the urban North, growing up in diverse neighborhoods and with a political urgency to tell their story even as they built interethnic coalitions that were central to their survival.11 Like other groups across the country, the Young Lords connected their revolutionary nationalism with Third World consciousness and advocated for the liberation of Puerto Rico within an East Harlem context that also knew of displacement, being pushed around, and colonization.

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Map 3.1. First Spanish United Methodist Church, East Harlem, New York City. Today Mount Morris Park is Marcus Garvey Park and the Central Park Reservoir is the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir. Map by Erin Greb, Erin Greb Cartography, Doylestown, PA.

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In defining revolutionary nationalism, the Young Lords activist Felipe Luciano argued that “revolutionary nationalism is not chauvinistic, it should not make distinctions between cultures, but function so that Puerto Ricans feel pride in their uniqueness and understand and love the common cultural political ties with Blacks, Indians, Asians, and other Latin people.”12 In addition to coalition building, community control also becomes central in their fight for freedom. While it might sound crazy, taking control of a church, an institution rooted in and tied to colonialism, makes sense in this regard. If we are talking about decolonizing and taking control, there is no better institution to start with, no other institution that will get the kind of surprise response that a church will. The idea is both crazy and brilliant. This chapter builds on the works of Johanna Fernández and Lorrin Thomas, who both clearly identify the seismic political shifts that took place in Puerto Rican New York in the late 1960s.13 The wave of radical politics and revolutionary nationalism overwhelmed, if only for a moment, the politics of liberalism that had gripped Latina/o politics in New York. Powered by the Young Lords’ ability to work in multiple contexts and with a host of power brokers from hospital administrators to religious leaders, this wave of activism was better prepared to address the range of problems that Latina/os faced in New York City. Yet it was firmly rooted in the activist legacy that dated back to the early twentieth century in New York, when Puerto Ricans and Cubans denounced US colonial rule, organized labor unions, and worked to improve policecommunity relations.14 Even so, this new iteration of activism projected a new and fresh take on race, identity, and culture. The era can only be defined as a political awakening that Andrés Torres and José E. Velázquez famously called “un nuevo despertar” (a new awakening), which emerged in the late 1960s and drew heavily from internationalist politics, national liberation movements, the Cuban revolution, and the Black freedom movement.15 The historian Alan Gómez has identified this particular era as one that ushered in a direct focus on internationalism and antiglobalization movements across the Americas.16 Yet, while we know some things about the cultural and urban transformations that the Young Lords helped usher in, much less is known about how they impacted religious life and politics in New York City and across the nation. This is somewhat strange, considering that the most recognized Latina/o civil rights group in the city carried out its biggest, most attention-grabbing event in a Latina/o evangelical church.

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We know even less about how the occupation of the First Spanish United Methodist Church is linked with the grassroots Catholic student movements in Latin America that date back to the late 1950s, which set the stage for the eventual rise of liberation theology. The minister of information for the Young Lords, Pablo Yoruba Guzmán, transformed his entire political and cultural worldview and “discovered his Latin roots” after spending time in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and studying under the radical priest Ivan Illich. That energy and that grassroots theology (formed through experience, not books) guided this entire occupation. It is staggering to know how well versed the Young Lords were on all matters of religion and politics. David Perez would eventually go on to become a Pentecostal minister; Felipe Luciano never lost that Pentecostal flair; and the comments made by Juan González (Young Lords minister of education) about Jesus Christ and power and justice reflect the broad political, theological, and philosophical worlds that the Young Lords inhabited in New York. They were apostles of change. Whereas the Chicago occupations created possibilities for Latina/o clergy and made a name for Latina/os within Protestant groups, the New York City occupation put the plight of urban Latina/o social movements in the national spotlight. But it is more important for my purposes that the occupation of the First Spanish United Methodist Church, and the ruckus that it caused, be remembered for making it impossible to ignore Latina/os in the city. The occupation was short, lasting only eleven days, but it left an important legacy that infused Latina/o religious politics with both a revolutionary and reformist spirit that continues to guide it to this day.

Lords of the City The Young Lords are New York. Their stories are etched into the streets of the city. They brandished an attitude rooted in the experiences of their parents and grandparents in boroughs throughout the city. In the summer of 2019 the Young Lords celebrated their fiftieth anniversary at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. They are icons of the city. It is unthinkable that a group of young Puerto Ricans, and other Latina/os, made it in New York City as agents of social change in the turbulent 1960s and 1970s. Labor militancy, pushback against urban renewal, the Stonewall riots, and most recently the Occupy Wall Street movement have an important place in the city’s and na-

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tion’s civil rights memory. The Young Lords emerged in neighborhoods destroyed by urban renewal and overrun by the urban architect Robert Moses in the 1950s and 1960s, in a context where white flight led to a dramatic demographic transformation of East Harlem and other boroughs throughout the city.17 More than anything else, urban renewal policies determined the poor living conditions of Puerto Ricans in the postwar era.18 The occupation of the First Spanish United Methodist Church happened against the backdrop of slum clearance and an urban crisis that, as Luis Aponte-Parés argued, was “unweaving the work of a generation: the deterritorialization of a whole community.”19 As East Harlem’s built environment was being mutilated by slum clearance, the Young Lords occupied the First Spanish United Methodist Church. Juxtaposing displacement with occupation is critical, as it brings to the surface the community’s agency in fighting back and in redefining the politics of urban renewal. Occupation—that desire to reclaim space to save a community—is born out of the misery of displacement. During the first half of the twentieth century Puerto Ricans became the largest Latina/o group in the city. And in the years after World War II, to be Latina/o in New York City was to be Puerto Rican. While other Latina/os arrived in the city during these years, no other group matched the numbers of Puerto Ricans, which rose from 61,463 in 1940 to 612,574 in 1960. Puerto Ricans were driven off the island by a massive industrialization effort by the US government that provided economic incentives to businesses and corporations but left the rural and unemployed population with few options for work.20 Searching for economic opportunity in New York City meant working in mostly low-income jobs at hospitals, restaurants, hotels, and the declining manufacturing industry. This trapped Puerto Rican families squarely at the bottom of the economic ladder. In 1960, for example, 34 percent of Puerto Rican families made less than $3,000 a year, compared with 12 percent of white and 27 percent of black families. Another 54 percent made just slightly above the poverty line at $4,000 a year. This explains why a little over 40 percent of Puerto Ricans lived in crumbling homes and over 85 percent of the population lived in the poorest four neighborhoods of the city.21 While East Harlem was one of the primary settlement points for Puerto Ricans during the postwar migration boom, Latina/os have historically settled across the city, in as many as twenty different neighborhoods dating back to the late nineteenth century. In those days, the city had its share of Cuban and Puerto Rican tobacco

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workers, radicals, poets, exiles, and anarcho-syndicalists from Spain and Latin America.22 Churches are everywhere in New York City, beautiful and bold. From the Gothic architecture of the Riverside Church to the stainedglass windows of St. Patrick’s Cathedral off Fift h Avenue, churches are part of the landscape that makes New York City what it is. As the neighborhoods change, so do the churches. They are less remarkable but have more personality; the worship services are louder, and the prayers are longer. The Puerto Rican writer Piri Thomas noted that East Harlem has “more Pentecostal churches than Carter’s got liver pills,” a reference to a popular radio advertisement of the day.23 On a typical Sunday morning, most Puerto Ricans could be found at one of the more than thirty Pentecostal churches located in El Barrio, including the First Spanish United Methodist Church at the corner of E. 111th Street and Lexington Avenue. The worship and preaching in this church, Methodist only by name, reflected more of the lively Pentecostal style than the structure of traditional Methodist churches.24 Founded in 1922 in lower Manhattan by a trio known as “Los Tres Juanes” (Juan Burgos, Juan Reyes, and Juan Jiménez), the church had a number of homes throughout the city before settling into a church building at 111th and Lexington Avenue in 1945.25 In the years after World War II, the church forged a strong relationship to the neighborhood. It offered English classes and a day-care center under the pastoral leadership of the Reverend Ezra Rodriguez.26 The church burned down in 1964. Three years later, with the help of the Methodist City Society Mission and a loan from the National Methodist Investment Fund, church members made a down payment on the property to rebuild the church.27 Shortly after the church building reopened, the Reverend Ezra Rodriguez was gone, pushed out for his progressive leanings and replaced by the Reverend Humberto Carranza. Carranza inherited a church whose membership had dipped in 1968 in part because of the gutted tenements, endemic poverty, and demographic changes of El Barrio. A church that had served as a beacon of hope in the community for at least fi ft y years had now become a symbol for all that seemed to be going wrong in East Harlem. By the following year, most of its 138 congregants had moved out of El Barrio to the Bronx or Brooklyn, leaving the church’s newly restored kitchen and rooms mostly empty during the week. The ample room of the “gingerbread” church stood in the middle of a neighborhood in dire need of space.28 When Puerto Ricans first arrived in East Harlem in large numbers,

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the neighborhood was well into demographic transition, as Italian and other white ethnic families started moving out. This shift coincided with the rise of the civil rights movement among African Americans, along with an increased and decidedly louder call for control of institutions within predominantly black and brown neighborhoods.29 The convergence of all these factors shaped not only the philosophy of the New York Young Lords but also their political approach and desire to occupy institutions across East Harlem. As in the case of the Chicago Young Lords, the impetus to start a movement in New York City emerged out of the riots and violence that shook the Puerto Rican community in 1967.

In Search of a Usable Past Sparked by the shooting death of Reinaldo Rodriguez by police officer Anthony Cinquemani, thousands of Puerto Rican youth took to the streets in protest in July 1967. The officer claimed that Rodriguez lunged at him with a knife and that he shot the supposed aggressive attacker in self-defense.30 Because of East Harlem’s relatively new Puerto Rican community, with no previous history of violence or rioting, the unrest that followed the shooting death of Rodriguez came as a surprise to some. Puerto Ricans took to the streets for three days. On the night of the shooting, members of the community, mostly young people, gathered at the corner of 111th Street and Third Avenue, throwing rocks and bottles at the police. The riots sparked a political consciousness, as had occurred in Chicago in the aftermath of the death of Manuel Ramos (see chapter 1), that made public the angst and frustration of Puerto Ricans in the late 1960s. The Young Lords emerged as part of a generation of activists searching for a usable past, a way forward, by drawing inspiration from a radical past that recognized the revolutionary potential of the Puerto Rican people.31 This process, as Darrel Wanzer-Serrano argues, required the Young Lords to recover a history “delinked from modernity/coloniality.”32 And no other group was better equipped not only to do this but also to project that history onto contemporary concerns. In the wake of the 1967 riots in East Harlem, the Young Lords emerged as the most visible social movement within the Puerto Rican community. They came in armed with an understanding of their history and the independence movements led by figures such as Pedro Albizu Campos and with an admiration for the black freedom struggle and black radicalism. They were

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revolutionary nationalists who recognized the centrality of race but also the deep socioeconomic and class-based oppression that Puerto Ricans and other poor people lived with in New York City. They merged their nationalist ideals with an antipoverty, antiracist, and internationalist vision that undergirded their grassroots politics and their connection to the community. The Young Lords organized against racism, incarceration, and police brutality. They worked to create employment, develop education, and provide public health resources. And to a large degree they were successful. The Lords became popular in New York because, like their counterparts in Chicago, they tapped into a dissatisfaction about the garbagefilled streets, the lack of affordable medical services, low wages, and limited social mobility that many Puerto Ricans and other Latina/os shared. While the Young Lords are tied in every way to New York, their origins trace back to Chicago, to the beginnings of the city where the group was born and where a network of activists envisioned a Latina/o freedom movement. While there was an awareness of the Young Lords in Chicago and the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) newsletter had profiled their work and made them known beyond Chicago, it was a series of chance meetings that solidified their future in New York. In January 1969, Miguel “Mickey” Melendez (who organized the New York Young Lords) was in Chicago to recruit Latina/o students as part of his workstudy program at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Old Westbury. There he met the leader of the Latin American Defense Organization (LADO), Obed López, who introduced him to Cha Cha Jiménez, the founder of the Young Lords in Chicago. Much has been said and written about Melendez’s meeting with Cha Cha Jiménez, but it was the meeting with Obed López that proved fruitful in terms of discussing the seminary and church occupation in Chicago. Quiet and unassuming, López had much more sway and influence than he is given credit for. Several months earlier, in 1968, the antipoverty group known as Real Great Society (RGS), from East Harlem, loaded a bus with Latina/o youths and headed to Denver, Colorado, for the Crusade for Justice Conference led by Chicano movement leader Corky González.33 There Iris Morales, who joined the Young Lords the following year and became one of its strongest leaders, met Cha Cha Jiménez and for the first time learned about Latina/o activism in Chicago. The rest, as they say, is history.34 Melendez’s experience in Chicago left a deep impression on him. Af-

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ter all, these were fast-changing times. Two years earlier he had heard Felipe Luciano recite his poem “Jibaro, My Pretty Nigger” at Queens College, and the two became close friends. Everything from Vietnam to the East Harlem riots in 1967 confirmed for him the discrimination that Puerto Ricans faced in New York. That summer he learned the history of Pedro Albizu Campos (the iconic leader of Puerto Rico’s struggle for independence during the mid-twentieth century), heard the legendary stories of an up-and-coming activist named Juan González as a leader of the Columbia University student strike in 1968, and later met members from the Real Great Society (RGS). In the fall of 1968 Melendez started college at SUNY Old Westbury and soon helped found the Sociedad Albizu Campos (SAC) in January 1969, with Denise Oliver and Pablo Guzmán. Felipe Luciano joined and brought his “charismatic charm” with him along with another organizer, Juan González, whose experiences as a student activist at Columbia University proved valuable for the group.35 One of the first dilemmas to arise for SAC members was whether they should focus on doing work on college campuses or instead focus on the barrios where many of them grew up.36 That problem was settled soon after they read an interview with Cha Cha Jiménez published in the Black Panther Party (BPP) weekly newspaper on June 7, where he outlined the revolutionary politics of the Young Lords in Chicago.37 Compelled and impressed, the society members hopped in a Volkswagen and hit the road for Chicago in June 1969. There the New York group met Jiménez and members of the Young Lords and visited the Armitage Methodist Church, which the Young Lords had occupied that month. The meetings were tense at first. While the two groups aligned politically and shared a racial/ethnic heritage as Latina/os, they came from very different backgrounds. The New York members were mostly college students, steeped in the philosophical idea of struggle as revolutionary nationalists; the Chicago members were former gang members from the streets, some of whom had served prison time. But what the New York members lacked in “toughness” they overcompensated in street and academic smarts. After two days of meetings, they had won the respect of Cha Cha and the Chicago Lords and received their blessing to use the name of the organization for their work in New York. They returned to New York energized. “We started having meetings,” remembered Juan González, “and we started to ask, so if we are all going to organize the community in East Harlem, what are we going to do and how are we going to do it?”38 The following month, the New York chapter of the Young Lords

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came together out of a merger with three activist groups: the Society Albizu Campos, the Photography Workshop in East Harlem (which provided spaces for art and activism at Columbia University’s Teachers College), and newly formed groups of Young Lords in the Lower East Side. Their official launch date, July 26, 1969, at Tompkins Square Park in New York, commemorated and linked their struggle to the July 26th Movement in Cuba that overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Bautista and led a revolutionary movement. On that summer day in 1969 the Young Lords “appeared clad in purple berets and black fatigues, resembling the BPP [Black Panther Party], holding aloft a banner with their insignia, an AK-47 rifle over the Puerto Rican flag.”39

Occupation No one knows exactly where the idea to occupy the church originated, but it certainly was not their first idea. The Young Lords spent the rest of the summer of 1969 literally walking the streets of East Harlem, talking to their neighbors, and asking people to clarify the most important issues: what problems would they like to see solved? “Everyone kept telling us that it was garbage in the streets,” González remembered, “that it was too much, and that the sanitation department was not picking up the garbage.” He described how the Lords got to work. They started sweeping the streets every Sunday: each member of the Young Lords would pick a block, clean up the trash, and bag it. From there they tried to get the attention of the sanitation department.40 When that did not work, they started blocking First, Second, and Third Avenues to commuters. Then they started burning the trash. That is when they got the city’s attention. This was not the first time the streets of East Harlem had been cleaned up. A year earlier, residents of East Harlem and the Lower East Side had taken matters into their own hands when they started sweeping the streets and then paid for rental trucks to haul the trash away. They did everything except burn the trash and block traffic. In the end, the action of the Young Lords captured the attention of the sanitation department and the city.41 That single action gave them status in the neighborhood. It set their strategy, introduced them to the community, and made them a legitimate force in East Harlem. By October 1969 the Lords had established a breakfast program for young children, together with the Black Panther Party, at the Emmaus

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House in Harlem with some success. Emmaus House was started by Father David Kirk in 1966 to break the cycle of poverty by helping those in need. In addition to the logistical problems of organizing a breakfast, the facilities there proved too small. They needed more space.42 But space was only one problem. Kirk also worried about police reports that associated the Young Lords with gang activity in the city. These rumors spurred him to cancel the program, forcing the Young Lords to look for another space. Churches seemed like a natural place to start. After all, the Chicago Young Lords had implemented a similar program at the Armitage Methodist Church in Lincoln Park. Churches in East Harlem were not oblivious to their surroundings. The most active social service churches, such as La Milagrosa on 114th Street, already provided social service programs for the community and actually supported the idea of a breakfast program run by the Young Lords. But even the most sympathetic churches could not offer help, because they also lacked sufficient space or were simply too far out of the way to be of any real service for East Harlem residents. The First Spanish United Methodist Church was not only large and mostly empty but also happened to be located only two blocks away from the central office of the Young Lords at 111th and Madison, right in the heart of El Barrio.43 Its location and space made it the perfect spot.44 The pastor of the First Spanish United Methodist Church, Humberto Carranza, who had left Cuba after Castro’s revolution prohibited him from proselytizing, had different plans.45 The first meeting with Carranza in October 1969 did not go well. “The minister flipped,” González laughed. “Here he was seeing five Che Guevara lookalikes, and so he denied us immediately.”46 To his credit, Carranza did suggest that the Young Lords take their request to the church board in the form of a letter. That letter, written by Felipe Luciano, included a request for church space for a breakfast program and a liberation school and a plea for the church to “begin to relate concretely to Puerto Ricans and their problems. . . . Without sounding offensive, it must be understood that while poverty and racism has afflicted our black and Puerto Rican communities, the churches have stood silent for the most part. Sins of omission must be stopped now.” The church responded with its own letter dated November 3, 1969, reminding the Lords that the church was “99 percent Puerto Rican, who are very much aware of the problems of the community, and we feel that we are doing our share.”47 But this was not simply a matter of a church that felt it had met its social commitments. Church leaders added that the debt accrued as a result of rebuilding the church

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after the fire made it impossible for them to engage in social services with an outside group. The hidden costs would simply be too high a burden to take on.48 It was not a good start. For the next six Sundays the Young Lords attended church services, stood outside the church passing out leaflets, and made their case to church leaders. But after six weeks of conversations, the Lords were losing ground: the church stood firm in its position. Although church members grew tense at the sight of the young radicals with the purple berets, they did acknowledge the Young Lords’ “cordial, respectful disposition and attempts ‘to play the game by the church’s rules,’ especially during initial stages,” according to Johanna Fernández.49 Rather than continue to ask politely, the Young Lords did the next best thing: they started speaking out during Sunday morning church services. Almost as if by design, the Young Lords followed the Advent church calendar (a special calendar that marks the Sundays in December in anticipation of Christmas) to disrupt services each Sunday: December 7, 14, and 21, 1969. In the midst of these advent disruptions, the Young Lords managed to make time to stage a seven-hour sit-in at Metropolitan Hospital (Second Avenue and 97th Street) to demand that a $4.2 million construction project be halted until the community was consulted. This action formed part of a larger move that focused on the public health concerns of East Harlem residents. The Young Lords had already started accompanying medical students from New York Medical College across the neighborhood to collect urine samples from small children in order to test for lead poisoning.50 The move paid off in a big way. In 1974 the Journal of Public Health credited the Young Lords with passage of anti–lead poisoning legislation across New York City.51 The first Advent disruption, on December 7, led to the arrest of nine men and four women: David Velasquez, Elena González, Sonia Ivany, Joseph Hill, Mirta González, Felipe Luciano, Erika Sezonov, Salvador Díaz, Benjamin Cruz, Denise Oliver, Carlito Rovira, Juan Romero, and José Díaz. They were charged with assault, trespassing, and disorderly conduct. The trouble started that morning when Felipe Luciano stood up in the middle of the service and shouted: “Something is wrong here, this is not a community.” The Reverend Carranza ordered the organist to start playing “Onward Christian Soldiers,” and the congregation rose to sing.52 The whole church turned out to be full of police that morning. The New York Times reported that “at least a dozen cops came in with sticks held ready, ‘All right get out of here,’ one of them said and then

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they started smashing and rushing at the Young Lords. A few of the police were hitting the Young Lords and pushing some of the girls.”53 Pastor Humberto Carranza had anticipated problems and requested a police presence at the church. In the end, five members of the Young Lords ended up in the hospital, including Felipe Luciano, who suffered a fracture in his arm. Church members who arrived after the chaos noted that there was “blood all over the church.”54 An eerily similar scene would play out a few weeks later in Los Angeles when members of Católicos Por La Raza disrupted Christmas Eve mass and were met with violence by an undercover police presence, accompanied by the background music of “O Come All Ye Faithful.” Three weeks after the violence of December 7, and three days after Católicos Por La Raza disrupted Christmas Eve mass at St. Basil’s, the Young Lords took over the FSUMC. They waited for the preacher to finish his sermon and for the eighty or so parishioners to exit before they shut the doors with six-inch railroad spikes (apparently brought in a violin case) and occupied the church.55 It was as peaceful as it was dramatic. The occupation officially began on December 28, 1969. Not long after, a wooden sign with red lettering dangled from a window: “La Iglesia De La Gente—People’s Church.” Inside the church, on the wall behind the altar, a white sheet hung high with a painted inscription of welcome: “Bienvenidos a La Iglesia Del Pueblo.”56 The occupation took everyone by surprise, particularly members of the church youth group, who had been promised in an earlier meeting with the Lords that a church takeover would not happen.57 We know more about what happened inside this church during the occupation than in any other occupation because of the level of news coverage. Celebrities and religious leaders from across the country showed up, wanting to know what was happening inside. Every inch of this occupation was covered. Members of the congregation, in the face of a new reality, disappeared quietly. They made arrangements to continue having church services at the Broadway Temple United Methodist Church in Washington Heights.58 As parishioners exited stage left, the Young Lords took center stage. They became the story in New York City. Always careful about the message, the Lords opened up the church to supporters interested in what was happening inside. Everyone who entered was carefully screened by some member of the twenty-four-hour security unit. They had a no-smoking policy inside the church and organized late afternoon press conferences to keep the community informed about the happenings inside the church. In only a matter of days

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Figur e 3.2. People sorting through piles of clothes at the clothing drive sponsored by the Young Lords, New York, 1969. The group’s minister of education, Juan González (second on left, in a beret), is among them. Photo by Bev Grant; courtesy of Getty Images.

the Young Lords transformed the inside of the church into an art space, a medical treatment area, an area for the breakfast program, and a gathering and community space. In the medical room, for example, Gene Straus, the chief medical resident at Metropolitan Hospital, talked to visitors about lead poisoning. Straus reported that in a matter of a few days they had conducted over two hundred tests for lead poisoning. “Some people come in here with serious problems,” he commented, “some just because they haven’t seen a doctor in ten years . . . we’ve already referred five people to hospitals.”59 It was clear from the beginning that women were central to the activities inside the church. Yoruba Guzmán’s mother spent time at the church, mostly working in the kitchen, but the jobs also ranged from organizing the programs to sorting the clothes to speaking on the bullhorn to make important announcements. This was a community effort: everyone had a job and everyone contributed. Even members of the community who were not associated with the Young Lords started to come in and visit. Connie Morales (Cruz), a young mother from the Bronx, arrived at the church with her five-year-old daughter, Lisa, and joined

Figur e 3.3. Free health clinic, FSUMC, the People’s Church, December 1969. © copyright Haymarket Books; courtesy of Haymarket Books.

Figur e 3.4. Breakfast program, FSUMC, the People’s Church, December 1969. © copyright Haymarket Books; courtesy of Haymarket Books.

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Figur e 3.5. Breakfast program, FSUMC, the People’s Church, December 1969. © copyright Hiram Maristany; courtesy of Hiram Maristany.

the Young Lords almost immediately. When Gloria Santiago first walked into the church, she recalled that it felt “like home.”60 Religious leaders quickly joined the fray. The Reverend Robert Chapman, director of racial justice for the National Council of Churches, was one of the first outsiders to tour the church. On day three of the occupation, he spent four hours inside the church and later wrote to other progressive Christians that he saw a virtual clinic and volunteer medics who tested children for lead poisoning. Chapman was awestruck, nearly speechless. What he witnessed within those four hours moved him to conclude that “the Young Lords have shown this church, you were sick, and I visited you.”61 By the third day, it was clear that something special was taking place, something that made little sense: not only was public sentiment shifting in the Lords’ favor, but the occupation had turned into its own Gospel parable, with its own miracles. Jonathan Black described it this way for Village Voice: “One bathroom for 500 people, one kitchen serving four hot meals a day to over two hundred people, with no shortage of food or supplies, or spirit.”62 Even those who, like the proverbial Apostle Thomas, doubted such accounts eventually had their own conversion experiences, as did the

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“newsman” who publicly complained about the “unfriendly, hostile attitude” of the Young Lords only to emerge from inside the church with a clenched raised fist, shouting “power to the people.”63 People were being “born again,” baptized into the politics of the Young Lords inside the First Spanish United Methodist Church. A formerly bland and mostly empty church building had turned into a clinic and community gathering space, and for eleven days the church became the center for Puerto Rican arts and culture. People who had never before passed through the doors of the church, or any church, were now front and center. The New York Times journalist Michael Kaufman, who covered the occupation more than anyone else did, described the inside of the church: A loud speaker system played songs like “Mighty, Mighty Spade and Whitey,” by the Impressions, interspersed with speeches by Malcolm X. In the basement, piles of clothing were arranged for distribution. Visitors had to submit to thorough searches at the door for weapons or drugs. . . . In the midst of the tightened security and as anticipation of a “bust” quickened, preparations were made for a party last night marking the Epiphany, or Day of the Three Kings. . . . “If the police come, we’ll just continue partying,” [added Yoruba Guzmán]. “We’re going to have folk dances and songs and experience our culture because that’s what the Lords are all about.”64

As the celebration, the healing, and the poetry occupied the First Spanish United Methodist Church, other Latina/o churches in the neighborhood remained on high alert. At a nearby Pentecostal church, Neftali Torres remembered how “the pastor organized all the men and tried to coordinate this effort so that at the moment that strangers came in to occupy or disrupt the church, the men would stand and take charge.”65 At the national level, the leaders of the United Methodist Church denomination worried that the occupation might turn violent. Despite having been integrally involved in a number of racial justice campaigns with the National Council of Churches and having established a $20 million “Fund for Reconciliation” and a commission on religion and race, church leaders were stumped. This concern was not only coming from white religious leaders. Mexican American leaders, most notably the Reverend Leo Nieto, found it impossible to sympathize with the Young Lords. In the days after the occupation, the United Methodist Church organized an ad hoc committee to investigate the occupation and possibly negotiate an end with the

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Young Lords. Nieto served on that committee. Part of his job was to familiarize himself with what happened and write up a report to the Board of Missions. Nieto was the obvious choice for this. For most of the 1960s he was the most recognized Mexican American Methodist. He was on the front lines of the Chicano movement and led a group of community and religious leaders to Washington, DC, for the Poor People’s Campaign in 1968. But as a minister he viewed the occupation as an obvious infringement on the church’s right to worship freely by an “increasingly aggressive” group that was unwilling to listen and work with Methodist church leadership.66 Nieto’s response was not unique. Many other progressive Methodists, who on some level understood the position of the Young Lords, as religious leaders could not help but sympathize with the church and the difficult position that it was in. The most damning report came from Robert L. Wilson, a research professor of church and society at the Divinity School at Duke University. He criticized the local New York media for characterizing the Lords as “idealists being thwarted by a callous congregation” and for not recognizing the “propaganda techniques by the Young Lords to win sympathy.” Wilson accused the Young Lords of having a “belligerent attitude” that tricked the church and community into believing that they actually cared about social service work. He believed the breakfast program and medical clinics were nothing more than a sideshow, a way to mask the main goal of starting a “liberation” school. Wilson’s report reflected the sentiments of many Methodist church leaders across the country who worried the church was being mocked and exploited by a reckless group of radicals set on instituting a “campaign of harassment” against all churches.67 Methodist church leaders spoke boldly because they knew that all, or at least most, of the Latina/o congregations in New York City, including some African American churches, opposed the Young Lords.68 Throughout the entire ordeal the Reverend Humberto Carranza refused to engage in any form of negotiation between the Young Lords and the church. “We don’t use that word [negotiation],” Carranza asserted: “the gospel says ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”69 To make matters worse, youth from the First Spanish United Methodist Church penned a letter accusing Carranza of purposefully keeping church members in the dark about the negotiations.70 And when denominational leaders for the United Methodist Church in good faith chose to file a court order to have the occupiers removed (without force), the Young Lords simply ignored it. Instead they planned a community dinner and dance inside the church.71 But the attacks kept coming.

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The Reverend Ralph Lord Roy, of Cuyler Warren Street Community Church in Brooklyn, defended the church’s position and equated the Young Lords with “the Ku Klux Klan or the Italian Mafia or some other group.”72 A member of the FSUMC put out a statement defending the church’s position in a theological context. “The First Spanish Church is a conservative church, as are most of our Evangelical Spanish churches. . . . An illustration of their ideology, and the portion of it which is most offensive to the congregation, was the bringing in by the Young Lords [of] pictures of Jesus with a rifle on his shoulder. This acknowledged the fact that they are a revolutionary group, and this aggravates the tension that exists.”73

R adical Religion: From Cuernavaca to East Harlem The painting that the church member referenced was Christ Guerrilla, by the Cuban artist Alfredo Rostgaard, painted in 1969. The use of the painting by the Young Lords suggests a connection to the MarxistChristian movements in Latin America that began in the late 1950s and 1960s and eventually gave rise to liberation theology. The painting appeared in an issue of PALANTE, the Young Lords newspaper, along with a poem dedicated to Camilo Torres, the radical priest from Colombia. That explicit nod to religious movements in Latin America, as Agustín Laó argued, shows the level of solidarity and connection that the Young Lords felt with grassroots religious movements and liberation theology.74 And it was the Catholic student movements that came closest to advocating the type of social service orientation that the Lords preached. Throughout much of the 1960s, before the Second Vatican Council and liberation theology upended the Catholic Church globally, Catholic youth took over buildings, disrupted church services, and advocated for a Catholic education more focused on social issues in Latin America. A central theme of this book is that religious radicalism of the sort that was practiced by the Young Lords had its strongest showing on the outer edges of religious institutions. The overarching power and influence of institutional reforms that came out of the Second Vatican Council and liberation theology have made it easy to ignore student movements, grassroots organizing, and radical church occupations, as described in this book. When the Young Lords walked into the First Spanish United Methodist Church with a poster of Christ Guerrilla and changed the

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name of the church to “La Iglesia del Pueblo,” they joined a long line of students, revolutionaries, priests, and guerrilleras/os who, before the Second Vatican Council, breathed life into a new and revolutionary Christianity in Latin America. The historian Jaime Pensado has started to take a closer look at these grassroots and student movements, reassessing what we know about this history and the ways in which Catholic student groups such as Movimiento Estudiantil Profesional (MEP) shaped youth politics and protest in Latin America. He points to the Cold War in Mexico in the 1950s and 1960s as having sparked a utopic moment for students on the left but also covers how it shaped the rise of a global Catholic youth movement.75 Responding to the poverty, state violence, political corruption, and injustice that many in Latin America suffered, Catholic students in MEP believed it was their responsibility to be on the front lines of a movement, sparked by the encyclical Mater et Magista in 1961, which defined Catholic education as addressing social education as much as spiritual matters. One of the key moments for MEP came at the Congreso Mundial de Pax Romana in Montevideo in July 1962. The congress, facilitated by Eduardo Frei and Gustavo Gutiérrez and with the theme “La Responsibilidad Social de la Universidad,” was where the seeds of liberation theology began to take root. Only nine years later, Father Gutiérrez would publish the revolutionary text A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation.76 No one had a better understanding of these broader social and religious movements than Pablo Yoruba Guzmán. As mentioned at the start of this chapter, in the winter/spring of 1969 Guzmán spent a semester in Cuernavaca, Mexico, studying under the direction of the radical priest Ivan Illich. The experience fundamentally changed his life and altered his political worldview. He left for Mexico with most people knowing him as “Paul” and returned demanding to be called “Pablo.”77 Guzmán’s time in Mexico opened his heart and mind to the power of student activism and to the philosophy swirling around a theology of liberation: the understanding that God stood on the side of the oppressed. Two important factors contributed to this. First, he arrived for his study term only three months after student uprisings at Tlatelolco plaza in Mexico City, where thirty-five students were killed and thousands more disappeared at the hands of police violence. That kind of state repression and violence, and the impassioned fight to push back against it, inspired Guzmán and radicalized his thinking. Second, he studied under the philosopher and Roman Catholic priest (later ex-priest) Ivan Illich, who in

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the 1960s opened the Center for Intercultural Documentation in Cuernavaca. The center “was part language school and part free university for intellectual hippies from all over the Americas.”78 Illich’s own political formation was shaped during his time in Washington Heights in the 1950s, when he served as parish priest for the barrio on the northern tip of Manhattan. Illich would go on to publish works critiquing Third World development coming from the colossus of the North. Guzmán came back to East Harlem equipped with a keen knowledge of liberation theology and the deep belief that “the hierarchy of the church has got to come down from up there in the sky and see what’s happening with the people.”79 Whenever the Young Lords cited the Bible or made points about the church’s responsibility to care for its community, they drew from the long line of grassroots and student activism—much of which took place outside the halls of the church—in Latin America. Agustín Laó first addressed this in an essay published in the 1990s, in which he correctly argued that the pedagogy and organizing model of the Young Lords Organization was similar to Latin American traditions of radical populism inspired by Christian-based communities. The Lords practiced a radical form of Christianity not only to assert the revolutionary politics of Jesus Christ, or simply to hold the church accountable, but to assert a politics that worked to forge authentic relationships with a community where religion and religious belief were the center of social life.80 This was liberation theology born on the streets of El Barrio.

Three Kings’ Day On Friday, January 2, 1970, Judge Hyman Korn ordered the Young Lords to end the occupation. In a remarkable statement, the judge made it a point to highlight the “laudable purposes” of the Young Lords’ occupation of the FSUMC. He served them a preliminary injunction that was read later that day on the steps of the church by Sheriff Robert E. Lee. “His Confederate namesake,” as Johanna Fernández noted, “struck the Young Lords and their supporters as downright comical.”81 As a light snow fell on early Wednesday morning, January 7, 1970, eleven days after the Lords first occupied the church, hundreds of police officers took positions around the peak-roofed church building and sealed off traffic. Police unhinged the front doors. As they had been instructed, the occupiers exited the building in groups of twenty into police vans.

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Figur e 3.6. Sheriffs escort the Young Lords out of the FSUMC, ending their elevenday occupation of the church building, January 7, 1970. Photo by Charles Ruppmann; New York Daily News archive/Getty Images.

As they walked out of the church, all 105 of them shouted “power to the people” and sang “Que Bonita Bandera.” Before being arrested, they cooked the last of the eggs and oatmeal and ate a predawn breakfast together.82 On some level it was appropriate that the occupation ended a day after Three Kings’ Day (El Día de los Reyes) on January 6, the day when the baby Jesus was showered with gifts by the three kings. For Latina/os in the United States and in Latin America, the Christmas holiday does not officially end until after this celebration. The Young Lords knew the end was coming. Rather than hold strong or plan retaliation, they made plans to party, dance, and celebrate their time together because “that’s what the Lords are all about,” Yoruba Guzmán told the New York Times.83 The group was taken to the courtroom of Justice Saul S. Streit, administrative judge of the New York Supreme Court, and charged with civil contempt for violating a court injunction that prohibited them from being within 100 feet of the church. That charge stemmed from the De-

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cember 7, 1969, arrest, when several members of the Young Lords were barred from coming closer. The same terms that had Felipe Luciano preaching 100 feet away from the church at the beginning of this chapter had now landed them in jail. As the bailiff called out each of their names, the Young Lords stood up and correctly pronounced each name in Spanish.84 Eight members of the Young Lords were ordered to appear in Manhattan Criminal Court on April 13, 1970: Felipe Luciano, Joseph Hill, Mirta González, Salvador Díaz, Erika Sezonov, David Velasquez, Denise Oliver, and Benjamin Martinez. Charges were brought by leaders of the FSUMC with the approval of local Methodist church leaders across the city.85 As a way to negotiate a resolution, Judge Streit asked the former Bronx borough president and mayoral candidate Herman Badillo to step in and mediate. While Badillo negotiated a resolution behind the scenes, eighty-four church leaders, mostly Methodist ministers, and laypeople— from a variety of denominations—filed an amicus curiae brief asking that the charges be dropped against all eight defendants. Included in this list were Methodist church leaders from the highest positions in the denomination, including the Reverend Charles S. Spivey, executive director of the Department of Social Justice of the National Council of Churches, and the Reverend Howard E. Spragg, head of the Board of Missions for the United Methodist Church. These religious leaders, representing multiple Protestant denominations, did what Catholic church leaders never did—including PADRES—in the case against Católicos in Los Angeles: they asked that charges against the Young Lords be dropped. In the amicus curiae filing, they stated: “We emphatically declare our conviction that the church cannot honestly and adequately deal with these dilemmas and issues by resorting to the power of the courts and the police. The church must identify herself with the weak and the poor and their needs.”86 The question of the church and its relationship to the community, they argued, falls squarely within Methodist church policy. “An injunction would reinforce the feeling that the church is merely an arm of society which has created and perpetuated the ghetto in which the Young Lords and others live.”87 They referenced the Book of Discipline of the Methodist church and cited one section: “The local church is a strategic base from which Christians move out to the structures of society.” With an eye toward their recognition of the Latina/o freedom movements across the country, and a growing sense of Latinidad, the signers referenced a statement made by a group of Latino clergy in Chicago. “De-

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lano, Tierra Amarilla, Spanish Harlem, Yoruba, Chicano Moratorium, Young Lords,” the Latino clergy argued, “all these names and places and groups faithfully begin to tell the story of our plight, our hope, and our destiny.”88 The charges were eventually dropped, in part because of the amicus curiae brief but also because of the agreement that Herman Badillo negotiated between the Young Lords and the church. As a result, the FSUMC agreed to establish a narcotics center, a housing program, and a day-care center. They fell short on all of these.89 The church hosted a solidarity service—a “Freedom of Worship” service—the very next Sunday after the Young Lords were forced out (January 18, 1970), which was attended by more than 1,200 people, mostly Latina/o evangelicals. The interest in the service was so high that the church held three separate services in order to accommodate everyone. Most of the people who attended sided with the church and rejected any idea that what the Young Lords did had anything to do with Christianity. On the Sunday morning of the solidarity service, the Young Lords also showed up, only to find the doors were locked and guarded by several police officers. They proceeded with their plan anyway: they pulled out boxes of cold cereal and milk cartons, and fed breakfast to about twenty to thirty young kids who walked by that morning. When they learned that the church was in fact hosting a special service later that afternoon, they returned, only to find police outside the church making sure everyone going inside had a ticket. The Freedom of Worship service was by invitation only.90 By the summer of 1970 the Reverend Humberto Carranza had been relocated to another Methodist church in the Bronx. Both Carranza and the Methodist denominational leadership believed that having a Puerto Rican pastor was in the church’s best interest. That move did not stop the Young Lords from occupying the church a second time in the fall of 1970. During this second occupation, the Lords came close to what Lorrin Thomas called “revolutionary violence”: they occupied the church armed with guns.91 The impetus this time was to protest police brutality and violence after the suspected murder of a Young Lord member, Julio Roldán, while in police custody. Roldán had been arrested for loitering and locked up for the night; the police claimed that he hanged himself. Believing that Roldán had been killed by police officers, activists from multiple New Left organizations, with guns hidden in the casket and accompanied by approximately two thousand marchers, carried his body to the First Spanish United Methodist Church. There, the Young Lords occupied it again, this time demanding the establishment of a legal

Figur e 3.7. Young Lords guarding Julio Roldán’s casket before it was moved from the FSUMC, October 19, 1970. Photo by John Pedin; New York Daily News Archive/ Getty Images.

Figur e 3.8. Felipe Luciano addressing a crowd outside the FSUMC, “Second People’s Church,” 1970. © copyright Hiram Maristany; courtesy of Hiram Maristany.

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defense center and the formation of a clergy-based committee to investigate jail conditions. The following month, after a peaceful end to the second occupation, two Young Lords, David Perez and Marta Duarte, traveled to Los Angeles to attend the United Methodist Board of Missions conference in order to ask for funds to establish a legal defense center in the church. The legal defense center never came into being. Within two years the Young Lords started to come undone. The decline of the Young Lords was a result of several factors that all converged in the early 1970s: Central Intelligence Agency informants infiltrated the group, the organization moved away from its barrio base to start organizing in Puerto Rico, and it became focused on ideological politics. That more than anything took the Young Lords away from their roots as barrio activists whose work emerged out of the community. The First Spanish United Methodist Church also experienced changes. After some early pastoral candidates who did not work out, the church settled on the Reverend Pedro Pirone in May 1971. He was an interesting choice. Confirming the calls that the Young Lords had made only two years earlier and signaling the new direction toward social service of Latina/o churches in the 1970s, Pirone became an active member of East Harlem Interfaith, a coalition of churches working on criminal justice reform, housing, schools, and drug abuse prevention.

Conclusion Writing for the book that would accompany the museum exhibits in New York City on the Young Lords in 2015, Johanna Fernández reminds us that during that eleven-day occupation “the People’s Church became the staging ground for a ‘Nuyorican identity.’ .  .  . At the First Spanish United Methodist Church, the Young Lords established a precedent for the Nuyorican poets café . . . a vibrant, multicultural New York city institution and forum for poetry, music, hip hop, video, visual arts, comedy, and theater—as well as for El Museo del Barrio . . . these eleven days electrified the neighborhood, inspiring not just artists but progressives from across the city.” Celebrities including Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland and the salsa musicians Ray Barretto, Joe Bataan, and Joe Cuba showed up to lend their support.92 The Young Lords also had the support of Black Methodists for Church Renewal, which included the Young Lords as “part of the parish and part of the people.”93 Occupation was a social experiment—a political action—that took

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on spiritual tones almost immediately. The First Spanish United Methodist Church, with its medical rooms, piles of clothing, and children eating breakfast, was transformed from a stale church building into a sacred space and a home for outcasts, for those on the margins, and for those who felt alienated and abandoned by religious institutions, particularly Christianity. And there was no better place to do this than in East Harlem, where the churches—Pentecostal and Catholic—covered the concrete landscape and made the borough a natural stage for the revolutionary politics of the Young Lords. It was a perfect match. The occupation captured people’s imaginations; as Felipe Luciano remembered, “we owned it, we supported it, we nurtured it .  .  . we took care of our kids, and we were free. We had rallies, we had movies, and we felt free in there.”94 And the Young Lords had their supporters. In the days after they were arrested and escorted out of FSUMC, white Methodist churches across the city were disrupted by small groups of sympathizers and students from Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University. They were there to remind Methodist churches of their social responsibilities and to demand support for the Young Lords. Those same students occupied the offices of the United Methodist Church at 475 Riverside Drive. The group invaded the fourteenth-floor offices of the Board of Missions and demanded that the church drop the charges against the Young Lords, calling for an end to “the police occupation of black and brown communities.”95 Occupying the church was a way to reclaim not solely an institution but an experience that they recognized as theirs, an understanding of the sacred—a political spirituality—organic to them and their experiences living in East Harlem, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. While scholars are beginning to pay attention to the radical and revolutionary nationalist politics of the Young Lords, some scholars such as José Cruz have asserted that their contributions have been overblown. Cruz characterized the New York Young Lords as a “blip on the radar screen” of Puerto Rican politics, a fleeting political moment of reckless radicalism that did little to actually improve the lives of most Puerto Ricans.96 Such a narrow view not only ignores the legacy of the Young Lords but fails to understand them within their own context. As young people they reflected the political angst of their day, reflecting the broader concerns of urban America and its collaborations with religious institutions. Their occupation of the FSUMC reflects not only the plight of urban politics but the transformation of religious politics in particular.

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This was not part of the thirteen-point program, but it has become a legacy that has forever tied together the First Spanish United Methodist Church and the Young Lords. The point that Cruz misses but Iris Morales beautifully articulates is that this is not a matter of how much attention one group gets in the newspapers or whether or not its movements were “successful” in some way but is really about how the Young Lords “engaged a generation.”97 The occupation of FSUMC, as Agustín Laó argued, “inscribed the Young Lords Organization in the global wave of radicalism of the late sixties and seventies.”98 Although the Young Lords’ fire faded in the mid-1970s, their legacy has not. They engaged a generation by celebrating African and indigenous ancestry and culture: as Denise Oliver put it, they organized against a “colonized mentality” and forced white, black, and Latina/o Christians to come to terms with their responsibilities to their surrounding communities.99 As the following chapter shows, the Young Lords paved the way for religious insiders—Latina/o clergy and lay leaders—to finally assert their power as agents of social and theological change. After years of sounding like “far off thunder” and making minimal gains as a legitimate force, Latina/o religious leaders entered the 1970s with a clear path. The next ten years would prove to be a defining period for the making and development of Latina/o religion. Like the running back who takes the ball in from the one-yard line after the wide receiver’s Hail Mary catch, Latina/o religious leaders were about to score a touchdown thanks to the Hail Marys of the Young Lords in Chicago and New York, Católicos Por La Raza in Los Angeles, and the Mexican American Youth Organization in Houston in 1970, where another church was occupied in a neighborhood where white flight opened new possibilities for the Chicana/o community.

Chapter Four

Magic in Houston’s Northside Barrio

The events occurring since the MAYO takeover of the Christ Presbyterian Church have been amazing and beautiful. In six short days an oppressed, poverty-stricken community has awakened to the first joys of controlling its own destiny. The church building has become the Northside People’s Center. Sherwood Bishop, Space City News, February 1970

T

he shouts of “hypocrites, hypocrites” had long gone silent by the time the Reverend José Burgos became pastor of the Juan Marcos Presbyterian Church in Houston’s Northside barrio. Three years had passed since activists from the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) occupied the church for twenty days in the spring of 1970. “But what happened here three years ago is one of the reasons I took this church,” Burgos commented to the Houston Post; “it was an awakening experience, a realization that the church cannot isolate itself from the community.”1 That a radical Mexican American organization would occupy a church building was not a new idea to Burgos. During his time as pastor of the Emmanuel Presbyterian Church, located in the heart of Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood, he played an integral role in the negotiations that helped end the Young Lords occupation of McCormick Theological Seminary. While he did not agree that the church should provide funds for the YLO, he supported the Young Lords’ work and believed in the power of building coalitions between Latino pastors and radical activists, a relationship riddled with tensions and possibilities. The Reverend Burgos had been active in movements for educational

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reform in Chicago and in pressuring grocery stores to boycott nonunion grapes. He did not consider himself a radical by any stretch of the imagination and was often critical of groups like the Young Lords and MAYO, but he did work on behalf of the Latina/o community in securing resources and creating opportunities to build better neighborhoods. He arrived in Houston in 1973, fully aware of the challenges before him but with a new social and theological philosophy that projected a Gospel rooted in neighborhood politics and Mexican American identity. His vision for the Northside neighborhood in general and the Juan Marcos Church in particular mirrored many of the same ideas that MAYO activists envisioned in 1970: to use part of the church building for a daycare center, provide a health-care clinic, and make a case worker available to help counsel young people. “This is a Mexican American church,” he told the Houston Post, “and we are proud of it. . . . We will never be Anglos and we don’t want to be.”2 Burgos’s words were a sharp departure from the situation only three years earlier when MAYO activists first occupied the Juan Marcos Presbyterian Church. But this was Houston, the city where “Selma meets Aztlán,” according to Roberto Treviño, whose history reflects both southern and western politics.3 Moreover, it is a city governed by the religious piety of white southern Protestants—Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists—whose influence stretches out to every corner of the city and state. Unlike the cities covered in the previous chapters, Houston in the late 1960s was still evolving, still shifting, still growing with an everexpanding highway system that paved the way for it to become the global metropolis that it is today. It is also the least studied of the cities covered in this book. Houston remains, as Kyle Shelton called it, the “unknown metropolis.”4 It beat out regional rivals to gain supremacy in oil and gas and become, as Phillip Sinitiere put it, the “megachurch capital of twentyfirst century metropolitan areas.”5 It is home to the largest evangelical church in the United States, Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church, which preaches the gospel of prosperity in the midst of never-ending highways and concrete. In 1900 Houston was 9 square miles. Today it is well over 600 square miles, with nonexistent zoning laws that have strip clubs, malls, and churches down the street from each other. And never-ending highways that carried white Houstonians from the inner city to the suburbs in the years after World War II. This is the world where Mexican Americans in barrios across the city rose up to fight back against educational discrimination, police brutality, and the highways that threatened their neighborhoods. In 1978, for example, Mexican Americans rioted to

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protest the police killing of José Campos Torres. More than forty people were arrested, dozens hospitalized, and property damage reached into the thousands as years of racist interactions with police exploded in Moody Park, which just happened to be located across the street from Juan Marcos Presbyterian Church.6 The Moody Park riots remain etched in the minds of Houstonians because they reflected the tensions brewing within a barrio in the midst of rapid transformation. The big things of history happen in small ways in barrios: people form community and speak in a particular way, and social movements rise in response to the displacement, uneven development, and infrastructural deficits. Such was the case of Houston’s Northside barrio, which was transformed from a predominantly ethnic white neighborhood at the end of World War II to a predominantly Mexican American barrio by the end of the 1960s. That demographic transition, the suburban development it fueled, and the economic challenges left behind are at the heart of MAYO’s occupation of the Juan Marcos Presbyterian Church in 1970.

MAYO Magic On a cold and wet Sunday morning on February 15, 1970, Alex Rodriguez broke a window at the empty Christ Presbyterian Church (later renamed Juan Marcos Presbyterian Church) in Houston’s Northside neighborhood at 3600 Fulton Street. It was a break large enough for a child from the neighborhood to climb in, unlock the door, and let other members of the Mexican American Youth Organization into the church.7 The whole thing was magical—or at least that is how MAYO made it sound at the time. Yolanda Garza Birdwell and Alex Rodriguez described the moment when they took over the church that Sunday morning: “MAYO through the use of ‘magical powers’ had entered the building.”8 Once inside, they renamed the church the “Northside People’s Center” and got to work. This was 1970, after all. Richard Nixon had just wrapped up his first year in office, and every threat to cut social programs that benefited poor and working people seemed to be coming true. “We immediately called the press, we called the Brazos Presbytery,” Gregory Salazar remembered. “We needed a flow of people because the key to keeping the building was the community.”9 In the first few hours, MAYO activists hopped in a car and drove through the neighborhood with a loudspeaker, in-

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viting community members to come see the building. And they came from around the corner and from the nearby Irvington Village apartment complex. The first night, sixty people from the local National Welfare Rights Organization gathered inside the church to discuss pending cuts under Nixon. The following day MAYO offered art classes and Chicano history lessons and facilitated a discussion on black/brown tensions. On the third day women from the neighborhood cooked and served breakfast— eggs, bacon, and juice—to more than forty children.10 There was an air of invincibility, as if MAYO could fi x anything in the Northside. And for a brief time it did. When the Brazos Presbytery, in a desperate and cruel act, cut the gas and the electricity to the building, MAYO activists simply brought in lamps and a Coleman camping stove to cook breakfast.11 Inside the church they did everything right. “MAYO had taken spotlessly good care [of the church],” Presbyterian leaders grudgingly reported.12 And when the Presbytery threatened police action, MAYO activist Yolanda Birdwell responded by saying, “If going to jail is the price I have to pay then I will pay it.”13 The occupation of a church was a far-out idea, quite alien to any of the first visions that MAYO had for the Northside. First, MAYO was in chaos in the summer of 1969. “Barrio” MAYO (called that to differentiate it from the MAYO chapter at the University of Houston) lacked leadership, discipline, and an agenda.14 That summer Gregory Salazar and Alex Rodriguez, recent high school graduates and activists with the Students for a Democratic Society, visited MAYO activists newly returned from their trip to Chicago for the SDS national convention in Chicago. The trip to Chicago, sponsored by the Space City News, which Salazar wrote for on occasion, afforded them both a view of big-time community organizing up close.15 Salazar and Rodriguez met with Cha Cha Jiménez and crossed paths with Fred Hampton. It was a revolutionary and life-changing experience. More importantly, during this trip Jiménez shared stories of their own fights against urban renewal and their takeovers of the McCormick Theological Seminary and the Armitage Methodist Church. “Taking over a church is not something we would have thought of on our own,” Rodriguez admitted to me. “We could see doing something like that and duplicate the kinds of programs they had.”16 The idea intrigued Salazar and Rodriguez during their visit to Chicago, but nothing more. Once back in Houston, and with a new energy after seeing the level of organization in Chicago, Rodriguez and Salazar met with Pon-

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cho Ruiz, Carlos Calbillo, Benito Maldonado, Yolanda Garza Birdwell, and her husband, Walter Birdwell, at the MAYO office in the Northside, which they shared with the United Farm Workers (UFW) and the Brown Berets. But it was Yolanda who “stuck out like a sore thumb,” Salazar later remembered. “Here is this very Mexican-like and bourgeoiselooking woman in the middle of all these crazies from the Northside. . . . In her perfect Spanish and broken English, she had an image.”17 That image stuck with Salazar. Birdwell was born and raised in Mexico, in the northern state of Tamaulipas, and lived there until the age of eighteen. Her parents first immigrated as children with their families during the early twentieth century to pick cotton in and around the Houston area. After her parents met and married, they decided to move back to Mexico in the 1940s in order to raise a family. When she immigrated to Houston in the late 1950s, Birdwell lived with her grandmother in one of the city’s historic Mexican neighborhoods, El Segundo Barrio (second ward neighborhood). She got to work right away learning English and finding her freedom as a Mexican woman in Houston. After her first marriage ended, she moved to the Montrose neighborhood, where she held a number of jobs to support her only son and make a living for herself. It was in Montrose, an eclectic and politically active area, that she first became enamored with the antiwar movement and the movement for women’s rights. She worked a number of odd jobs, from babysitter at a Baptist church to attendant at a laundromat, often walking to work during the early hours dressed like a man to deflect attention and keep herself safe. She met her second husband, Walter Birdwell, in the Montrose area in the 1960s. They pledged to have an unconventional marriage, centered on community activism and focused on serving the community. When they decided to work with MAYO, Yolanda was the only one in the group who spoke Spanish and Walter was the only white person in the group.18 On those two points alone, MAYO distinguished itself as an organization in the Northside that could communicate to families in Spanish and was open to working with both white and black activists in the area. The day that Salazar met the Birdwells he knew right away that Yolanda was the right person to help organize MAYO. They hit it off almost immediately. In the coming years, Salazar and Birdwell would become the spokespersons for MAYO, representing a sleek and sophisticated image with a no-holds-barred attitude that at times went off the rails.19 By the fall of 1969 Salazar and Birdwell had managed to get control of MAYO’s leadership by getting themselves elected as spokes-

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Figur e 4.1. MAYO Liberates Church, artwork by Gregory Salazar, 1970. Gregory Salazar Papers, MSS 369 B3 F5, Houston Public Library, HMRC.

persons for MAYO. This meant that they talked to media outlets, negotiated with political leaders, and were the faces of the organization. While Salazar and Birdwell were bold, articulate, and savvy, the positions that MAYO took as an organization seemed to leave little room for negotiation or imagination, especially when dealing with matters of religion. From the beginning, MAYO made it clear that religion and the church were “the enemy of the people. . . . Beginning with the Conquistadores the church has stolen our own lands, murdered our Indian ancestors, perverted and exploited Indian culture, and today it continues its oppression of the poor.”20 Of all the groups studied in this book, MAYO’s positions are the most antagonistic toward the church and religion. The organization was not looking to make a religious statement of any kind or even claim some political connection to the rising stream of liberation theology in Latin America, as the Young Lords did in New York City. MAYO’s entire justification in occupying the Juan Marcos Church was to make the political point that “the church belonged to the people,” as their Chicana/o counterparts in Los Angeles had made known.21

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MAYO: Boy Scouts in Texas For Mexican Americans in Houston in the late 1960s, MAYO was the single most important radical organization for nurturing race, gender, and political consciousness.22 The idea to organize MAYO as a statewide movement first emerged in San Antonio in 1967 at a place called the Fountain Bar, located on the campus of St Mary’s University.23 Led by the charismatic José Ángel Gutiérrez, MAYO, like the Young Lords, drew inspiration from the black freedom movement and in particular the activism of the Black Panthers and SNCC. They followed the confrontational strategies of Saul Alinsky and his methods for organizing. They dismissed the diplomatic politics of the past, represented by the rhetoric and behavior of groups like the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and the American GI Forum, as being obsolete in this new and radical milieu of the late 1960s. One of MAYO’s founders in San Antonio, Mario Compeán, articulated MAYO’s philosophy this way in an interview with historian Ignacio García: “What we needed was an approach similar to what the Black Movement was using . . . demonstrating, marching in the streets. To that we incorporated a Saul Alinsky component of confrontational politics. And we said that was going to be the strategy MAYO was going to be using. Use confrontational politics based on information well researched but also foregoing the use of nice language.”24 While their politics were confrontational, they called themselves MAYO because it sounded “boy scoutish” and did not come across as abrasive or militant. They were smart, articulate, gutsy, and bold and, most importantly, understood the US political system, which quickly gave them a solid reputation even as it made them an easy target for some of the old-guard Mexican American leaders such as Henry B. González. González accused MAYO leaders in San Antonio of “drawing fire from the deepest wellsprings of hate.”25 Regardless of the criticism, MAYO was the vanguard in the late 1960s, and González’s rhetoric mostly came across as naïve and anachronistic. The historian David Montejano found that by 1969 “MAYO was one of the most active and most militant Chicano organizations in the Southwest, with more than forty chapters in Texas alone.”26 As a community-centered group at the forefront of educational and political activism in Texas during the late 1960s and early 1970s, MAYO organized movements and campaigns that directly benefited the community. The group also made its claims across the state: MAYO chapters

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Figur e 4.2. From left to right: Yolanda Garza Birdwell, Poncho Ruiz, and Gregory Salazar at the Juan Marcos Presbyterian Church, February 1970. Houston Post photographs, RGD006N-1970-0713004, Houston Public Library, HMRC.

led school walkouts, organized mass demonstrations against the war in Vietnam, stood in solidarity with the community in Mathis after it suffered devastating damage from a hurricane in 1970, and gave rise to La Raza Unida Party, a Mexican American political party in Texas in the 1970s. According to Ignacio García, they were “precursors of change in Texas.”27 But MAYO’s politics in Houston differed from those in other areas of the state. MAYO practiced a political orientation necessary in a multiracial metropolis where racial and class tensions were suffocating. Because of its racial/ethnic diversity, suburban sprawl, and mix of southern and western cultures, Houston is unlike any city in Texas. This context shaped MAYO as a movement open to coalition building and pragmatic politics more so than some of their peers in other parts of the state.

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They were savvy, they traveled and met with activists across the state and country, and they cared deeply about raising the level of political consciousness for an ethnic Mexican community too often thought of as “passive and quiet.”28 But even more importantly, MAYO’s politics were driven by a deep and abiding love for the Northside barrio. The members of MAYO forged coalitions, worked with white liberals, and addressed the intersections of race, class, and gender in their neighborhood and across the city. Their basic tactic was disruption; they wanted to force people to listen to them. They lived out these tenets every day that they occupied the Juan Marcos Church. They welcomed families into the church, held workshops on black/brown solidarity, and were carefully attentive to the division of labor among women and men. They invited white college students from Rice University to help clean up the church, community members donated groceries, they had a clothing giveaway, and they played games together, including softball at nearby Moody Park.29 As an organization still trying to find its footing, not really well known in the Northside, much less the city of Houston, the occupation gave MAYO much-needed press, made it a recognized force in the city, and got it into the two major Houston newspapers of the time: the Houston Post and Houston Chronicle. In a community in transition and a neighborhood that offered its residents few resources and opportunities, MAYO’s occupation—however brief and tenuous—envisioned a new possibility for the Northside that included community participation and control of institutions. This is particularly important in view of the demographic transformation that was taking place at the time.

Northside Tr ansitions The Northside was once an area heavily populated by Italians, Germans, Poles, and Czechs, but by 1960 Mexican Americans and African Americans made up about half of the neighborhood’s population. By 1970 the neighborhood was more than 65 percent black and brown.30 To drive this point home, note that Mexican Americans accounted for 6.3  percent of the total population of Harris County (which included Houston) in 1960, but either were the majority or were close to it in barrios from the Northside to the area known as El Segundo Barrio. The Northside was only one of several historic Mexican American barrios in Houston that started to take shape with Mexican migration from other parts of Texas and Mexico in the early twentieth century. While

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their numbers were initially low, by 1920 Mexican Americans numbered around 20,000. Most Mexicans worked in the newly developed Houston Ship Channel, with the railroads on the north and east sides, or as tailors, cooks, and clerks in the city’s booming service industry.31 They settled in the east end of the city, near downtown, in neighborhoods such as El Segundo Barrio (located along Buffalo Bayou close to downtown) and El Crisol in Denver Harbor, which developed around the Southern Pacific Railroad yards. By 1930 Magnolia Park (located southeast of the second ward) had become the city’s largest barrio. The Heights neighborhood, located west of the Northside across Interstate 45, also had a sizable Mexican population.32 With neighborhood growth came the establishment of mutual-aid organizations, cultural/recreational clubs, and churches.33 One of the most historic churches, Our Lady of Guadalupe, opened in 1912 in El Segundo Barrio, and a decade later the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church opened in Magnolia Park. Our Lady of Sorrows was established in the Denver Harbor area in 1930. Each of these churches became an important institution for the ethnic Mexican population. These were barrios where, as Roberto Treviño argued, Mexican American Catholics mixed together family and faith in “a world in which the temporal and the spiritual flowed continually into each other.”34 Catholic churches in the barrio provided a space for community formation, an orientation for new migrants, and a space where people could live out their faith. But they also provided spaces for the Mexican American community to organize on issues that affected their barrios: highway development and lack of educational opportunities. Houston was, and in many ways continues to be, a city soaked in racial tensions and anti-Mexican sentiment. The clearest example of this is found in the very barrios where Mexicans fi rst called home, where underdevelopment and a crumbling infrastructure were the result of a private-sector policy that neglected social services to neighborhoods.35 A free-market, laissez-faire approach has marked Houston city government, which has historically cared more about its growing suburbs than about its inner city. In the 1960s and 1970s the inner city was plagued by “inadequate infrastructures (including unpaved streets, inadequate water and sewer capacity, nonexistent street lighting, decaying telephone and electrical lines).”36 That neglect and the new suburban developments connected by freshly laid highways are the reasons why the church first known as Christ Presbyterian Church (later Juan Marcos) decided to close its doors in October 1969.37 Over the course of a decade,

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from 1960 to 1970, the church slowly lost its membership to the suburbs. When the church closed, the Brazos Presbytery, the local administrative arm of the Presbyterian Church US, took control of the building with possible plans to turn it into a community center. Even before it officially closed, its membership recommended that the building be turned into a community center. That idea took on new relevance after the Brazos Presbytery put up a sign outside the church that read: “This Church is not for sale. It will remain here to be used by the people who live in this community.”38 The sign was a good-faith effort to signal to members of the Northside community that the presbytery was interested in collaborating with them. This is what helped initiate an unlikely conversation between the Brazos Presbytery and the Mexican American radicals from MAYO.39

Ecumenical Activism When MAYO started negotiating with the Brazos Presbytery, it stepped into a parallel world of ecumenical activism in Houston that brought churches together—from Catholics to Southern Baptists— around “War on Poverty” programs. Under the banner of Houston Metropolitan Ministries, churches across the city offered their space for antipoverty programs and for lay and religious leaders to volunteer their time for social action programs hosted by churches. The loudest voice for these programs was the Reverend Wallace B. Poteat, a local minister of the Ecumenical Fellowship United Church of Christ (UCC). In 1966 the UCC’s grassroots antipoverty organization became one of the official sponsors of a program called the “Lack Project,” which welcomed a steady stream of Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) helpers. The Lack Project, which was part of the War on Poverty programs active in the city and organized by the ecumenical council of the United Church of Christ directed by Poteat, was the first grassroots and ecumenical organization in Houston to focus on antipoverty efforts among Houston’s black, white, and Mexican American communities. The project was conceived as a way to bring faith communities in Houston to join the War on Poverty effort and in essence to “be an instrument of mission for local churches.”40 Aimed at attracting white middle-class churches to volunteer and donate money, the Lack Project provided opportunities for church members from across the city to volunteer in poor neighborhoods. On sev-

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eral occasions it requested and received permission from churches to use their space to hold VISTA programs that tutored young children and provided health-care services for the neighborhood. Some churches took it one step further by establishing their own programs for child care and health care for people in need. The Lack Project influenced an entire cadre of ministers, many of whom belonged to the Brazos Presbytery, to have their churches partner with VISTA programs throughout the city. Some fift y-two churches, Catholic and Protestant, participated in the project in the 1960s. One of those, surprisingly enough, was the wealthy First Presbyterian Church, which later would calmly and very politely condemn MAYO for advocating work that the church had already engaged in during the Lack Project. Probably the most ambitious, ecumenical, and interethnic venture was the building of Oxford Place, an interfaith housing project cosponsored with the Episcopal Church. The apartment complex on the Northside offered government subsidized rent and a number of social service programs, English classes, and day care for its mostly Mexican American and African American residents. The Oxford Place staff was black, brown, and white and belonged to multiple religious groups. Its director, Lupe Maciel, represented a shift away from the competition between Mexican American Protestants and Catholics, as he brought groups to work together for a common cause. Both Oxford Place and the Lack Project saw themselves as vastly different from traditional welfare agencies in that they aimed to “help people break the dependency on charity, paternalism, and on the welfare system.”41 But even with a history of collaboration and ecumenical activism, this was still Houston, a southern city where white supremacy lived just beneath the veneer of opportunity. For many, that possibility, in the form of a racial and ecumenical movement, posed a threat, especially when linked with federal dollars provided by the VISTA program. The idea that federal dollars were being directed to programs that benefited poor people, especially poor black and brown people, motivated some in the Ship Channel–Harrisburg area to post “Whites Only” signs at local businesses where black and brown people shopped and did laundry. Regardless, the two organizations set up educational classes, teaching citizenship and English, and a day-care center, as well as screening free movies and providing entertainment for neighborhood youth.42 Even after the Lack Project office building was burned to the ground by racist arsonists in 1967, the program stayed strong into the 1970s, bringing people from across Houston’s religious landscapes to work on behalf of poor communities in the city.43

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This sort of ecumenical activism should have prepared the Brazos Presbytery for working with MAYO: after all, in its call for the church to provide social services MAYO was simply following a religious trend already at work. Presbyterians across the city, and in fact across the nation, had long been involved in this work. But Presbyterians saw MAYO’s position as a group of outsiders, somewhat antagonistic to religion, as a threat. MAYO did in fact have experience with churches. Aside from having many members who grew up Catholic, MAYO had a keen sense of where they could partner and which institutions might actually listen. First on the list was another important Northside institution, Holy Name Catholic Church. For a brief time in the fall of 1969, MAYO sold breakfast tacos and menudo after Sunday morning mass to raise money for their causes. The church, as Alex Rodriguez put it, has “money and that’s why we are here.”44 In October 1969 MAYO activists set twelve demands before Catholic Charities, which included ending the patronizing attitude and making the Galveston-Houston diocese more responsive to the needs of Mexican Americans, among others. Aurelio Montemayor, an activist from Del Rio, Texas, chastised the Catholic church for supporting the war and promised that these efforts would not stop until the Catholic church took MAYO and its demands seriously.45 The demands set forth by MAYO took place before PADRES was officially launched in a context where both nominal and committed Catholics began to make specific demands on the Catholic church. One of the most important of the calls had taken place in San Antonio just a few months earlier. On May 13, 1969, more than seventy concerned Mexican American Catholics gathered in Los Arcos Restaurant in San Antonio, Texas. Organized by state commissioner Albert Peña Jr., the discussion focused on the transfer of three beloved priests from San Antonio without any community input: Sherrill Smith, Henry Casso, and Raul Ruiz. With the Presbyterian Church in the USA General Assembly in the background—where Obed López was building a case for the Young Lords—Chicana/os planned a protest against the Catholic church through an economic boycott: all Chicana/os would be asked to withhold any financial contribution to the church at Sunday mass. In the spirit of Vatican II and the energy and politics of Católicos Por La Raza, Chicana/os in Texas made it clear that the closing of schools and relocating of priests would not be tolerated. “We feel as a laity under Vatican II,” they argued, “that we have the right and obligation to concern ourselves with church matters. We are concerned with the transfer of priests who relate to the Mexicano and to La Causa.”46

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Although the work of the group of angry Chicana/o Catholics in Texas and Católicos Por La Raza never intersected, they were part of a constellation of struggles to push back strongly against one of the most powerful institutions in the community, the Catholic church. MAYO received no response from Catholic Charities. The silence of the Catholic church made the Presbyterian option the final hope for any movement by churches. At the encouragement of their mentor and friend, Leonel Castillo, MAYO leaders submitted a proposal to the Brazos Presbytery.

From Christ Presbyterian to Juan Marcos MAYO was one of several organizations that submitted a proposal to the Brazos Presbytery for access to the empty Christ Presbyterian Church. PASO (Political Association of Spanish-Speaking Organizations), ELLA (a Chicana rights organization), and a welfare rights organization all made it known that they were interested in using the building. MAYO’s proposal included funds for a “Chicano library,” access to the church sanctuary at least five times a month for large gatherings, salaries for members who would run the community center, a travel budget, medical supplies, a typewriter, books, and art materials.47 Throughout the rest of the fall and into the winter of 1969, the presbytery stayed in conversation with MAYO leaders and gave the impression that it was interested in partnering with the Chicana/o rights organization. But it turns out that the proposals remained in a stack, unread, in the presbytery administrator William Fogleman’s office. MAYO and other groups were strung along, believing that their proposals were receiving consideration. They were not. The Brazos Presbytery kept promising that a decision would be made, lauding MAYO for following the proper channels, and encouraging it to trust the process. The conversations continued on and off for the next few months, dragging over the Christmas holidays and into 1970.48 By late January, only days before MAYO occupied the building, a Presbytery administrator admitted that “I don’t think it is totally unfounded that we led them to believe that they would be part of the future of Christ Church. . . . I don’t think it is totally without validity that they can claim betrayal.”49 From the beginning, the Brazos Presbytery had no intention of letting MAYO use the building. Or at least the presbytery was not the one that would make the final decision. Five days before MAYO occupied the building, the Brazos Presbytery approved a

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proposal from the congregation of the Juan Marcos Church to move into the building.50 Located only a few miles away at 1617 Johnson Street, but in what was known as the sixth ward, this was a fairly new congregation that formed with the merger of two churches in 1966: El Divino Redentor and Juan Pastor Presbyterian churches in 1966. But an old and dilapidated church building and the neighborhood’s changing demographics (the community was becoming African American) prompted the members of the Juan Marcos Church to consider relocating to the heavily Mexican Northside neighborhood. When the building was handed over, it came as a surprise to MAYO activists, who were not aware that this was in the works. Almost overnight the decision about who could use the building was transferred from the all-white Brazos Presbytery to an all ethnic Mexican church, Juan Marcos. And things did not go well for MAYO. The first decision that the Reverend Ruben Armendariz, pastor of Juan Marcos Church, made was to deny MAYO the opportunity to use the building. He believed in the spirit of MAYO’s plans but also wanted to maintain clear boundaries between what was perceived as spiritual and what might be seen as a traditional community center.51 This was not so much a problem of theology—Presbyterians have a long history of social service work—as a question of keeping strict boundaries between “insiders” and “outsiders,” a common practice in working-class churches like Juan Marcos. The Reverend Armendariz conceded that “some militants are making some improvement among the poor” but claimed that was not the function of the church or at least not this church. To be fair, the congregation of Juan Marcos Church did put forward their own rather impressive pitch to the Brazos Presbytery to use the building. In addition to regular church functions, church leaders planned to host a “center for cultural showing, a library of Mexican history, leadership classes, voter registration center, health clinic, and bilingual classes for adults.”52 This sort of social engagement, as Matthew Pehl argued, asserts that one of the functions of religion and churches is to “instruct people about their history, morality, and identity.”53 Juan Marcos leaders blessed these social programs because they would be administered and handled by the religious “insiders,” by the people who see spiritual formation as the church’s central role. MAYO retaliated, calling the plan “patronizing and objectionable,” and rejected the idea of a “Mexican library,” noting that “our interest is in Mexican-American history, a part of this country, not the history of a foreign country.”54 Five days after the Juan Marcos

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Church denied MAYO use of what was still an empty building, MAYO occupied the church.

Occupation and R acist Churches in Houston Soon after occupying the building, MAYO activists got to work cruising down the street, inviting families, organizing a breakfast program, and preparing to offer art and Chicano history classes. The Brazos Presbytery and the Juan Marcos Church panicked, resulting in namecalling. MAYO called the Juan Marcos pastor, the Reverend Ruben Armendariz, a “tío Thomas” (Uncle Tom), and the pastor called out MAYO leaders for their lack of Christian faith.55 The leadership of the Brazos Presbytery remained concerned that it would be labeled racist, especially given the history of racial tensions between African American and white Protestants in Houston. In previous years, white churches in Houston had made a public display of preventing African Americans from joining their churches. One case in point was brought up at a membership confirmation meeting at the First Presbyterian Church (the largest and oldest Presbyterian church in the city) when a church elder stood up and asked his fellow elders: “Did you all see the picture of the First Baptist Church where the pastor was not allowing black people to come in?”56 He was referring to K. Owen White at the First Baptist Church, off Lamar Street, which prohibited black people from becoming members or even attending the church. Soon thereafter, members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) showed up outside the downtown church with signs that read “How Can a Christian Church Be Segregated?” and “Respect for Human Dignity Is All We Ask.”57 Protests continued each Sunday for more than a month. The racial tensions at church, as David Cameron argued, were exacerbated by changing demographics in the inner city and white flight to the suburbs. White Protestant churches that lined the downtown streets were faced with a dilemma in the 1950s and 1960s: either adapt to changes or move out to the suburbs. Of course, they moved out. “As the population of African American and Mexican American communities expanded and transformed the lived spaces of formerly majority-white areas,” Cameron found, “white Baptist churches fled to newly formed churches out of the downtown area to avoid the possibility of integrating their worship spaces.” When Christ Presbyterian Church chose to leave the Northside, it was part of a long list of white churches that had fled

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Figur e 4.3. Front doors of the Juan Marcos Presbyterian Church, now called the Northside People’s Center, February 1970. Houston Post photographs, RGD0006N-19700928-013, Houston Public Library, HMRC.

inner-city Houston for the white suburbs, where many of their members had relocated. Beginning around the 1950s, white churches in downtown or near downtown Houston packed up their organs and hymnals and fled to the suburbs. Churches including Faith Temple Church in the Second Ward and North Side Baptist Church left their locations “due to [the] encroachment of [the] Negro population.”58 Christ Presbyterian Church was simply at the end of a long line of white churches that followed their white members to the suburbs. This history of racial tension in Houston churches likely tempered the Brazos Presbytery’s response to the occupation. In addition, the Presbyterians had already been dealing with occupations in Chicago and New York for over a year, which no doubt also played a role in the response. Initially, at least, the presbytery tried to negotiate with MAYO by bringing in Jorge Lara-Braud, the director of the Hispanic Ameri-

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Figur e 4.4. Jamita Navarro (left) and Josie Rivera (right) protesting the forthcoming eviction of MAYO from the Juan Marcos Presbyterian Church, February 26, 1970. Houston Post photographs, RGD006N-19700928-010, Houston Public Library, HMRC.

can Institute in Austin, to try to reason with both sides. But Lara-Braud, who was on the front lines as one of the lone Protestant clergy in the Chicana/o movement, had his work cut out for him. On one hand, he wanted it to appear that he had the church’s preferences and desires in mind; but, on the other, his political commitments forced him to sympathize with the cause of MAYO, at one point even apologizing for appearing to be neutral and not standing firm on the side of the church.59 By the end of the ordeal, Lara-Braud had managed to do the impossible by maintaining firm relationships with both sides and serving as interpreter for MAYO of the “Anglo worldview” of the Mexican American Protestants who worshiped at Juan Marcos Church.60 Things started to get out of hand for members of the presbytery when they realized the powerful support that MAYO had from Northside barrio residents. As young radicals, MAYO leaders had a keen abil-

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ity to relate to multiple constituencies, which translated into strong barrio support from teenagers, mothers and fathers, and grandfathers and grandmothers. Families hung out at the church; the breakfast program fed around forty kids a day; community members donated groceries and organized softball games at Moody Park. All of this signaled that MAYO controlled every part of this occupation narrative. This was community control at its best as families and young radicals came together to save their barrio. The kids from the Northside had won even as they faced a notice from police to vacate the church within twenty-four hours. “We’re grateful to the MAYO,” Presbyterian leaders made sure to say, “but we’re asking them to leave.”61 MAYO simply ignored that request. But rather than send in police and create a dangerous situation, the presbytery opted to cut the gas and electricity in the building and also filed a court injunction designed to evict MAYO from the church or face jail time for the occupation, a familiar move by other churches facing a similar fate. That threat was enough to get MAYO leaders to evacuate the building, having made their point and believing that nothing positive would come from putting up resistance. But the breakfasts

Figur e 4.5. From right to left: Yolanda Garza Birdwell (far right) and Poncho Ruiz (right), at press conference to protest eviction of MAYO from Juan Marcos Presbyterian Church, February 26, 1970. Houston Post photographs RGD006N-1970-0928-043, Houston Public Library, HMRC.

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continued across the street at Moody Park. José Ángel Gutiérrez, state leader of MAYO, used the media to put churches across Texas on notice by promising that “MAYO will use occupation as a tactic to achieve social change.”62 As MAYO activists left the church, they chanted loudly: “We’ll be back, we’ll be back[,] Presbyterians.”63

Postoccupation Moves When the Juan Marcos Church held its very first worship service in the new building, a week after MAYO had been forced out, it was packed with members and visitors. The celebration of holding the first religious services was clouded by the reality that the church had to find some way to continue at least some of the programs that MAYO started. That was the promise made as part of the agreement with Northside barrio residents to drop the injunction against MAYO.64 It did not take long for the Reverend Armendariz to admit that the church members more than likely could not implement all the MAYO programs. “It must be a long process,” he admitted. “This came on us so suddenly.” They did try, though. On the first morning back, the pastor’s wife brought a toaster, bread, butter, and hot chocolate to the church from her own kitchen to avoid turning away children who came to the church expecting a free breakfast. It did not help that MAYO stuck around, at least initially. Within the first eleven days, MAYO picketed one of the church prayer meetings: the pastor, asked if he would accept MAYO activists as part of the church, responded that he would not because “we don’t want children to adopt their anti-Anglo racism, there is no racial animosity among real Christians.” On the subject of whether the church would follow through and continue the MAYO social service programs, church member Gloria Hernández simply commented, “Just give us time.”65 But if MAYO really wanted the church to continue its programs, it had to agree never, at any point in the future, to interfere with the church in the Northside barrio. In other words, MAYO would not be welcome to host any of its functions there or to use the space to administer any of its plans and programs.66 That is troubling, but MAYO had accomplished something bigger. Perhaps without fully understanding it at the time, it had done something extraordinary in a barrio losing resources with the onset of white flight. MAYO members had found a way to build a fresh

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Figur e 4.6. Families and members of MAYO picketed the Brazos Presbytery in Houston, March 1970. Houston Post photographs, RGD006N-19701111-023, Houston Public Library, HMRC.

and vibrant community in the midst of loss. And as they did all this, they earned the trust of the community.67 Of course, MAYO did remain a thorn on the side of Presbyterian church leadership. The group’s members were there to remind Presbyterians, and the entire city of Houston, that they were not going to give up on their barrio. In the months after MAYO left the Juan Marcos Presbyterian Church, over one hundred people picketed outside the largest and oldest Presbyterian church in Houston, First Presbyterian. For five consecutive Sundays in March and April 1970, MAYO activists, families, and friends marched in front of First Presbyterian. On one Sunday morning Yolanda Garza Birdwell got into a shoving match with elders of the church after they refused to let her into the church. On any typi-

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cal Sunday morning, MAYO gathered between sixty and a hundred people—mothers, fathers, and children—to protest outside the church and demand access to Juan Marcos Church.68 On more than one occasion, MAYO activists entered the sanctuary at First Presbyterian with their fists raised, shouting “power to the people” and disrupting the service.69 In fact, First Presbyterian Church elders established a list of rules for how to deal with MAYO activists when they forced their way into a service or when they picketed outside the church. The ushers at the First Presbyterian Church were coached on how to handle MAYO activists: treat them like normal visitors to the church and “seat them.” But for the most part MAYO activists were turned away, as ushers claimed that “all seats were filled” and that “city ordinances prohibit standing in the aisles.”70 The church guidelines to deal with MAYO included the following items: . . . .

The church must be exceedingly patient. That we must not exclude any M.A.Y.O.’s from the church services. That we must not use physical violence. Use legal action only after clear violation of the law, such as: a. Disruption of church services. b. Physical violence. c. Damage to property.71

The protests forced the pastor, John William Lancaster, to stop his sermon on several occasions.72 The church eventually sued MAYO in an effort to stop protesting in front of the church.73 Civil district judge Shearn Smith, after watching a videotape recording of MAYO members, led by Yolanda Garza Birdwell, forcing their way into the church, shouting, and interrupting the 11 a.m. Sunday service, ordered the group to stop demonstrating.74 The Presbyterian Church sought a temporary injunction to stop MAYO from entering, disturbing, or making demands on its churches anywhere in the city. That injunction put an end to the pickets outside First Presbyterian. And the buildup, the arguments, and the back-and-forth between MAYO and the Presbyterians ceased just like that. MAYO gave up on the church, and the church moved on. Far from feeling defeated, MAYO also had its eye on bigger struggles in the city. In the 1970s, as desegregation mandates came down from the federal government, the city of Houston became embroiled in a huge fight over its schools, its racial identity, and the emerging voices of Mexican Americans across the barrios. MAYO took center stage once again

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Figur e 4.7. Community members gather to support MAYO activists at Juan Marcos Presbyterian Church, February 27, 1970. Houston Post photographs, RGD006N-19700928-020, Houston Public Library, HMRC.

in that fight, along with a host of Mexican American organizations and politicians across the city. The fight to save the barrio in Houston was just getting started, led by a cadre of radicals.

Conclusion In June 1970, long after the pickets and occupations had ended, a group known as the Mexican American Task Force met at the Juan Marcos Presbyterian Church. Around the table sat the Reverend Armendariz; members of MAYO, including Yolanda Birdwell; community representatives; and ministers from across the city.75 Still stung by the events that had taken place earlier in the year, Armendariz and the Mexican

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American ministers present recognized the urgent needs of the Northside community: even as they rejected MAYO’s militancy, they seemed finally to grasp the significance and importance of merging spirituality and social service in order to help the Northside barrio thrive. At the conclusion of the meeting, the ministers surmised: “There is no doubt that the Christian testimony is at the center of the work. . . . Rather than being mutually exclusive, Christian service and social action are actually at the center of the faith and life of Christ, and it represents one of the most important ways in which Christ’s testimony can be taken into the barrio and everywhere else.”76 At another meeting of clergy, the Reverend Armendariz even went so far as to say that “the church might have to reach this militancy [of groups like MAYO] in order to help.”77 Ministers were beginning to have conversations about their role in the community and the politics in which they should engage the church and the world. Like the Chicana/o movement writ large, these religious movements were local: churches had concern for their neighbors and the people around them. In the 1970s Mexican American clergy in Houston stepped up their game. In 1971 the Brazos Presbytery launched an ecumenical center called the Centro de Urbanización (Urbanization Center), which provided aid to people migrating to Houston from surrounding rural communities. The center was really for migrants, but it also included work with undocumented immigrants, a precursor to the kind of immigrant rights activism that has become a staple in what today has become America’s most diverse city, Houston. Another important outcome of the MAYO occupation was Las Congregaciones Extendidas (The Extended Congregations) project, which worked to put congregations in touch with the needs of their community. It created a mechanism whereby congregations can connect with social service agencies in order to get people the resources they need.78 These programs were not without their critics. The Extended Congregations project, for example, did almost nothing to involve nonchurch people in the evolution and decision-making parts of the program. Months after the ordeal at Juan Marcos, a group calling itself the Mexican-American Clergymen Association emerged as an important voice in the school battles around integration. In a letter addressed to the Houston City Council and the Houston Independent School District, the ministers called for the recognition of Mexican Americans as a nonwhite minority. The ministers blasted the Houston School Board for its attempts to bypass real integration by joining black and brown

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schools together. This public witness, the ministers argued, came “primarily from our commitment to the Gospel and its implications for the common good that has compelled us to address ourselves to the present crisis faced by the Mexican American people, not only in Houston, but throughout the Southwest.”79 By the early 1970s this kind of activism could be seen in barrios across the country, as Mexican American and Latina/o religious communities raised their voices against the negligence, oppression, and indignities that their communities suffered. A group of “crazies from the Northside,” led by the gutsy and smart activists Yolanda Garza Birdwell, Gregory Salazar, Poncho Ruiz, and Alex Rodriguez, made a name for themselves across Houston.80 MAYO’s occupation of the Juan Marcos Presbyterian Church solidified their name as a legitimate civil rights organization in the city. The occupation was their first big action, their first big move: with generous media coverage and a sympathetic community, MAYO was able to bring one of the wealthiest and most powerful institutions in Houston, the Presbyterian Church, to its knees. In the following year, MAYO broke into different factions. Different days demanded different moves. Other Chicana/o organizations sprang up in Houston in its place: the movement continued; it never stopped. But MAYO’s legacy will always remain tied to the Northside barrio and the small church where breakfast was served, where community members came together to learn Chicana/o history, and where community care and community love were envisioned. MAYO had changed the landscape of barrio politics in Houston—part of an even larger legacy of activism in the city that remains sorely understudied. From an unorganized movement in the summer of 1969 to a shining example of faith and social action, MAYO had made a name for itself across the city and state. Three years after the MAYO occupation, the Reverend José Burgos told the Houston Post, “The [Juan Marcos] church was challenged by the MAYO group. . . . Now the people are excited about the possibilities for change in the community.”81 Today the Juan Marcos Presbyterian Church still stands, fift y years later, with a strong tradition of serving as a beacon of hope and light for the Northside.82 The magic lives on.

Conclusion

When History Dreams

In the last days, God says, I will pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young will see visions. Your elders will dream dreams. Acts of the Apostles 2:17 (Common English Bible)

T

he year 1969 hummed with possibilities. From the rock-’n’roll phenomenon at Woodstock to the first human on the moon, it witnessed cultural and scientific innovations even as the United States spiraled into political chaos. Richard Nixon entered the White House that year, threatening the gains of the War on Poverty, and the war in Vietnam was raging with no end in sight. In the midst of this, black, Mexican American, Puerto Rican, Asian, and Native American youth projected a new vision for interracial solidarity, an end to capitalism, and a belief in the interconnectedness of US minorities and Third World majorities. They believed that another world was possible. With disciplined ideas, boundless arrogance, and passion, young radicals organized to the beats of their streets; they focused on their neighborhoods even as they made larger claims about colonialism and pan-ethnic identity. Native Americans occupied Alcatraz island in San Francisco Bay; the riots at Stonewall Inn sparked the gay civil rights movement; and groups such as Católicos Por La Raza in Los Angeles, the Mexican American Youth Organization in Houston, and the Young Lords in New York City arose. It was a yeasty year of new possibilities, ideas, art, and poetry that rose up in neighborhoods and in churches, all rooted in a deep desire to be free. Certainly these moments evolved; they had become something else

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by the mid-1970s. Surveillance and infiltration by the FBI, changed political landscapes, growing discontent over the future of these movements, and a desire on the part of some activists to engage in different forms of political work either broke these movements up or made them less relevant—but not without first altering what people believed possible. They left us a roadmap for how to do politics and how to resist racist violence in an era of supreme uncertainty, displacement, and a president set on undoing the civil rights gains of the previous decades. As in many of the most powerful movements for social change, it was the small moments—short-lived explosions of faith—that have managed to live on: a young woman refusing to give up her seat in 1955, electing a slate of five Mexican American candidates to the city council in a small South Texas town in 1963, crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965, walking out of schools in 1968, and occupying churches in 1969. These events seemed random and spontaneous but actually represented months of preparation and organizing. Small movements blew wide open the cause of civil rights. The church occupations and disruptions were precursors of change that knocked down the doors of the church and ushered in a new era in Latina/o political and religious engagement.1 Yes, these were “days of rage,” as the journalist Bryan Burrough noted, but it was a rage fueled by urgency to save their barrios and to take a stand against the opulence and lethargic political stance of the church.2 That clash not only started a powerful conversation between groups with contrasting political commitments but also opened new possibilities for Latina/o reformist groups within Protestant and Catholic institutions. These short but fertile church occupations and disruptions, and the politics that emanated from them, shined a light on Latino Protestant pastors and Catholic clergy and provided a national platform from which to advocate on behalf of the religious communities they represented. In each of these cases activists reshaped faith politics, joined the language of liberation theology with the rhetoric of Brown and Black Power, pushed back and/or redefined urban renewal projects, and in the process waged a fight to save their barrios. Long ignored as insignificant and failed attempts at community transformation, these events breathed much-needed life into the activism of the Latina/o clergy, whose movements were at worst ignored and at the very least deemed not relevant to the urban crisis. Were the visions of these young radicals outlandish, bold, even unattainable? Yes. Was it crazy to occupy a church or disrupt Christmas

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Eve mass in downtown Los Angeles? Yes. But that is what revolution is about: dreaming and imagining something new and then working to make it happen. Love and imagination drive revolution. Rage is only bitterness if it is not fueled by a deep and abiding love. This love was recognized by sympathizers and critics alike. Father David Kirk of Emmaus House in New York City celebrated and praised the work of the Young Lords, writing in a telegram that “if Christ was alive today he would be a Young Lord.”3 When they were arrested and sent to court, the judge would eventually set them free without bail because he “was impressed by what the Young Lords had done for the people.”4 In each case, the church marked a public staging of Brown and Black Power politics that boldly proclaimed and demanded a new society, a new relationship to culture and to the neighborhood. Latina/o radicals occupied and disrupted sacred spaces as a way to lay claim to the ground and as a way to push back against a history of displacement. The dreaming and visioning that motivated Latina/os across the country to fight for community and institutional control arose in a deeply ambivalent political climate. Juan González, the former Young Lord and student leader of the Columbia University strikes in 1968, remembered that in those years “the last thing on your mind was what kind of job you’re going to have, it’s really, is the country going to fall apart . . . is there going to be a civil war?”5 Things were falling apart. The country was reeling from the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. just a year earlier, and the consequences of over a decade of urban renewal policies had decimated affordable housing and displaced black and brown communities in cities across the country. Scholars point to 1969 as the year when the Nixon presidency, FBI surveillance, and the identity politics of Black and Brown Power groups devastated communities and disrupted the flow and power of the civil rights movement. In this year of chaos and transition, some argue, the seeds of political retrenchment, modern conservatism, and the Religious Right took root. Or at least that is the position of some scholars in religious history who have remained fi xated with conservative politics—and conservative religion in particular—for the past thirty years.6 I have offered a different vision in the preceding pages, one that marks 1969 as a provocative year when churches and religious spaces became staging grounds for the fights against an urban crisis marked by poverty, violence, and displacement. Churches and religious spaces not only offered a moral high ground for Latina/o radicals to preach their

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gospel but also provided space—to meet, to strategize, to host breakfast programs, to dream—in communities where public space was an increasingly scarce resource. In the midst of being pushed out, being ignored by city leaders, activists occupied religious spaces as a key strategic move to push back against indifferent religious institutions like the Catholic church in Los Angeles. The seemingly disparate pieces and movements of Latina/o radicals across neighborhoods, the sermons that the Young Lords preached outside the church or in front of newsreel cameras, the dreams for mixed-income neighborhoods in Chicago, the vision for a community in Houston’s Northside, and the gutsiness of Católicos in Los Angeles all demonstrate the power of small and focused movements and their centrality to the Latina/o freedom movement. In 1969 churches became sites of struggle, wrapped in the hopes of a collective of emergent barrio activists who believed in the public witness of the church as a community space, as a building that belonged to the people.7 At the center of my efforts here is the idea of hope, not as wishful thinking, but as a desire to be free, to see religious activism as a spiritual exercise whose roots are not tied solely to the institutional church or biblical mandates but to the streets of the city. Each of these occupations involved a variety of concerns, from urban renewal to the opulence of church buildings that originated with young radicals—religious outsiders—whose only concern was that the church not ignore the social needs of the Latina/o families that they purported to serve. While most studies on Latina/o religious history and politics center on clergy or religious leadership, I have told the story from the outside-in, from the perspective of religious outsiders with few or no real strong ties to the institutional church. Through a series of stories, I have argued that moving beyond the walls of the church and religious leaders who inhabit those walls is essential to reimagining how we think about and conceptualize Latina/o urban history and religious studies. If we pay close attention to the broad range of radical politics in the Latina/o community, both formal and informal, religious and nonreligious, that have pushed back against urban renewal, racial discrimination, and anti-immigrant/refugee policies, it is clear just how creative and imaginative coalition politics can be. We see how Brown Power activists, long dismissed as narrow nationalists, actually negotiated, collaborated with, and built coalitions with religious leaders who from a distance seemed only concerned with saving souls. Taking a closer look at neighborhood movements and the coalition

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politics that fueled them is even more important today because the Catholic church, the largest nongovernmental organization in the world, is in the midst of a deep moral and criminal crisis. The sexual abuse and rape of children by Catholic clergy, for multiple decades and across the globe, has once again shown the need for the call from Católicos Por La Raza that “the church belongs to the people.” That is not a far cry from the recent call from journalist and former priest James Carroll, who asked in the Atlantic what would result if Catholics reclaimed “Vatican II’s insistence that the power structure is not the Church? The Church is the people of God. The Church is a community that transcends space and time.”8 The occupations and disruptions that rocked churches in 1969 and 1970 are another reminder that in the midst of this crisis only the power and courage of local communities can save religious institutions. When history dreams new visions, when moments such as this emerge, we do well to listen, study, and learn. We can learn from the prophetic voices of Latina/o radicals who long ago laid claim to churches as institutions that belong to the people.

Living on the Margins in the 1960s From the moment I first learned that radical activists occupied and disrupted churches, I have been fascinated with the relationship between religious insiders and outsiders: the possibilities that emerge when two opposing forces clash. And here I have covered only a small sliver of what was a larger movement. In June 1969 three black militants were arrested for disrupting services in a Catholic church and a Presbyterian church.9 The following month, in Philadelphia, the Black Economic Development Conference seized the Cookman Methodist Church. The following year, the Young Lords in Philadelphia took over the Kingsway Lutheran Church, where they offered drug rehabilitation services, a legal aid center, and an interpreting program.10 Few denominations were spared. The Reformed Church in America, the United Methodist Board of Missions, the United Church of Christ, and the National Council of Churches all experienced disruptions and occupations. Some were more dramatic than others. In St. Paul, Minnesota, seven young people disrupted a United Methodist Church Conference. The group entered the church sanctuary, set off firecrackers, read the Black Manifesto out loud, and then fired blanks from one of the church balconies, a move that most certainly would bring on more panic in today’s mass shooting context.11

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Occupations and disruptions like these continued in Atlanta, Denver, Los Angeles, and St. Louis throughout the 1970s. While it would have been impossible to cover all of the occupations in-depth, the four stories examined here made three things abundantly clear. First, for nonreligious activists, the church provided a place where they found moral fortitude, a space to meet, and an institution that was separate from the state. They saw the church as a space of possibility: as a place to build a movement that rested on community involvement and as a meeting space for the exchange of ideas between Brown Power and theology. As institutions waned, the War on Poverty lost its luster, and neighborhoods changed and displaced poor black and brown people, radicals saw churches as spaces of possibility. Second, coalition building was central to these movements. From Lincoln Park in Chicago to St Basil’s in Los Angeles to the People’s Church in New York to Houston’s Northside barrio, each story revealed the multiethnic coalitions that Latina/o radicals forged as they fought to save their neighborhood. They show us the power of local histories— barrio histories—in generating multiple and divergent political forms that extended far beyond local politics. Religious leaders and institutions across the country took note of the local resistance movements enacted by coalitions of activists fighting to keep their power and to take control of community institutions. These movements also move us to think even more specifically about how we conceptualize Latina/o social movements during the civil rights and Brown Power era. I believe that doing local history—focused on the barrio and community formation and struggle—gives us direction. While local context matters in identifying movements that were Chicano in the Southwest, Puerto Rican in the Northeast, and a mix of both in the Midwest, a closer look reveals that these movements reflected the Latina/o diversity that began to increase in American cities in the postwar years. From Cubans and Puerto Ricans collaborating with Católicos in Los Angeles to the black, brown, and white Poor People’s Coalition in Chicago, coalition building was, and continues to be, central to Latina/o radical politics.12 Third, the work of radical and revolutionary nationalist groups such as the Young Lords paved the way for Latina/o religious leaders and made it possible for them to implement their visions. Sociologists call this the “radical flank effect,” and it essentially follows the idea that the actions of a radical group can sometimes strengthen the position of more moderate groups.13 In each case, Latina/o religious leaders scoffed at the young radicals’ attempts to occupy and disrupt churches. They ac-

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cused them of coercing the church for their own personal gain and stood in shock when white religious leaders caved to their demands. They argued that they themselves were the ones doing the social services work before the Young Lords and MAYO came on the scene, only to be ignored or turned down when they asked for funds to work in their barrio communities. They were not wrong. In the Catholic church, for example, the long history of migrant and farmworker advocacy dates back to the 1920s. In the postwar era the church established the Bishop’s Committee for the Spanish-Speaking, which quickly became active in places such as New York; Miami; Cleveland; Denver; Madison, Wisconsin; and Baker, Oregon, where working with migrant farmworkers was the central concern. Even so, the institutional church often failed to support progressive Latina/o causes: not until the 1970s did Latina/os get their own bishop, with the appointment of Patricio Flores.14 In the 1960s Latina/o Protestants gathered steam as they became important cultural translators for white religious leaders preparing to be missionaries in Latin America. Progressive denominational leaders saw the advantage in developing Latina/o leaders in the United States who were not only bilingual but also had the necessary cultural competence to relate to Christians from Latin America. Out of this desire emerged the Hispanic American Institute (HAI) in Austin, Texas, led by the Presbyterian minister Jorge Lara-Braud in 1966. A joint effort between the Presbyterian Church in the US and the United Presbyterian Church in the USA, HAI quickly became an ecumenical venture that included Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, Episcopalians, and the Disciples of Christ (Lara-Braud was part of Presbyterian Church US). In the mid-1960s Austin Seminary was positioning itself as the gateway to missions in the Southwest and Latin America. HAI became a place to train missionaries for service in Latin America, but its leader, Jorge Lara-Braud, also extended the institute’s reach. From helping organize a legal team to defending the youths involved in the Pharr, Texas, riots in 1971 to working with militant groups across the state, HAI positioned itself as the moral voice of the Chicano movement: as Lara-Braud loved to say, “the Galilean would not have it any other way.”15 And in the most visible Latino social movement—the farmworker movement—Latina/o Protestants, Catholics, and Pentecostals were on the front lines, both in the church and in the fields.16 In the mid1960s no other social issue captured the imaginations of Latina/o Christians quite like the farmworker movement. They petitioned their denom-

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inational bodies to support farmworkers, they marched, and they joined the various boycotts. Yet, as much as Lara-Braud preached about the racial discrimination that Latina/os faced, church groups like the Presbyterian Commission on Religion and Race, led by Gayraud Wilmore, for the most part left Latina/o leaders out of the discussions on race. Even as Latina/o religious leaders marched side by side with farmworkers in the 1960s and tightened bonds with civil rights groups such as the Mexican American Political Association (MAPA), the Political Association of SpanishSpeaking Organizations (PASO), and the GI Forum, they remained on the margins of religious movements bounded by a black/white racial paradigm.17 And they were not quiet about it either. On more than one occasion, for example, Latino Presbyterian clergy demanded that Wilmore and the Commission on Religion and Race that he led take them seriously. That rarely worked. To be fair, this history of organizing and activism by Latina/o religious leaders set a strong foundation for the demands and changes that came in the 1970s—most importantly the need to stand up for immigrant and refugee rights.18 But being active in denominational politics, or even marching alongside farmworkers with Bibles in hand, was never enough to garner much attention from the wider church. Even when something positive happened, as when the National Council of Churches (NCC) established the Section of Hispanic-American Ministries (SOHAM) in 1967, it did not matter. Throughout much of its tenure, SOHAM was one of the “poorest budgeted” offices in the NCC.19 While denominational leaders paid lip service to Latina/o causes and the needs of the community, they rarely acted on them. It would take the bold actions of Latina/o radicals in cities across the country to make people finally sit up and listen to cries coming from Latina/o religious leaders. All of this matters even more in the context of a religious historiography that in recent years has insisted that the fall of the Religious Left, or the death of progressive religion, had everything to do with identity politics and narrow nationalisms of the late 1960s. Actually, quite the opposite is true. Brown and Black Power movements emboldened religious reformers and strengthened their movements and ministries in barrios across the country. The failure of progressive religious movements is confirmed only by disregarding the history of engagement of Latina/o radicals and religious leaders. Unfortunately, this is too often the case with scholars who write about the era. As a result, we know lit-

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tle about the visions, ideas, and Latina/o leaders who made these movements go. This has left a huge gap in our understanding. We probably know more about why Latina/o religious communities lean toward conservative views than about why an overwhelming percentage of people vote for progressive causes or why and how Latina/o churches tend to carry out quiet progressive politics. As a consequence, Latina/o progressive religious movements are often seen as anomalies led by a minority of progressive religious leaders. This book presents a different vision, which sees Latina/o religious activism, especially in the 1970s, in terms of movements with histories that are central to understanding the urban crisis. Right at the moment when Ron Sider’s socially conscious evangelicalism was sideswiped by Jerry Falwell’s anti–civil rights evangelicalism in the 1970s, a multitude of Latina/o religious leaders quietly transformed the American urban religious landscape. They did this at the grassroots level, in barrios across the Americas, by engaging Latina/o radicals and shaping how they articulate, study, and write theology.

Religious and Political Revival in the 1970s While the 1960s bore witness to Latina/o religious politics characterized as quiet, patient, and, by Latina/os’ own admission, “cowardly,” the 1970s saw them shift toward a bold, radical, and unafraid political stance. This sense of marginalization, of being ignored, was most powerfully argued in a statement written by a cadre of Latina/o church leaders. The lack of shared power, the flat-out racism of Protestant denominations, had led to the stunted growth of the Latina/o church polity and theology. Emboldened by the occupations and the politics of Latina/o radicals across the country, religious leaders put out a forceful indictment against the church in what became known as the “Dallas Declaration.” Written in 1971 by an ecumenical group of clergy and lay leaders and commissioned by the National Council of Churches, the statement railed against the paternalism of white church leaders and the lack of diversity in all levels of the church: Our churches, like our communities, are forced to operate as isolated enclaves. We have virtually no access to the mechanisms of societal or ecclesiastical controls. Decisions are made for us, all the way from services we do not wish to consume to literature we do not care to use. . . . We know of no college of seminary that even comes close

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to a redirection of its staff and curriculum to do educational justice to Hispanic-Americans.20

The statement was equally critical of religious leaders who agreed to hand over large grants to what they called “social action groups” in the community without consultation with Latina/o clergy. Of particular importance was the Episcopal Church’s grant of $40,000 to Reies López Tijerina’s Alianza in New Mexico and the UPCUSA grants to the Young Lords and the Poor People’s Coalition in Chicago. “The net result is a general mission fund so badly depleted,” it argued, “that it may not be able to make a significant grant to a less controversial HispanicAmerican organization for a long time to come.”21 Latina/o religious leaders were not ready to support nonreligious movements unless they also received a piece of the financial pie. And they were right. These new politics were defined by a greater focus on history and coming to terms with the way white missionaries and an out-of-touch Catholic church had suppressed Latina/o desires for church autonomy. For the first time in the history of both the Catholic and Protestant churches, Latina/os organized multiple leadership groups as a way to push back against the silencing that they had experienced in the church. These groups included PADRES and Las Hermanas in the Catholic church and MARCHA (Methodists Associated Representing the Cause of Hispanic Americans) and the Mennonite Minority Ministries Council in Protestant churches, among others. Pentecostal and mainline Protestant churches from the Lower East Side to the Bronx, representing 40 denominations and over 500 churches, organized Acción Civica Evangélica in New York City. In a nod to the very calls that the Young Lords made in 1969, Acción Civica organized nutrition programs, youth employment offices, elderly help, and classes for pastoral leaders across the city. Believing that the church is incomplete “unless the Good News of the congregation leads to the well-being of the community,” Acción Civica Evangélica raised more than $3 million in federal, state, and local money and funneled it to programs for young people and for lunches, fruits, juice and milk to more than 40,000 children. What the National Council of Churches or national denominational offices could never do, or did not know how to do, Latino churches did on their own as “the only authentic indigenous institution in the community.”22 At the Section of Hispanic-American Ministries assembly, the Reverend Fidel Mercado said it best in 1971 when he said that “while some seminaries are training students to write and read scholarly articles,

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people are going to hell in some respects.  .  .  . It is time to relate these scholarly remarks to the learning of what theology has to do with life.” The moment was ripe for change. The director of the Hispanic American Institute, Jorge Lara-Braud, lamented that “there is no proper ministerial force or pastoral force to care for this enormous constituency.” New York Seminary, which was fed up with teaching theology for theology’s sake, added a one-year internship in urban ministry.23 But social programs are not the only areas that took off. The ordination of bishops—with Patricio Flores appointed as the first Catholic Mexican American bishop in 1970—and the rising awareness of Protestant and Catholic churches spurred on what church historians have called “the formative period of U.S. Hispanic theology” in the 1970s. Much of this renaissance of religion emerged out of a new ecumenism that brought about the cooperation of Catholics and Protestants as they stood in solidarity with the poor.24 Latina/o theology emerged as an academic space focused on hemispheric conversations that reflected the realities of war, colonialism, poverty, racism, immigration, and a deep desire to engage the community in theological reflection. These new scholarly developments prompted religious schools and seminaries to adjust their curriculum accordingly and increase their offerings in Mexican American and Latina/o theological studies. Additionally, other schools and programs emerged that focused on the teaching and development of Latina/o theology. Most notable are the Mexican American Cultural Center (San Antonio, 1972), the Mexican American Program at the Perkins School of Theology (Dallas, 1974), and a Catholic seminary in Los Angeles known as Casa Guadalupe (1976).25 These religious and educational developments paralleled the rise of African American, Native American, Chicana/o, and Puerto Rican ethnic studies programs at both public and religious institutions in the 1970s.26 Cultural expressions also evolved. In the 1970s the popularity of the mariachi mass and música evangélica (gospel music), made popular by Paulino Bernal and his Conjunto Bernal and the Puerto Rican musicians Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz, provided much-needed rhythm and style to Latina/o churches that were initially hesitant about mixing gospel and secular music.27 And in the rising Christian movie industry, the film The Cross and the Switchblade—about a white preacher’s attempts to save Puerto Rican gang members in Brooklyn, starring Pat Boone and Erik Estrada—set box-office records in New York and across the country. The film presented the city as a violent and poverty-infested place and positioned Boone’s character as the white savior. The corny story

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line became a church favorite for white and Latina/o audiences in the United States and was later translated into 30 languages and screened in 150 countries.28

From Occupation to Sanctuary I end this book—this story—with a beginning. As a historian who cares deeply about the ways in which the study of history can help us imagine a better world and future, I have thought a lot about how these occupations, their politics, and their visibilities in the press have shaped an entire generation of Latina/o leaders since the 1970s. On the legacy of social movements, the historian Shana Redmond wrote: “Legacy is one of the stakes—we do today so that others can do tomorrow—and becomes an organizing framework, a dynamic structure of engagement that is not past but is part of a forward trajectory.” She adds that legacy then works to organize the “scaffolding for the future projects of their descendants.”29 In the late 1960s and early 1970s young Chicana/os and Puerto Ricans wrote their own versions of liberation theology within the gates of McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, on the steps of St. Basil’s Church in Los Angeles, at the People’s Church in East Harlem, and in Houston’s Northside neighborhood. Here they proclaimed that “Chicanos are God’s children too” and that “Christ did not own a Cadillac”; they changed the names of churches to the People’s Church or renamed buildings as a way to remember friends gunned down by police, as in the case of the Manuel Ramos Memorial Building (McCormick Theological Seminary). This was the scaffolding that they left us, a legacy that has since been picked up and carried on by a new generation of radical activists. These occupations were prophetic precisely because they were done on behalf of victims of state violence, on behalf of those on the brink of losing their homes, and because they represented an opportunity for the church building itself to serve as a space where the community could gather to seek social services such as day care or free health care. The occupations and disruptions merged what typically have been seen as mutually exclusive movements: religion and radical politics. While the young radicals did not think of themselves as religious, they did project a spiritual consciousness that believed in the redeeming qualities of faith, in the progressive power of religion, and in the politics of a Christ figure on the side of justice, on the side of those who suffer. The Young

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Lords, Católicos Por La Raza, and the Mexican American Youth Organization were grassroots theologians, building liberation theology from the ground up—from the outside in—and forging coalitions with other groups that, as Gustavo Esteva and Madhu Suri Prakash argued, share in their “opposition to the ‘global thinking’ and ‘global forces’ threatening local spaces.”30 They occupied churches and disrupted services to save their schools and fight back against the opulence of the Catholic church. In occupying church space and in demanding that churches and seminaries participate in the spatial politics of the neighborhood, the young radicals tapped into a central theme of Latina/o religion and spirituality: home, the barrio as a gathering place and a space where people can find the resources that they need as they arrive in a new location. Writing the history of Latina/o radical politics, of the struggles for Latina/o liberation, means paying close attention to the complex and sometimes disruptive politics that happen in neighborhoods. It means taking a local approach that strings together memories and visions that breathed life into movements and ideas across multiple neighborhoods and varying contexts and political experiences.31 Groups like Católicos Por La Raza, the Mexican American Youth Organization, and the Young Lords propelled the work of religious reformers as they contextualized the religious expressions that they cared so deeply about in the 1970s. Latina/o religious politics, in other words, are not simply about religious leadership, reforming church denominations, or the kind of theology one practices. These politics also involve grassroots barrio movements, church occupations, and the roles of nonreligious activists in defining the political edge of Latina/o religiosity. Rather than keep religious studies trapped within a narrow frame that acknowledges something as “religious” only when clergy are involved, we might be better served to highlight the ways in which Latina/o religious politics benefited from the politics of revolutionary nationalism and religious activists such as Lydia López in Los Angeles and Obed López in Chicago. From these activists we learn that Latina/o religious politics have presented themselves in different forms, that they included liberation theology and revolutionary nationalism, and that they have all along been locked in constant mutual debate and struggle. Recognizing this opens up new possibilities for centering religion and religious institutions as not just a moral force in society but also a cultural and political one, a force that must be considered alongside movements for labor, civil, and women’s rights, and especially movements for immigrant and refugee rights.

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One of the best examples of this is embodied in the experience that Lydia López had on Christmas Eve on the steps of St. Basil’s Church in 1969. That night when Católicos Por La Raza disrupted mass, López found her life’s calling. She grew up as the daughter of a Baptist preacher and church planter. But on the steps of St. Basil’s Catholic Church everything changed. In the years prior to that night at St. Basil’s, she had fallen in love with the theology, political commitments, and worship at the Church of the Epiphany in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. The music of the mariachi mass reminded her of her grandmother’s parties, the people were warm and welcoming, and the political commitments of the church inspired her. Attending Epiphany placed her within the orbit of Chicana/o activism in Los Angeles. Epiphany was, after all, “the biggest party in town”: many believe the Chicana/o movement got much of its strength there.32 In the next few years, she joined Católicos Por La Raza at St. Basil’s Church as it disrupted Christmas Eve mass; became the first Latina elected to the conference of the Episcopal church; served as president of the United Neighborhood Organization (UNO); and in the 1980s became a central figure in the sanctuary movement in Los Angeles.33 Religious leaders like López, once on the margins of the faith, became central players; she was part of a new iteration of activists whose experiences rose up out of a deep faith and a love for social justice. Once thought of as bastions of conservatism, churches served as a central organizing base by the late 1970s.34 The first time I sat down to interview Lydia in her home, I had all my questions lined up about her work with the United Neighborhood Organization in the 1970s and the sanctuary movement in the 1980s. But when we began to talk about her activism, she started with Católicos. She shared the story of being there that Christmas Eve in 1969 in Los Angeles, poetically and in the only way she knows how, as a beginning to what would become a lifelong quest to fight for her barrio and for her church in Los Angeles. López’s work as an activist and as a person of faith spanned the narrative arc: from Católicos Por La Raza in 1969 to a central player in what became the sanctuary movement in Los Angeles a decade later. Her story is the second half of this movement saga, which reveals how churches went from spaces of occupation in 1969 to spaces of sanctuary in the 1980s. Progressive religious movements did not die or fail in the 1970s; they quietly went to work in their neighborhoods, slowly preparing for the moment when they would stand in defiance of their government, when they would once again fight for people being displaced

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by war and violence and for people simply looking for a safe place to call home. Churches and religious activists were now on the front lines in what would become the sanctuary movement. And in their fearless campaign to provide protection for refugees, to offer them protection inside the church, they were now the new radicals. In neighborhoods and across national borders, the church was once again at the center: redefined, refashioned, and occupied, this time as a place for sanctuary.

Notes

Abbr eviations CPLR GVSU HAI HMRC UIC

Ricardo Cruz/Católicos Por La Raza Papers, University of California– Santa Barbara Library Special Collections, Santa Barbara, California The Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection, Grand Valley State University, Grand Rapids, Michigan Hispanic-American Institute, Austin Theological Seminary, Austin, Texas Gregory Salazar Collection, Houston Metropolitan Research Center, Houston, Texas Emmanuel Presbyterian Church Records, Special Collections Library, University of Illinois at Chicago

Pr eface . Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza Consciousness (San Francisco: Aunt Lute, 1987), 81. . My days in graduate school introduced me to the powerful witness and testimony of African American religion. Scholars such as Albert Raboteau, James Cone, and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham left a deep impression on my life and scholarship. See Albert J. Raboteau, Slave Religion: The “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978); James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1975); Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880–1920 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993). . Lewis Hyde, A Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the Past (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2019), 29.

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Notes to Pages –

Introduction . “Spanish American Crisis in the Nation Program,” General Board, National Council of Churches, 4, Emmanuel Presbyterian Church collection, box 1, fi le 9, 1966–1970, Richard J. Daley Library, University of Illinois at Chicago (hereafter UIC archives). . “Theology for the Armitage Peoples Church,” North Side Community Ministry collection, box 3, fi le 21, Armitage Peoples Church—Reports, UIC archives. . For more on urban displacement and Latina/o politics in Chicago, see Lilia Fernández, Brown in the Windy City: Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Postwar Chicago (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012). . Scholars who have given the most attention to the church occupations in Chicago and New York include Johanna Fernández, Darrel Wanzer-Serrano (who has also published as Enck-Wanzer), Jorge Juan Rodríguez V., Karen Secrist, Alberto Pulido, and Elias Ortega-Aponte, while Lupe San Miguel, Arnoldo De León, and Brian Behnken briefly discuss Houston and Mario T. García has provided muchneeded analysis of the St. Basil’s clash. For more on church occupations, see Alberto Pulido, “Are You An Emissary of Jesus Christ?: Justice, the Catholic Church, and the Chicano Movement,” Explorations in Ethnic Studies 14, no. 1 (January 1991): 17– 34; Elias Ortega-Aponte, “Raised Fist in the Church! Afro-Latino/a Practice among the Young Lords Party: A Humanistic Spirituality Model for Radical Latino/a Religious Ethics” (PhD diss., Princeton Theological Seminary, 2011); Darrel WanzerSerrano, The New York Young Lords and the Struggle for Liberation (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2015); Karen Serwer Secrist, “Construyendo nuestro pedacito de patria: Space and Dis(place)ment in Puerto Rican Chicago” (PhD diss., Duke University, 2009); Jorge Juan Rodríguez V., “Purified through Fire and Occupation: Lived Religion, the Latinx Diaspora, and the New York Young Lords First People’s Church Offensive,” paper presented at the Puerto Rican Studies Association Meeting (Austin, Texas, 2019); Johanna Fernández, The Young Lords: A Radical History (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020). . Danielle Endres and Samantha Senda-Cook, “Location Matters: The Rhetoric of Place in Protest,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 97, no. 3 (August 1, 2011): 257– 282. . Markers of race, ethnicity, nation, and politics are important in a study such as this. Indeed, I have tried to carefully consider how people self-identified, how that differed across regions, and what that meant politically. Identities are often closely tied to politics. One’s chosen self-identification, in other words, is often linked to the type of politics to which one subscribes. Blackness and Afro-Latinidad, for example, played heavily into self-identifications for members of the predominantly Puerto Rican Young Lords in New York City, even within their commitments to Black Power. In fact, some Young Lords arrived at their black political consciousness before their Puerto Rican political consciousness. For this reason, I have stayed away from using “Brown Power” as an all-encompassing term for all Latina/o radicals. Many would

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more strongly have subscribed to Black Power instead. I use “radical” and “revolutionary” to characterize the politics of each group, from Chicana/o to Puerto Rican. Knowing full well that region, race, and national background also shape how radical politics are deployed in different contexts, I use “Latina/o” to identify a population of women and men of Latin American descent in the United States, “Latino” or “Latina” when specificity is required, “Chicana/o” to identify the population of women and men of Mexican descent in the United States, “Chicano” or “Chicana” when specificity is required, and “Puerto Rican” to identify Puerto Ricans who were born or lived on the mainland during the period covered. I hope that in encountering their stories—and their importance to Latina/o history—the reader will gain a deeper appreciation for the complexities of these identities and the ways in which politics shape them. . I follow Mark Wild’s lead when he refers to “churches” in this context as the imagined collective institutions of Christians and outlines the meaning of the term for liberal Protestants (although the definition works for liberal Catholics), particularly those involved in the civil rights movement; see Mark Wild, “Liberal Protestants and Urban Renewal,” Religion and American Culture 25, no. 1 (2015): 110–146, published online June 18, 2018: https://doi.org/10.1525/rac.2015.25.1.110. . Carlos Kevin Blanton, George I. Sánchez: The Long Fight for Mexican American Integration (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015), 241. Blanton noted how Sánchez “lauded the role of Protestant missions as progressive forces within the Mexican American community” (251). Th is important point has long been ignored in Chicana/o historiography. . A. K. Sandoval-Strausz, Barrio America: How Latino Immigrants Saved the American City (New York: Basic, 2019), 8 (quotation), 103; see also Thomas J. Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996). . David P. Cline, From Reconciliation to Revolution: The Student Interracial Ministry, Liberal Christianity, and the Civil Rights Movement (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016); Jeff rey O. G. Ogbar, “Puerto Rico en mi corazón: Puerto Ricans, Black Power and Puerto Rican Nationalism in the U.S., 1966–1972,” CENTRO Journal 18, no. 1 (Fall 2006): 149–169; Randy J. Ontiveros, In the Spirit of a New People: The Cultural Politics of the Chicano Movement (New York: New York University Press, 2014); see also Alan Eladio Gómez, The Revolutionary Imaginations of Greater Mexico: Chicana/o Radicalism, Solidarity Politics, and Latin American Social Movements (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2016), 11. . “Lords Leave—Litter Lingers,” Christianity Today (January 1, 1975): 45, RHC-65, box 1, Young Lords News Clippings fi le, Young Lords/José Jiménez record group, Grand Valley State University Archives, Grand Rapids, Michigan (hereafter GVSU Archives). . One exception to this trend is this excellent collection edited by Leilah Danielson, Marian Mollin, and Doug Rossinow: The Religious Left in Modern America: Doorkeepers of a Radical Faith (New York: Palgrave Macmillan; Cham, Swit-

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zerland: Springer, 2018); see also Rebecca Alpert, ed., Voices of the Religious Left: A Contemporary Sourcebook (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000). . For more on this relationship, see Wild, “Liberal Protestants.” . Throughout the book, I use “Latina/o freedom movement” to refer to events occurring in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I do this as a way to capture the multiple forms and expressions of Latina/o social movement politics in the United States, specifically, Brown Power and revolutionary nationalism. Much of what has been written in Chicana/o history especially subscribes to the generational model of political orientation, but this model tends to dismiss the complexities within each generation and the radical and reformist politics inherent in different historical moments, from the 1910s to the 1960s. I focus mostly on an era of Brown Power and revolutionary nationalism in the late 1960s and 1970s in this book, but Latina/o radicals were clashing and in constant negotiation with reformist activists who saw themselves as more firmly rooted in the liberal politics of the civil rights movement (especially committed to the ideas of reform through legislation, political participation in a two-party system, and loyalty to the US state). I mix and cross those boundaries and time periods to capture the complexities of these movements and thus categorize them as part of the long Latina/o freedom movement. On political generations in Chicana/o history, see Mario T. García, Mexican Americans: Leadership, Ideology, and Identity, 1930–1960 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989). For a work that moves beyond this paradigm and more fully discusses the multiple political expressions inherent in Latina/o activism, see Jimmy Patiño, Raza Sí, Migra No: Chicano Movement Struggles for Immigrant Rights in San Diego (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017). . Belinda Robnett, Carol L. Glasser, and Rebecca Trammell, “Waves of Contention: Relations among Radical, Moderate, and Conservative Organizations,” Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change (September 2015): 69–101. . There is a scholarly tradition that insists on religion’s ability to inspire social and political movements. See Jarod Roll, Spirit of Rebellion: Labor and Religion in the New Cotton South (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2010); David L. Chappell, A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004); Angela D. Dillard, Faith in the City: Preaching Radical Social Change in Detroit (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007); Mario T. García, Father Luis Olivares, a Biography: Faith Politics and the Origins of the Sanctuary Movement in Los Angeles (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018); Lara Medina, Las Hermanas: Chicana-Latina Religious-Political Activism in the U.S. Catholic Church (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2005); Timothy Matovina, Tejano Religion and Ethnicity: San Antonio, 1821–1860 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995); Roberto R. Treviño, The Church in the Barrio: Mexican American Ethno-Catholicism in Houston (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006). . Albert Camarillo, Chicanos in a Changing Society: From Mexican Pueblos to American Barrios in Santa Barbara and Southern California, 1848–1930 (Cam-

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bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979); Virginia E. Sánchez Korrol, From Colonia to Community: The History of Puerto Ricans in New York City (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994). For more on this, see David Montejano, Quixote’s Soldiers: A Local History of the Chicano Movement, 1966–1981 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010); Garcia, “Requiem for a Barrio: Race, Space, and Gentrification in Southern California,” in Making Cities Global: The Transnational Turn in Urban History, ed. A. K. Sandoval-Strausz and Nancy H. Kwak (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 166; David A. Badillo, Latinos and the New Immigrant Church (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006); Gina M. Pérez, Frank Guridy, and Adrian Burgos, eds., Beyond El Barrio: Everyday Life in Latina/o America (New York: New York University Press, 2010). . George Lipsitz, “The Racialization of Space and the Spatialization of Race: Theorizing the Hidden Architecture of Landscape,” Landscape Journal 26, no. 1 (2007): 17; see also Jorge Juan Rodríguez V., “The Neoliberal Co-Optation of Identity Politics: Geo-Political Situatedness as a Decolonial Discussion Partner,” Horizontes Decoloniales/Decolonial Horizons 5 (January 1, 2019): 101–130. . Fernández, Brown in the Windy City, 9. . On Latina/o urban history, see Albert Camarillo, Chicanos in a Changing Society: From Mexican Pueblos to American Barrios in Santa Barbara and Southern California, 1848–1930 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979); Sánchez Korrol, From Colonia to Community; Jesse Hoff nung-Garskof, A Tale of Two Cities: Santo Domingo and New York after 1950 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008); Montejano, Quixote’s Soldiers; Fernández, Brown in the Windy City; Llana Barber, Latino City: Immigration and Urban Crisis in Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1945–2000 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017); Cary Cordova, The Heart of the Mission: Latino Art and Politics in San Francisco (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017); Patiño, Raza Sí, Migra No; Eduardo Contreras, Latinos and the Liberal City: Politics and Protest in San Francisco (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019); Sandoval-Strausz, Barrio America; Abigail Rosas, South Central Is Home: Race and the Power of Community Investment in Los Angeles (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2019). . Important works in this area include Arnold R. Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940–1960 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998); Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007); Kelly Lytle Hernández, City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771–1965 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017); Sonia SongHa Lee, Building a Latino Civil Rights Movement: Puerto Ricans, African Americans, and the Pursuit of Racial Justice in New York City (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014); Tyina L. Steptoe, Houston Bound: Culture and Color in a Jim Crow City (Oakland: University of California Press, 2015), 6. . Evidence of this is presented in the following chapters; occupations by Latina/o radical groups also occurred in Philadelphia, Colorado, and Ohio.

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Notes to Pages –

. I categorize the CPLR as a radical movement, part of the Brown Power movement politics in Los Angeles. The CPLR was the least organized of the groups, but its politics emerged out of revolutionary commitments that many in the Brown Beret, Chicana feminist, and welfare rights movements in Los Angeles practiced. The CPLR was made up of activists from barrios across Los Angeles. Its disruption of Christmas Eve mass, along with the forceful pressure that it put on the Catholic church in Los Angeles, deserves consideration along with other radical movements. . Throughout the book, I use “Latina/o radicals” to identify the young Chicana/o and Puerto Rican movement leaders not simply demanding “civil rights” or inclusion into American society but boldly organizing and protesting in the streets. Rather than making legislative moves, or believing in change through the ballot box, Latina/o radicals believed that protest in the streets, community engagement, and interethnic coalition building offered the best possibility for political and social change. I also follow Gaye Theresa Johnson and Alex Lubin in their defi nition of “Black radicalism” in Futures of Black Radicalism (London: Verso, 2017, 12–13): “Black radicalism refers to demands and articulations of freedom by Black activists, artists, and intellectuals on behalf of everyone’s freedom. Black freedom is freedom for all.” In the same way, Latina/o radicals believed in human rights, liberation, and a radical restructuring of American society for all. My use of “Latina/o radicals” links all of these groups along the lines of their internationalist, anticapitalist, and antiracist politics. I do not assume, however, that everyone identified with a shared vision or had similar organizational goals. Radical politics found different expressions and was often contingent upon different regional contexts. Radical politics in Texas, a state marred by a deep legacy of white supremacy and southern politics, for example, differed from radical politics in New York, where a more cosmopolitan cityscape required a different approach. See Ernesto Chávez, “¡Mi Raza Primero!” (My People First!): Nationalism, Identity, and Insurgency in the Chicano Movement in Los Angeles, 1966–1978 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002); Ogbar, “Puerto Rico en mi corazón,” 150; George Mariscal, Brown-Eyed Children of the Sun: Lessons from the Chicano Movement, 1965–1975 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005), 16, 45–46; Dionne Espinoza, “‘Revolutionary Sisters’: Women’s Solidarity and Collective Identification among Chicana Brown Berets in East Los Angeles, 1967–1970,” UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center 26, no. 1 (November 1, 2001): 15–58; Laura Pulido, Black, Brown, Yellow, and Left: Radical Activism in Los Angeles (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006). . Mariscal, Brown-Eyed Children of the Sun, 46. . Josef Sorett, Spirit in the Dark: A Religious History of Racial Aesthetics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 8 (emphasis in original). Here I am following the lead of Luis Alvarez, who advocates a similar position as a way to push open the national and cultural boundaries in Chicana/o history in “Eastside Imaginaries: Toward a Relational and Transnational Chicana/o Cultural History,” in A Promising Problem: The New Chicana/o History, ed. Carlos Kevin Blanton (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2016), 161–184. . Matthew J. Cressler, Authentically Black and Truly Catholic: The Rise of

Notes to Pages –

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Black Catholicism in the Great Migration (New York: New York University Press, 2017), 14. . Thomas Tweed argues that religions function as a “watch and compass” that help to locate “devotees in a religious-nationalist historical narrative and [situate] them in social space and the natural landscape.” From there, religious devotees “map, construct, and inhabit ever-widening spaces: the body, the home, the homeland, and the cosmos.” Thomas A. Tweed, Crossing and Dwelling: A Theory of Religion (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 81–84. . Gastón Espinosa, Latino Pentecostals in America: Faith and Politics in Action (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014), 326–329. . Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation, 15th anniversary ed. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1988), xxv–xxvi; Phillip Berryman, Liberation Theology: Essential Facts about the Revolutionary Movement in Latin America and Beyond (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987). . Chris Hartmire, interview with author, digital recording, Claremont, California, February 12, 2014. For more on Chavez’s spirituality, see Luis D. León, The Political Spirituality of Cesar Chavez: Crossing Religious Borders (Oakland: University of California Press, 2015); and Mario T. García, The Gospel of Cesar Chavez: My Faith in Action (Lanham, MD: Sheed and Ward, 2007); Nora O. Lozano, “Faithful in the Struggle: A Historical Perspective on Hispanic Protestant Women in the United States,” in Los Evangélicos: Portraits of Hispanic Protestantism, ed. Juan Francisco Martínez and Lindy Scott (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2009), 127. . While Latina/o scholars have done incredible work in documenting the struggles and lives of Latina/o religious activists, non-Latina/o scholars continue to ignore the history of this important group and their relevance to the Religious Left. Mark Hulsether, Building a Protestant Left: Christianity and Crisis Magazine, 1941– 1993 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1999); David R. Swartz, Moral Minority: The Evangelical Left in an Age of Conservatism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012); Albert J. Raboteau, American Prophets: Seven Religious Radicals and Their Struggle for Social and Political Justice (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016); L. Benjamin Rolsky, The Rise and Fall of the Religious Left: Politics, Television, and Popular Culture in the 1970s and Beyond (New York: Columbia University Press, 2019). . Tim Cresswell, In Place/Out of Place: Geography, Ideology, and Transgression (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 164. . Kent Blansett, A Journey to Freedom: Richard Oakes, Alcatraz, and the Red Power Movement (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018), 159. . Nicholas Perrin, Jesus the Temple (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010), 80–81. . Padre Antonio José Martínez, “Padre Hidalgo,” in Prophets Denied Honor: An Anthology of the Hispanic Church in the United States, ed. Antonio M. StevensArroyo (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1980), 85. . Pedro Albizu Campos, “Columbus Day Speech, Ponce, Puerto Rico, October 12, 1933,” in Prophets Denied Honor, 89.

« 168 » Notes to Pages – . James Forman, “Black Manifesto: To the White Christian Churches and the Jewish Synagogues in the United States of America and All Other Racist Institutions,” presentation given and adopted by the National Black Economic Development Conference, Detroit, Michigan, April 26, 1969, Mennonite Library and Archives, North Newton, Kansas. . William Noel Sousa, “The White Christian Churches’ Responses to the Black Manifesto: A Thesis” (master’s thesis, University of the Pacific, Stockton, California, 1973), 30. . Christianity Today 14, no. 1 (October 10, 1969): 46. . Cline, From Reconciliation to Revolution, 188–189. . Lorena Oropeza, The King of Adobe: Reies López Tijerina, Lost Prophet of the Chicano Movement (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019); Martha Cotera, Diosa y Hembra: The History and Heritage of Chicanas in the United States (Austin, TX: Information Systems Development, 1976). . “Chicano Projects Funded by IFCO,” box 38, Mexican American/Chicano Proposals fi le, New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Harlem, New York. IFCO’s activity came under investigation after it was accused of funding militant and disruptive groups, granting close to $900,000 to thirty-seven organizations. Religious denominations contributed to IFCO: $296,000 from the Episcopal Church and $200,000 from the American Baptist Home Missions Society. Smaller amounts had been contributed by the Catholic church, Methodists, Presbyterians, the Church of Christ, and the American Jewish Committee. “Tax Exempt Group Tied to Dissidents,” New York Times, May 16, 1969. . Robnett, Glasser, and Trammell, “Waves of Contention.”

Chapter 1: Thu nder in Chicago’s Lincoln Park . “Confrontation—New Style: An Official Report from McCormick Theological Seminary,” May 27, 1969, 8, private archive, Prof. Ken Sawyer, McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago. . Lincoln Park Press, special edition, May 19, 1969, 1, private archive, Prof. Ken Sawyer, McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago. . Lilia Fernández, Brown in the Windy City: Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Postwar Chicago (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 187; Fairinda West, “The Young Lords in Chicago,” Artsy-Fartsy Radical Rag 78, no. 63 (May 28, 1970), RHC-65, box 1, fi le 37: Young Lords/Newsclippings, Young Lords/José Jiménez record group, Grand Valley State University Archives, Grand Rapids, Michigan (hereafter GVSU Archives); see also “Inquest Finds Policeman Lamb Justified in Killing Ramos,” Chicago Tribune, May 30, 1969. . Karen Ramos Supasanguan, email to Cha Cha Jiménez, subject: “a letter to cha cha,” April 5, 2008, RHC-65, box 1, fi le 26: José Jiménez, personal correspondence, Young Lords/José Jiménez record group, GVSU Archives.

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. Frank Browning, “From Rumble to Revolution: The Young Lords,” RHC-65, box 2, fi le 9: Chicago Police/Gang Analytical Clippings, Young Lords/José Jiménez File: Chicago Police record group, GVSU Archives. . James H. Bowman, “Two Viewpoints at the Seminary,” McCormick Report 12, no. 5 (June 1969): 1, private archive, Prof. Ken Sawyer, McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago. . Jacqueline Lazu, “The Chicago Young Lords: (Re)constructing Knowledge and Revolution,” CENTRO Journal 25, no. 2 (Fall 2013): 35. . “Challenge and Response,” Presbyterian Life, June 15, 1969, Pitts Theological Library, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. . José “Cha Cha” Jiménez, interview with author, GVSU, digital recording, Grand Rapids, Michigan, February 12, 2014. . Fernández, Brown in the Windy City, 176–177. . “Predicts Next Boom Area on Mid-North Side,” Chicago Tribune, March 10, 1968. See also “Youth Rampage Hits Urban Renewal Office,” Chicago Daily News, January 22, 1969. . Tom Logan and Ed Stern, “McCormick Seminary and Lincoln Park,” March 1969, private archive, Prof. Ken Sawyer, McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago; Fernández, Brown in the Windy City, 141, 173–174, 178; Jeff rey Helgeson, Crucibles of Black Empowerment: Chicago’s Neighborhood Politics from the New Deal to Harold Washington (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014), 130–135. . Logan and Stern, “McCormick Seminary and Lincoln Park,” March 1969, 4. . Gaye Theresa Johnson, Spaces of Conflict, Sounds of Solidarity: Music, Race, and Spatial Entitlement in Los Angeles (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), 56. . “Description of the Lincoln Park Neighborhood,” Institute of the Church in an Urban Industrial Society collection, box 2, Armitage People’s Church 1970 fi le, 20, Richard J. Daley Library, UIC archives. . David Hernandez, “Armitage Street,” in Unsettling America: An Anthology of Contemporary Multicultural Poetry, edited by Maria Mazziotti Gillan and Jennifer Gillan (New York: Penguin, 1994), 271–272. . Rúa, A Grounded Identidad, 56. . Logan and Stern, “McCormick Seminary and Lincoln Park,” 5. . By 1961 Puerto Ricans were the second largest ethnic group in the community, with 1,898 households (7 percent). Antonio R. Lopez, “In the Spirit of Liberation: Race, Governmentality, and the De-Colonial Politics of the Original Rainbow Coalition of Chicago” (PhD diss., University of Texas at El Paso, August 2012), 156–160. . Patricia Devine-Reed, interview with author, digital recording, Chicago, October 12, 2017. . For a good overview of Daley’s tenure, see Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor, American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley—His Battle for Chicago and the Nation (Boston: Little, Brown, 2001). Mayor Richard Daley, Inaugural Address, 1967,

« 170 » Notes to Pages – Chicago Public Library, https://www.chipublib.org/mayor-richard-j-daley-inaugu ral-address-1967/ (accessed March 3, 2018). . Devine-Reed, interview with author, October 12, 2017. . Ibid. . Omar López, interview with author, digital recording, Chicago, October 9, 2017. . Ibid. . Jakobi Williams, From the Bullet to the Ballot: The Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party and Racial Coalition Politics in Chicago (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013), 128; Amy Sonnie and James Tracy, Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power: Community Organizing in Radical Times (Brooklyn, NY: Melville House, 2011). . Fernández, Brown in the Windy City, 199. . The family of José “Cha Cha” Jiménez, the leader of the YLO, had moved four times within the city. Fernández, Brown in the Windy City, 175, 194. . George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 130–132. See also William Vance Trollinger, God’s Empire: William Bell Riley and Midwestern Fundamentalism (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990). . David P. Cline, From Reconciliation to Revolution: The Student Interracial Ministry, Liberal Christianity, and the Civil Rights Movement (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016), 135–136. . Dorian Ortega, “Memories of Chicago’s Radical Puerto Rican Church,” La Respuesta (August 2014). . “Summary of Annual Reports in 1967,” North Side Cooperative Ministry collection, box 1, fi le: 8, A New Covenant—Statements, UIC archives. . I agree with David Cline’s assessment that the move toward urban ministry was a continuation of, not a break from, the social service tradition that dated back to the nineteenth century for Protestant churches. Cline, From Reconciliation to Revolution, 123. . Robert Flaherty, “LP Calm Disturbed by Testimony,” Lerner Booster Newspapers, January 13, 1971, private archive, Prof. Ken Sawyer, McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago. . “Nude Theater Comes to Methodist Church in Chicago” and “Conference Money Supports Militant Tactics of Street Gangs!,” United Methodists for Methodism Newsletter 10 (March 1970), RHC-65, box 2, Rev. Bruce Johnson Articles fi le, Young Lords/José Jiménez record group, GVSU Archives. . William J. Eaton and John Linstand, “Clergy-Radical Linkup on N. Side Described,” Chicago Daily News, December 29, 1970. . Ibid. . Flaherty, “LP Calm Disturbed by Testimony”; William J. Eaton and John Linstand, “Clergy-Radical Linkup on N. Side Described,” Chicago Daily News, December 29, 1970. . “Community Seizes McCormick Building,” FRED: The Socialist Press Ser-

Notes to Pages –

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vice 1, no. 14 (May 19, 1969): 2, private archive, Prof. Ken Sawyer, McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago. . Omar López, interview with author, digital recording, Chicago, October 9, 2017. . Sam Washington, “1,000 in Protest Rally at Seminary,” Chicago Sun Times, May 7, 1969. . James H. Bowman, “Seminary Backs Students in Urban Renewal Dispute,” Chicago Daily News, May 6, 1969 (quotation); “Confrontation—New Style: An Official Report from McCormick Theological Seminary,” May 27, 1969, private archive, Prof. Ken Sawyer, McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago. . James H. Bowman, “Two Viewpoints at the Seminary,” McCormick Report 12, no. 5 (June 1969): 1, private archive, Prof. Ken Sawyer, McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago. . “Community Seizes McCormick Building,” 2. . Herbert Blake Walker, “Postmortem-McCormick Sit-In,” n.d., box 2, fi le McCormick Theological Seminary, Lincoln Park Neighborhood Collection, DePaul University Archives, John T. Richardson Library, Chicago. . “McCormick Seminary and Lincoln Park,” prepared by the Action Committee to Oppose Racism, McCormick Theological Seminary, April 1969, 3, private archive, Prof. Ken Sawyer, McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago; Walker, “Postmortem—McCormick Sit-In,” 18. . “Confrontation—New Style: An Official Report from McCormick Theological Seminary,” 2. . “President McKay Asks Board to Seek Successor,” McCormick Report 12, no. 5 (June 1969): 1, private archive, Prof. Ken Sawyer, McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago; Rúa, A Grounded Identidad, 55. . A year earlier, black students had organized to bring black faculty and administrators on campus as part of a move to implement Black Studies and diversify the mostly all-white seminary. “McCormick Seminary and Lincoln Park,” 1–2. . Logan and Stern, “McCormick Seminary and Lincoln Park,” 8. . Cline, From Reconciliation to Revolution, 164. . Ibid., xii. . Walker, “Postmortem—McCormick Sit-In,” 18. . Ibid. . Ibid., 14. . “Confrontation—New Style: An Official Report from McCormick Theological Seminary,” 4. . AP, “Presbyterians Keep Lines to Militants Open,” South Bend Tribune, May 18, 1969. . “How to Make a Claim on Church Resources for Community Development,” April 8, 1969, San Antonio, box F061, Individual Name Files folder, Roger Granados fi le, Hispanic American Institute, Austin Presbyterian Seminary Archives, Austin, Texas (hereafter HAI archives). . “Brown Revolution Manifesto,” presented to the 181st General Assembly of

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Notes to Pages  –

the United Presbyterian Church USA at San Antonio, Texas, May 15, 1969, box F093, fi le: UPUSA General Assembly 1969, HAI archives. . Roger Granados, “Notes from the UPCUSA General Assembly,” May 15, 1969, 7, box F093, fi le: UPCUSA General Assembly 1969, HAI archives. . “Challenge and Response,” Presbyterian Life, June 15, 1969, Pitts Theological Library, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. . Ibid. . Obed López, interview with author, digital recording, Chicago, July 7, 2014. . Ibid. . Mervin Méndez, “Recollections: 1966 Division Street Riot,” Diálogo 2, no. 1 (1997), DePaul University Libraries. . Felix M. Padilla, Puerto Rican Chicago (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987), 117. . Obed López, interview with author, digital recording, Chicago, July 7, 2014. . Méndez, “Recollections: 1966 Division Street Riot,” 33. The presence of religious clergy at the riots was an important factor in helping them subside. Father José Acevedo and Father Dan Headley, who was director for the Cardinal’s Committee for the Spanish Speaking, joined Los Caballeros de San Juan and Los Hermanos de la Familia de Dios to serve as intermediaries between police and the community. . Obed López, interview with author, July 7, 2014. . Obed López, personal notes to LADO volunteers explaining his absence from LADO because he had left to visit Mexico and Puerto Rico, private archive, Prof. Ken Sawyer, McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago. . Ibid. . “Report of the Standing Committee of the Council on Church and Race, Presented to the 181st General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.,” 2–3, May 19, 1969, box F093, UPUSA General Assembly 1969 fi le, HAI archives. . The historian Eduardo Contreras writes about a similar dynamic in San Francisco (where activists embraced urban renewal on their own terms, like the Poor People’s Coalition in Chicago) in Latinos in the Liberal City: Politics and Protest in San Francisco (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019). . Lopez, “In the Spirit of Liberation,” 226; “The Seminary and the Coalition: A Fact Sheet,” December 11, 1969, 1, private archive, Prof. Ken Sawyer, McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago. . “The Present Situation at Armitage People’s Church,” 2, Institute of the Church in an Urban Industrial Society collection, box 2, Armitage People’s Church 1970 fi le, UIC archives; “Young Lords Stage Second ‘Church Takeover,’” United Methodists for Methodism Newsletter 10 (March 1970): 5, RHC-65, box 2, Rev. Bruce Johnson Articles fi le, Young Lords/José Jiménez record group, GVSU Archives; José “Cha Cha” Jiménez, interview with author, GVSU, February 12, 2014, Grand Rapids, Michigan. . In working toward clarity between the church and the YLO, the groups

Notes to Pages –

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engaged in a series of conversations. This statement emerged from those conversations, drafted by the “Armitage 15” on June 14, 1969: “The People’s Church,” North Side Cooperative Ministry collection, box 3, fi le 21, UIC archives. . William C. Henzlik, “Out of Two Deaths, a Community Celebrates Life,” Christian Advocate, October 16, 1969, RHC-65, box 2, Rev. Bruce Johnson Articles fi le, Young Lords/José Jiménez record group, GVSU Archives. This case remains unsolved. . Ibid. . Lyle Franzen, “The Program Cabinet’s Consideration of the Latin American Defense Organization and the Young Lords’ Proposal,” April 16, 1970, McCormick Theological Seminary: Community Confrontation folder, 2, private archive, Prof. Ken Sawyer, McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago. . PLAC Caucus Meeting, letter to Rev. Ross M. Ludeman, April 2, 1970, 2, Emmanuel Presbyterian Church Records, box 1, file 9, 1966–1970, UIC archives. . Franzen, “The Program Cabinet’s Consideration.” . William J. Eaton, and Jon Linsted, “Clergymen Rap Latin Bloc Chiefs,” Chicago Daily News, September 26, 1970, RHC-65, box 2, Chicago Police fi le, Young Lords/José Jiménez record group, GVSU Archives. . Lyle E. Franzen, “Chronology of McCormick Theological Seminary Advocacy of Latin American Defense Organization and Young Lords Organization Proposals,” April 22, 1970, McCormick Theological Seminary: Community Confrontation folder, 2, private archive, Prof. Ken Sawyer, McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago. . Letter from the Reverend Joe Burgos to Obed López, n.d., Emmanuel Presbyterian Church Records collection, box 1, fi le 9, 1966–1970, UIC archives. . “Proposals from Latin-American Presbyterian Caucus (PLAC),” Emmanuel Presbyterian Church Records collection, box 1, fi le 9, 1966–1970, UIC archives. . “Statement in support of the Latin American students in the High Schools to the city of Chicago,” Spanish Ministerial Association, October 21, no year, Emmanuel Presbyterian Church Records collection, box 1, fi le 7, 1966–1968, UIC archives. . Beverly Johnson, “Spanish speaking project, Interview with Rev. Howard Rice and Rev. Jose Burgos,” February 17, 1967, Emmanuel Presbyterian Church Records collection, box 1, fi le 7, 1966–1968, UIC archives. . “Worried Latin American Pastors,” Spanish Speaking Methodist pastors, letter to the Northern Illinois Conference, Emmanuel Presbyterian Church Records collection, box 1, fi le 9, 1966–1970, UIC archives. . General Board, National Council of Churches, “Spanish American Crisis in the Nation Program,” Emmanuel Presbyterian Church Records collection, box 1, fi le 9, 1966–1970, UIC archives. . Hector Franco, “Si se lucha en el presente recordando el pasado, el futuro sera nuestro: Latino Strategies for the 70’s Convocation,” McCormick Theological Seminary, March 16–18, 1973, private archive, Prof. Ken Sawyer, McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago.

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Notes to Pages –

. “Latino Strategies for the 70’s—Report,” June 1, 1973, private archive, Prof. Ken Sawyer, McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago. . Tomas Chavez, “Resumen de Resumenes: Latino Strategies for the 70’s,” McCormick Theological Seminary, 1973; “Latino Strategies for the 70’s”; “Housing Workshop Preliminary Report,” March 16–18, 1973, private archive, Prof. Ken Sawyer, McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago. . Franco, “Si se lucha en el presente recordando el pasado, el futuro sera muestro.” . “Poor People Hire an Architect and Get Directly into the Housing Picture,” 1970, LPCA Collection, box 81, Poor People’s Coalition Correspondence fi le, DePaul University Archives, John T. Richardson Library, Chicago. . “Housing by and for the Poor,” Chicago Sun-Times, editorial page, February 11, 1970. . “High Cost of Incivility,” Chicago Daily News, February 13, 1970. . Harry C. Price letter to William C. O’Donnell, March 12, 1970, Box 81, Poor People’s Coalition—Correspondence fi le, LPCA Collection, DePaul University Archives, John T. Richardson Library, Chicago. . “Housing by and for the Poor,” Chicago Sun-Times, February 11, 1970. . This was not without controversy. Several letters of protest against the Community Conservation Council’s vote of approval are included in the LPCA archive. In general, the letters make a case that the council is misrepresenting the voices of Lincoln Park residents and point to a petition form with more than 1,000 signatures against the CCC’s vote. I was not able to find the signatures in the archive. . “Challenge and Response,” Presbyterian Life, June 15, 1969, Pitts Theologica Library, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia; “Coalition to Appeal Lincoln Park Renewal,” Chicago Today, February 12, 1970, LPCA Collection, box 81, Young Lords—Newspaper Articles fi le, DePaul University Archives, John T. Richardson Library, Chicago. . For more on the long fight against urban renewal in Chicago, see Mike Amezcua, “Beautiful Urbanism: Gender, Landscape, and Contestation in Latino Chicago’s Age of Urban Renewal,” Journal of American History 104, no. 1 (June 2017): 97–119. . Frank Browning, “From Rumble to Revolution: The Young Lords,” RHC65, box 2, Chicago Police fi le, Young Lords/José Jiménez record group, GVSU Archives.

Chapter 2: “People—Yes, Cathedr als—No!” in Los Angeles . Católicos Por La Raza, April 15, 1970, box 9, folder 1, Ricardo Cruz/Católicos Por La Raza Papers (hereafter CPLR Papers), University of California–Santa Barbara Library Special Collections, Santa Barbara, California.

Notes to Pages –

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. Anna NietoGomez, interview with author, email transcript, July 3, 2018; Joe Razo, interview with author, digital recording, November 7, 2017. . “The Church and the Chicano,” meeting, box 3, folder 1, Incoming Mail, November 1, 1969, CPLR Papers; Richard Martínez, PADRES: The National Chicano Priest Movement (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005), 36. . Cesar Chavez, “The Mexican-American and the Church,” reprinted in Voices: Readings from El Grito: A Journal of Contemporary Mexican American Thought 1967–1973, ed. Octavio Ignacio Romano-V (Berkeley, CA: Quinto Sol Publications, 1971), 215–218. . The following groups were associated with CPLR: California Chicano law students, MEChA, La Raza, Nuestra Familia, United Mexican American Students (UMAS), and El Proyecto del Barrio. . Mario T. García, Chicano Liberation Theology: The Writings and Documents of Richard Cruz and Católicos Por La Raza (Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt, 2009), xvii; “Chicanos, Catholicism, and Political Ideology,” El Chicano, December 18, 1976, box 1, folder 6, CPLR Papers. . García, Chicano Liberation Theology, 137. . As quoted in Gladwin Hill, “Cardinal McIntyre of Los Angeles, Retired Archbishop, Is Dead at 93,” New York Times, July 17, 1979. . Lara Medina, Las Hermanas: Chicana/Latina Religious-Political Activism in the U.S. Catholic Church (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2005); Richard Edward Martínez, PADRES: The National Chicano Priest Movement (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005); Roberto R. Treviño, The Church in the Barrio: Mexican American Ethno-Catholicism in Houston (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006); Mario T. García, Católicos: Resistance and Affirmation in Chicano Catholic History (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010); Timothy Matovina, Latino Catholicism: Transformation in America’s Largest Church (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014). . García, Católicos, 149; Rudy Villaseñor, “Ex-Nun, Th ree Others Get Jail in Protest,” Los Angeles Times, May 5, 1970. . Marie “Keta” Miranda, interview with author, digital recording, January 22, 2020; García, Católicos, 134. . John Dart, “Protestant Clergy Leads Fight for Mexican-American Goals,” Los Angeles Times, April 5, 1968; John Dart, “Chicano-Catholic Conflict: A Split over Philosophy,” Los Angeles Times, December 31, 1969. Richard Martínez also made this point to me in an oral history interview. He even took it one step further by arguing that “without the Protestant ministers, there might not have been a Chicano movement in Los Angeles.” Richard Martínez, interview with author, digital recording, Lakewood, California, July 7, 2018. . “Letter to Congress on Mexican American Unity,” November 1, 1969, box 5, folder 1, CPLR Papers. . Dan Thrapp, “Architecture of St. Basil’s Gets Support,” Los Angeles Times, November 9, 1969.

« 176 »

Notes to Pages –

. While St. Basil’s was not the seat of the bishop, its beauty and architecture moved some to consider it the unofficial cathedral of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. . Dan Thrapp, “McIntyre Retires from Archdiocese: Manning Appointed as Successor; Cardinal Staying Active in Church,” Los Angeles Times, January 22, 1970. . Dan Thrapp, “30 Pickets March as Cardinal Dedicates New Church,” Los Angeles Times, June 30, 1969. . Oscar Zeta Acosta, The Revolt of the Cockroach People (1973; reprint, New York: Vintage, 1989), 11–12. . Leo Grebler, “The Urban Mexican-American Parish,” in Introduction to Chicano Studies: A Reader, ed. Livie Isauro Duran and Harvey Russell Bernard (London: Macmillan, 1973), 253–254. . “On Borrowed Time,” TIME magazine 95, no. 5 (February 2, 1970): 53. . John Dart, “Vatican Names Panel to Study Nuns’ Dispute with Cardinal,” Los Angeles Times, April 17, 1968, 71. . “Chancery Picket Line Backs Priest in Protest,” Los Angeles Times, June 16, 1964. . John Cogley, “Religion: Churchmen on Riots,” New York Times, August 22, 1965. . Grebler, “The Urban Mexican-American Parish,” 253–254. . Antonio Tinajero, “Programmatic Considerations for the Urban Task Force Regarding the Hispanic Community in the United States,” box 5, folder 1, 1, 4 (quotation), CPLR Papers. . Ricardo Cruz, “CPLR Demands,” box 5, folder 1, CPLR Papers. . García, Católicos, 150. . “Letter to Members of the Congress on Mexican American Unity,” box 5, folder 1, CPLR Papers. Pastor Tony Hernández, fully aware of how Forman’s Black Manifesto had gripped the church, made it a point to differentiate what Católicos would do in Los Angeles. . Tony Hernández, “Meeting: The Church and the Chicano,” Euclid Heights Church, November 1, 1969, PADRES Collection, box 3, Incoming Mail 1969, University of Notre Dame Archives, South Bend, Indiana. . “Letter to Members of the Congress on Mexican American Unity,” box 5, folder 1, CPLR Papers; García, Católicos, 147–148 (the nine items cited in the text are in both sources). . Alberto L. Pulido, “Are You An Emissary of Jesus Christ?: Justice, the Catholic Church, and the Chicano Movement,” Explorations in Ethnic Studies 14, no. 1 (January 1991): 26–29. . Ricardo Cruz cites the takeover of a Catholic retreat in San Diego in November 1969 as an event that “inspired an awful lot of us.” “Chicanos, Catholicism, and Political Ideology,” El Chicano interview, box 1, folder 6, CPLR Papers. . Press release, December 4, 1969, box 1, folder 11, CPLR Papers.

Notes to Pages –

« 177 »

. John Dart, “Chicano-Catholic Conflict: A Split over Philosophy,” Los Angeles Times, December 31, 1969. . Ibid. . Congress on Mexican American Unity, “Report on Católicos Por La Raza,” December 15, 1969, box 5, folder 1, CPLR Papers. . García, Católicos, 150. . Mira no más in this context is translated as “Well, would you look at this.” . Vámonos carnales is translated as “Let’s go, brothers.” . Órale in this context is translated as “Can you believe this?”; chingou is translated as “fuck.” . Richard Cruz, “Católicos Por La Raza: Three Years Later,” unpublished document, box 5, folder 9, CPLR Papers. . NietoGomez, interview with author, July 3, 2018 (quotations); García, Católicos, 153. . Rosa Martínez, interview with Mario T. García, June 14, 2005, in Chicano Liberation Theology, xxii–xxiii. . Richard Cruz, “Chicano Interview: Chicanos, Catholicism, and Political Ideology,” December 18, 1976, box 1, folder 6, CPLR Papers. . Dan Thrapp, “Bishop Conducts Mass Outdoors for Chicanos,” Los Angeles Times, December 29, 1969. . Timothy Matovina, Latino Catholicism: Transformation in America’s Largest Church (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012), 112. . Jay P. Dolan and Gilberto M. Hinojosa, Mexican Americans and the Catholic Church, 1900–1965, vol. 1 (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 118–119. . Kristy Nabhan-Warren, The Cursillo Movement in America: Catholics, Protestants, and Fourth-Day Spirituality (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013); García, Católicos, 175, 284. . Reporter’s Transcript, “The People of the State of California vs. Richard Cruz, Robert Gandara, Fred López, Raul Ruiz, Jose Camarena, Pedro Arias, Alicia Escalante, Richard Martínez, Anthony Salazar, Armando Vasquez,” April 13, 1970, 631, box 8, folder 4, CPLR Papers. . Lydia López, interview with author, Alhambra, California, November 3, 2017. . Robert Rawitch, “Catholic Church Picketed after Violent Protest,” Los Angeles Times, December 26, 1969. . García, Chicano Liberation Theology, 181. . Reporter’s Transcript, “The People of the State of California vs. Richard Cruz,” 605 (quotation), 826. . García, Chicano Liberation Theology, xxvi. . Rawitch, “Catholic Church Picketed after Violent Protest”; García, Chicano Liberation Theology, xxvi. . Ibid.

« 178 »

Notes to Pages –

. Rawitch, “Catholic Church Picketed after Violent Protest.” . Reporter’s Transcript, “The People of the State of California vs. Richard Cruz,” April 15, 1970, 1011–1014 (quotation), 1017 (quotation), 1021, box 9, folder 1, CPLR Papers. . Ibid., 1030, 1034. . “Special Bulletin,” Social Workers Union, AFL-CIO, January 21, 1970, box 1, folder 11, CPLR Papers. . García, Chicano Liberation Theology, xxvii (quotation); Rawitch, “Catholic Church Picketed after Violent Protest.” . Letter from Ricardo Cruz to Cardinal McIntyre, December 26, 1969, box 5, folder 2, CPLR Papers. . Letter from Henry Martínez, December 27, 1969, box 5, folder 1, CPLR Papers. . Leslie Berkman, “Católicos Por La Raza and the Church,” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, January 4, 1970. . John Dart, “Cardinal Forgives Latin-American Demonstrators,” Los Angeles Times, January 1, 1970. . Lydia López, interview with author, Alhambra, California, November 3, 2017. . “Cardinal McIntyre Denies Resignation as Archbishop of L.A. Diocese,” Los Angeles Times, February 21, 1967; Dan L. Thrapp, “Cardinal McIntyre Denies Broadcast Report of Retiring,” Los Angeles Times, April 1, 1968. . Dan Thrapp, “McIntrye Retires from Archdiocese: Manning Appointed as Successor; Cardinal Staying Active in Church,” Los Angeles Times, January 22, 1970. . Ibid. . “On Borrowed Time,” Time (February 2, 1970): 49. . Leslie Berkman, “Católicos Por La Raza and the Church,” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, January 4, 1970. . Rudy Villaseñor, “Failed to Achieve: Chicanos End Church Protest,” Los Angeles Times, January 26, 1970. . Of course, expressions of culture have a long history in Mexican American ethno-Catholicism. Home altarcitos (altars), quinceañeras (fi fteenth-birthday celebrations), baptisms, music, and religious festivals all represent forms of popular religiosity that have served to resist colonialism, white supremacy, and Protestant missionaries. See, for example, John Burnett, “Our Soul Music Is Mariachi Music: Houston’s Mexican Mass,” National Public Radio, January 3, 2014. On popular religiosity and resistance, see Treviño, The Church in the Barrio; Allan Figueroa Deck, The Second Wave: Hispanic Ministry and the Evangelization of Cultures (New York: Paulist, 1989), 14; Timothy Matovina, Guadalupe and Her Faithful: Latino Catholics in San Antonio, from Colonial Origins to the Present (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2000), 19. . Congress on MexAm unity, January 15, 1970, box 1, folder 11, CPLR Papers. . “Los PADRES: Hispano Priests Organize,” La Luz 2, no. 2 (May 1973). . “Programmatic Considerations for the Urban Task Force regarding the

Notes to Pages –

« 179 »

Hispanic Catholic Community of the United States,” presented by Executive Committee Members of the Urban Task Force, box 5, folder 1, CPLR Papers. . Father Richard Estrada, interview with author, digital recording, Los Angeles, California, October 31, 2017. . PADRES CPDR, box 10, folder 63, University of Notre Dame Archives, South Bend, Indiana. . García, Católicos, 167. . “3 Men Get Jail Term in Church Disturbance,” Los Angeles Times, June 7, 1970; Rudy Villaseñor, “Ex-Nun, Th ree Others Get Jail in Protest,” Los Angeles Times, May 10, 1970. . “Contempt Citation in St. Basil’s Case,” Los Angeles Times, March 7, 1970. . Reporter’s Transcript, “The People of the State of California vs. Richard Cruz,” May 1, 1970, 2764, 2790, box 10, folder 7, CPLR Papers. . Ibid., 2792, 2793, 2796, 2801 (quotations on all pages). . “Letter to Members of the Congress on Mexican American Unity,” box 5, folder 1, CPLR Papers. . Deck, The Second Wave, 42. . “Chicano Interview: Chicanos, Catholicism, and Political Ideology” and interview with Ricardo Cruz, December 12, 1976, box 1, file 6, CPLR Papers. . PADRES CPDR, box 15, folder 21, University of Notre Dame Archives, South Bend, Indiana. . Luis D. León, La Llorona’s Children: Religion, Life, and Death in the U.S.Mexican Borderlands (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 20; García, Católicos, 19; Felipe Hinojosa, “Sacred Spaces: Race, Resistance, and the Politics of Chicana/o and Latina/o Religious History,” in A Promising Problem: The New Chicana/o History, ed. Carlos Kevin Blanton (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2016), 111–134. . For more on López’s life in the years after Católicos, see Mario T. García, Father Luis Olivares, a Biography: Faith Politics and the Origins of the Sanctuary Movement in Los Angeles (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018).

Chapter 3: The People’s Church in East Harlem . Felipe Luciano speech, First Source, Communications Center, National Council of Churches, December 24, 1969, Young Lords Association Collection, 1970–1971, 2601-3-4:09 (1987-029) Women’s Division, 2, Drew University Archives, Madison, New Jersey. . Arlene Dávila, Barrio Dreams: Puerto Ricans, Latinos, and the Neoliberal City (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 5–6. El Barrio, bounded by 96th and 142nd Streets, Fift h Avenue, and the East River, carries special significance for Puerto Ricans. “Indeed, the meaning of East Harlem to Latinos, especially

« 180 » Notes to Pages  – Puerto Ricans, is similar to African American perceptions of Harlem, the ‘Black capital of the World,’” according to Dávila (5–6). . Luciano speech, First Source, Communications Center, National Council of Churches, December 24, 1969, Young Lords Association Collection, 1970–1971. . Felipe Luciano, interview with author, New York City, digital recording, July 11, 2018. . Fernández, The Young Lords: A Radical History, 157. . Surprisingly little has been written about the New York Young Lords, but some of the best work has emerged in the last few years from two prominent scholars, Darrel Wanzer-Serrano and Johanna Fernández: see Darrel Wanzer-Serrano, The New York Young Lords and the Struggle for Liberation (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2015); and Fernández, The Young Lords. . Iris Morales, Through the Eyes of Rebel Women: The Young Lords, 1969–1976 (New York: Red Sugarcane, 2016), 29. . José Ramón Sánchez, Boricua Power: A Political History of Puerto Ricans in the United States (New York: New York University Press, 2007), 202–203. . The “garbage offensive” was the first major political and public action taken by the Young Lords in New York City, designed to get the attention of the city sanitation department for its lack of garbage pickup in East Harlem. The Young Lords started sweeping the streets themselves and then blocked traffic with the collected garbage in the summer of 1969. The plan worked. See Darrel Enck-Wanzer, The Young Lords: A Reader (New York: New York University Press, 2010), 185–187. . Johanna Fernández, “Between Social Service Reform and Revolutionary Politics: The Young Lords, Late Sixties Radicalism, and Community Organizing in New York City,” in Freedom North: Black Freedom Struggles outside the South, 1940– 1980, ed. Jeanne F. Theoharis and Komozi Woodward with Matthew Countryman (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 266. . Jeff rey O. G. Ogbar, “Puerto Rico en mi corazón: The Young Lords, Black Power and Puerto Rican Nationalism in the U.S., 1966–1972,” CENTRO Journal 18, no. 1 (Fall 2006): 149–169; Randy J. Ontiveros, In the Spirit of a New People: The Cultural Politics of the Chicano Movement (New York: New York University Press, 2014); Wanzer-Serrano, The New York Young Lords. . Felipe Luciano, “On Revolutionary Nationalism,” PALANTE, Latin Revolutionary News Service 2, no. 2 (May 8, 1970), box 54, Felipe Luciano fi le, Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Library and Archives, New York University, New York. . Lorrin Thomas, Puerto Rican Citizen: History and Political Identity in New York City (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010); Fernández, The Young Lords. . Lorrin Thomas and Aldo A. Lauria Santiago, Rethinking the Struggle for Puerto Rican Rights (New York: Routledge, 2019), 108. . Andrés Torres and José E. Velázquez, eds., The Puerto Rican Movement: Voices from the Diaspora (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998), 3.

Notes to Pages –

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. Alan Eladio Gómez, The Revolutionary Imaginations of Greater Mexico: Chicana/o Radicalism, Solidarity Politics, and Latin American Social Movements (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2016), 4–7. . Johanna Fernández, “Radicals in the Late 1960s: A History of the Young Lords Party in New York City, 1969–1974” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2004), 29; see also Sonia Song-Ha Lee, Building a Latino Civil Rights Movement: Puerto Ricans, African Americans, and the Pursuit of Racial Justice in New York City (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014), 46. . Lee, Building a Latino Civil Rights Movement, 167. . Luis Aponte-Parés, “Lessons from El Barrio—the East Harlem Real Great Society/Urban Planning Studio: A Puerto Rican Chapter in the Fight for Urban Self-determination,” New Political Science 20, no. 4 (1998): 401. . Sherrie Baver, Angelo Falcón, and Gabriel Haslip-Viera, eds., Latinos in New York: Communities in Transition, 2nd ed. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2017), 22, 27. . Fernández, “Radicals in the Late 1960s,” 33–34. . Baver, Falcón, and Haslip-Viera, Latinos in New York, 20–21; see also Susan S. Fainstein and Norman I. Fainstein, “Neighborhood Enfranchisement and Urban Redevelopment,” Journal of Planning Education and Research 2 (1982): 67–81; Scott A. Greer, Urban Renewal and American Cities: The Dilemma of Democratic Intervention (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965); Andres Torres, Between Melting Pot and Mosaic: African Americans and Puerto Ricans in the New York Political Economy (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995). . Piri Thomas, Savior, Savior, Hold My Hand (New York: Doubleday, 1972), 325–326. . The church’s theology was also incongruent with its mainline Protestant roots. Jonathan Black called it “nominally Methodist and much more Pentecostal and fundamentalist in spirit,” in “A Church in El Barrio: The Week of the Lords: This Is a Family Th ing,” Village Voice, June 8, 1970. . Jorge Juan Rodríguez V., “Purified through Fire and Occupation: Lived Religion, the Latinx Diaspora, and the New York Young Lords First People’s Church Offensive,” paper presented at the Puerto Rican Studies Association Meeting (Austin, Texas, 2019), 5 (author’s personal fi les). . Fernández, The Young Lords, 159. . Jorge Juan Rodríguez V., “Purified through Fire and Occupation: Lived Religion, the Latinx Diaspora, and the New York Young Lords First People’s Church Offensive,” paper presented at the Puerto Rican Studies Association Meeting (Austin, Texas, 2019), 9 (author’s personal fi les). . Fernández, The Young Lords, 158. . Fernández, “Radicals in the Late 1960s,” 63–64. . Ibid., 60. . Lorrin Thomas has argued that groups like the Young Lords and their contemporaries such as El Comité, Real Great Society, and the PSP (Puerto Rican So-

« 182 » Notes to Pages – cialist Party) all were a continuation of the old Puerto Rican Left from the 1930s. See Thomas, Puerto Rican Citizen, 237–239. . Wanzer-Serrano, The New York Young Lords, 34. . Morales, “¡PALANTE, SIEMPRE PALANTE!, 211–212; Miguel Melendez, We Took the Streets: Fighting for Latino Rights with the Young Lords (Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005), 72. . Iris Morales came into the Young Lords through Felipe Luciano, to whom she was married at the time. . Melendez, We Took the Streets, 81. . Fernández, The Young Lords, 84, 49. . “Interview with Cha Cha Jiménez Chairman of the Young Lords Organization,” Black Panther, June 7, 1969, 17. . Juan González, interview with author, digital recording, New Brunswick, New Jersey, July 11, 2018. . Fernández, The Young Lords, 88. . Juan González, interview, July 11, 2018. . Sánchez, Boricua Power, 197; Fernández, “Radicals in the Late 1960s,” 95. . Felipe Luciano interview, July 11, 2018; Juan González interview, July 11, 2018. For more on the origins of the provision of social services rooted in the Black Panther Party, see Donna Murch, Living for the City: Migration, Education, and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010). . Felipe Luciano interview, July 11, 2018. . Nuyorican poet Pedro Pietri grew up attending the church, which was yet another reason why the Lords had their eyes set on it. See Fernández, “Radicals in the Late 1960s,” 122. . Ibid., 159. . Juan González interview, July 11, 2018. . Robert L. Wilson, The First Spanish United Methodist Church and the Young Lords (New York: Department of Research and Survey, National Division of the Board of Missions, United Methodist Church, 1970), 10, 11. . Fernández, The Young Lords, 159. . Ibid., 159, 163 (quotation). The Young Lords’ first time in the church was on October 26, 1969. . John Sibley, “50 Protest At Metropolitan Hospital,” New York Times, December 6, 1969. . Johanna Fernández, “The Young Lords and the Social and Structural Roots of Late Sixties Urban Radicalism,” in Civil Rights in New York City: From World War  II to the Guiliani Era, ed. Clarence Taylor (New York: Fordham University Press, 2011), 141–142, 157. . Fernández, The Young Lords, 164–165. . Michael T. Kaufman, “8 Hurt, 14 Seized in a Church Clash,” New York Times, December 8, 1969. After the December 7 violence, the United Method-

Notes to Pages –

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ist Church conference Board of Christian Social Concerns paid bail for those arrested. As a measure of solidarity, students from Union Seminary, Columbia University, and City College occupied Methodist church office buildings in New York City. Bishop Lloyd C. Wicke, January 12, 1970, Young Lords Association Collection, 1970–1971, 2601-3-4:09 (1987-029) Women’s Division, 2, Drew University Archives, Madison, New Jersey. . Fernández, The Young Lords, 166. . Michael T. Kaufman, “Puerto Rican Group Seizes Church in East Harlem in Demand for Space,” New York Times, December 29, 1969; Dean Kelly, “The Young Lords and the Spanish Congregation,” Christian Century (February 18, 1970): 208. . Arnold H. Lubasch, “Young Lords Give Food and Care at Seized Church,” New York Times, December 30, 1969. . Fernández, The Young Lords, 172. . Wilson, “The First Spanish United Methodist Church and the Young Lords,” 16. . Black, “A Church in El Barrio” (quotation); Fernández, The Young Lords, 177. . Morales, Through the Eyes of Rebel Women, 23. . The Reverend Robert Chapman, director, racial justice, National Council of Churches, January 2, 1970, Young Lords Association Collection, 1970–1971, 26013-4:09 (1987-029) Women’s Division, 2 (quotation), Drew University Archives, Madison, New Jersey; “Church Seeks Writ to Bar Young Lords,” New York Times, December 31, 1969. . Black, “A Church in El Barrio.” . Ibid. . Michael T. Kaufman, “Church Occupiers Ordered to Court,” New York Times, January 6, 1970. . Neftali Torres, interview with author, Camuy, Puerto Rico, June 18, 2007. . Leo Nieto, “Field Report on Young Lords Issue in New York City,” January 15, 1970, box F094, Young Lords fi le, Hispanic American Institute, Austin Presbyterian Seminary, Austin, Texas. . Wilson, “The First Spanish United Methodist Church and the Young Lords,” 8, 42. . “Young Lords Stage Second ‘Church Takeover,’” United Methodists for Methodism Newsletter 10 (March 1970): 4, RHC-65, box 2, Young Lords/José Jiménez record group, Rev. Bruce Johnson Articles file, GSVU Archives, Allendale, Michigan. . “Badillo Confers with Young Lords,” New York Times, February 1, 1970, RHC-65, box 2, Young Lords/José Jiménez record group, Chicago Police file, GSVU Archives, Allendale, Michigan. . Communication Center, National Council of Churches, “Open letter to the congregation of the First Spanish United Methodist Church,” January 23, 1970, Na-

« 184 » Notes to Pages – tional Council of Churches Collection, RG 637 23, Young Lords (of East Harlem) fi le, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia. . “Young Lords Defy Take-Over Order,” New York Times, January 3, 1970. . The Reverend Ralph Roy, sermon, “The Young Lords, Dr. King, and Where Are We Headed?,” January 11, 1970, 1619-5-1:5, Young Lords 1970 (1995-023) Bosley Papers, Drew University Archives, Madison, New Jersey. . First Source, NCC Communications, from a spokesman for the United Methodist Spanish Church in Spanish Harlem, December 19, 1969, Drew Un, 26013-4:09, Young Lords Association 1970-71 (1987-029) Women’s Division, Drew University Archives, Madison, New Jersey. . Agustín Laó, “Resources of Hope: Imagining the Young Lords and the Politics of Memory,” CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies 7, no. 1 (1995): 38. . Jaime Pensado, “El Movimiento Estudiantil Profesional (MEP): Una mirada a la radicalización de la juventud Católica durante la Guerra Fría,” Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 31, no. 1 (Winter 2015): 189. . Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation (1973), 15th ed. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1988). . Melendez, We Took the Streets, 85. . Chase Madar, “The People’s Priest,” American Conservative, February 1, 2010: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-peoples-priest/. . Darrel Enck-Wanzer, The Young Lords: A Reader (New York: New York University Press, 2010), 29. . Laó, “Resources of Hope,” 39. . Fernández, The Young Lords, 186. . Michael T. Kaufman, “105 Members of Young Lords Submit to Arrest, Ending 11-Day Occupation of Church in East Harlem,” New York Times, January 8, 1970. . Michael T. Kaufman, “Church Occupiers Ordered to Court,” January 6, 1970. . Kaufman, “105 Members of Young Lords Submit”; “84 Aides Plead for Lords: Urge Charges against Group in East Harlem Be Dropped,” New York Times, January 24, 1970. . “Trial Is Ordered for Young Lords,” New York Times, January 17, 1970. . “84 Church Leaders Plead for Lords,” New York Times, January 24, 1970. . Ibid. . Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York, First Spanish United Methodist Church, INC, et al., against Young Lords of America, et al., “Application for leave to appear as amicus curiae and statement.” Young Lords Association Collection, 1970–1971, 2601-3-4:09 (1987-029) Women’s Division, 2, Drew University Archives, Madison, New Jersey. . Robert E. Tomasson, “Contempt Charges Are Dropped as Lords Reach Church Accord,” New York Times, February 25, 1970. The church did eventually es-

Notes to Pages –

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tablish a day-care center, but that came later and under different pastoral leadership in the mid-1970s. . “Freedom of Worship by Invitation Only,” First Source, January 23, 1970, National Council of Churches Collection RG 637 23, Young Lords (of East Harlem) fi le, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia. . Thomas, Puerto Rican Identity, 234. . Fernández, The Young Lords, 185. Rita Moreno could not visit but did send funds to support the efforts of the Young Lords. . Johanna Fernández, ¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York, Bronx Museum, New York City, 2015, Communications Center, National Council of Churches, “Black Methodists for Church Renewal,” January 30, 1970, NCC Collection, Record Group 6, box 37, decision of Christian life and mission 1945–1973, Presbyterian Church USA Archives, Philadelphia. . Luciano interview, July 11, 2018. . Michael T. Kaufman, “Church Occupiers Ordered to Court,” New York Times, January 6, 1970. . José E. Cruz, Puerto Rican Identity, Political Development, and Democracy in New York, 1960–1990 (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2017), xv. . Morales, “¡PALANTE, SIEMPRE PALANTE!,” 215. . Laó, “Resources of Hope,” 38. . As quoted in Morales, Through the Eyes of Rebel Women, 69.

Chapter 4: Magic in Houston’s Northside Barrio . Charlene Warnken, “Apostle of Change Here to Help Poor Of Community,” Houston Post, February 17, 1970. . Ibid. . Roberto R. Treviño, “Reflections on The Church in the Barrio,” Journal of Southern Religion 15 (2013): http://jsr.fsu.edu/issues/vol15/trevino.html (accessed September 9, 2015). . Kyle Shelton, Power Moves: Transportation, Politics, and Development in Houston (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2017), 10. Of the cities covered in this book, Houston remains the most understudied even though it is the largest city in the south and the most ethnically diverse city in the nation: “between 1950 and 1980, Houston transitioned from a medium-sized, biracial, southern city into a sprawling multiracial metropolis” (ibid., 12). . Phillip Luke Sinitiere, “From the Oasis of Love to Your Best Life Now: A Brief History of Lakewood Church,” Houston History 8, no. 3 (July 12, 2011): 2: https://houstonhistorymagazine.org/2011/07/from-the-oasis-of-love-to-your-best -life-now-a-brief-history-of-lakewood-church/. . Robinson Block, “Moody Park: From the Riots to the Future for the Northside Community,” Houston History 9, no. 3 (July 29, 2012): 20: https://houstonhisto

« 186 » Notes to Pages – rymagazine.org/2012/07/moody-park-from-the-riots-to-the-future-for-the-northside -community/. See also Arnoldo De León, Ethnicity in the Sunbelt: Mexican Americans in Houston (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2001); Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr., Brown, Not White: School Integration and the Chicano Movement in Houston (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2005); Brian D. Behnken, Fighting Their Own Battles: Mexican Americans, African Americans, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Texas (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011); Tyina L. Steptoe, Houston Bound: Culture and Color in a Jim Crow City (Oakland: University of California Press, 2015). . It is not known exactly which child climbed into the church that day. One interview with Yolanda Garza Birdwell claimed that it was Poncho Ruiz’s niece who climbed inside. In my interview with Alex Rodriguez, he stated that it was a kid from the neighborhood named Simon (no last name given). Alex Rodriguez, interview with author, digital recording, Houston, Texas, May 6, 2015; Yolanda Garza Birdwell, interview with Ernesto Valdes, University of Houston Oral History of Houston Project, Houston, Texas, May 4, 2007. . In oral history interviews with Yolanda Garza Birdwell and Alex Rodriguez and in the newspaper accounts from 1970, MAYO described the occupation as a magical event. “The North Side People’s Center,” Gregory Salazar Collection, box 1, folder 11, 2, Houston Metropolitan Research Center (hereafter HMRC), Houston, Texas. . Gregory Salazar, interview with Thomas Kreneck, May 9, 1989, HMRC. . Sherwood Bishop, “Pass the Bacon, Serve the People,” Space City News, February 1970, box 53, folder 6, Houston MAYO Clippings 1970, José Ángel Gutiérrez Papers, LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections, University of Texas at Austin. . J. D. Arnold, “Chicanos Told to Vacate Church,” Houston Chronicle, February 26, 1970. MAYO members were careful not to occupy the sanctuary. They took over the community building attached to the church and used that for the most part. When Constable Walter Rankin walked into the building to serve the eviction notice, about ten or so people were there, about half African American and half Mexican American. . Juan Marcos, Presbytery Meeting Notes, March 7, 1970, box F073, Juan Marcos fi le, HAI archives. . “Presbytery Asks Bar of MAYO,” Austin Statesman, February 27, 1970, box F073, Juan Marcos fi le, HAI archives. . It was also known as “Inner-City” MAYO or “Community” MAYO, but today most people in Houston recognize it as “Barrio” MAYO. For the purposes of clarity, I refer to the group in the Northside simply as “MAYO” throughout this chapter. . Space City News was an underground newspaper in Houston from 1969 to 1972. It was started by a couple of SDS veterans. . Alex Rodriguez, interview with author, digital recording, Houston, Texas, May 6, 2015.

Notes to Pages –

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. Salazar, interview with Kreneck, May 9, 1989. . It should also be noted that Gloria Rubac, who was Alex Rodriguez’s wife at the time, was another white person involved in the work of MAYO. While she was not an official member of the group, she was active at many of its protests and meetings. For more on Gloria Rubac, see Gloria Rubac, interview with Samantha Rodríguez, video recording, Houston, Texas, June 6, 2016: https://crbb.tcu.edu/clips/451 4/mayo-mexican-american-movement-leaders-and-local-organizations. . According to Salazar, MAYO in Houston always brought up sexism and gender equality, which bothered the state MAYO leadership in San Antonio. Salazar, interview with Kreneck, May 9, 1989. . “MAYO Positions,” Gregory Salazar Collection, box 1, folder 1, 2, HMRC. . Rodriguez, interview with author, May 6, 2015. . Samantha Rodríguez and Stalina Emmanuelle Villareal, “María Jiménez: Reflexiones on Traversing Multiple Fronteras in the South,” in Chicana Movidas: New Narratives of Activism and Feminism in the Movement Era, ed. Dionne Espinosa, María Eugenia Cotera, and Maylei Blackwell (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2018), 281–282. . Ignacio García, “Mexican American Youth Organization: Precursors of Change in Texas,” number 8 (1987), Mexican American Studies and Research Center’s Working Paper Series, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona. . Mario Compeán, interview with Ignacio García, quoted in García, “Mexican American Youth Organization,” 6. . Quoted in García, “Mexican American Youth Organization,” 7–12. . David Montejano, Quixote’s Soldiers: A Local History of the Chicano Movement, 1966–1981 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010), 59. . Ignacio García, “Mexican American Youth Organization: Precursors of Change in Texas,” 2, no. 8 (1987), Mexican American Studies and Research Center’s Working Paper Series, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona. For more on MAYO activism in Texas, see Armando Navarro, Mexican American Youth Organization: Avant-Garde of the Chicano Movement in Texas (1995) (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014); San Miguel, Brown, Not White. . Salazar, interview with Kreneck, May 9, 1989. . Yolanda Garza Birdwell and Walter Birdwell, interview with author, digital recording, Laguna Vista, Texas, May 25, 2015. . Block, “Moody Park,” 20; “A Statistical Analysis of the Neighborhood around Christ Presbyterian Church,” Gregory Salazar Collection, box 1, folder 11, HMRC. . Thomas H. Kreneck, “Documenting a Mexican American Community: The Houston Example,” American Archivist 48, no. 3 (July 1985): 274, https://doi.org /10.17723/aarc.48.3.171t58027k165340; Jesus Jesse Esparza, “La Colonia Mexicana: A History of Mexican Americans in Houston,” Houston History 9, no. 1 (December 2, 2011): 2; Tyina L. Steptoe, “Mexican Americans and the Power of Culture in Houston,” Modern American History 2, no. 1 (March 2019): 65–69, https://doi.org/10.1017 /mah.2018.35.

« 188 » Notes to Pages – . Elizabeth Korver-Glenn, “Middle-Class Mexican Americans, Neighborhood Affect, and Redevelopment in Houston’s Northside Barrio,” City and Community 13, no. 4 (December 2014): 389, https://doi.org/10.1111/cico.12089; San Miguel, Brown, Not White, 5–6. . León, Ethnicity in the Sunbelt, 13–69. . Roberto R. Treviño, The Church in the Barrio: Mexican American EthnoCatholicism in Houston (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 77. But in a development that remains sorely understudied, by 1940 there were more Protestant than Catholic churches in Houston’s barrios: see San Miguel, Brown, Not White, 11. . Robert Fisher, “Urban Policy in Houston, Texas,” Urban Studies 26, no. 1 (February 1, 1989): 144. . Ibid., 150. . “Northside Peoples Center and MAYO, Fact Sheet,” Gregory Salazar Collection, box 1, folder 11, HMRC. The church first opened its doors in 1923. At its height in the 1950s, Christ Presbyterian Church had upward of 450 members attending every Sunday. The last service in the building was held on September 28, 1969. “Christ Presbyterian Has Up-Down History,” Houston Post, February 25, 1970. . “North Side People’s Center Organization and Mexican American Youth Organization” Fact Sheet, Gregory Salazar Collection, box 1, folder 11; and MAYO “Letter to Presbyterians,” Gregory Salazar Collection, box 1, folder 8, HMRC. . One of MAYO’s mentors, Leonel Castillo, a community and political leader in Houston, helped put the two groups in contact. . W. B. Poteat, “The Church and the War on Poverty,” VISTA Collection, RG F-10, box 2, folder 2, “The Lack Project,” HMRC. . Ibid. . Jan Morgan, “Churchmen to Work in Harrisburg Area,” Church Chronicle (published by the Houston Chronicle), September 11, 1965, VISTA Collection, RG F-10, box 2, folder 2, “The Lack Project,” HMRC. . Wallace “Bud” Poteat, “Voice” Newsletter, Latin American Community Project, February 25, 1967, VISTA Collection, RG F-10, box 1 of 2, “Lack Project,” HMRC. . Rodríguez, interview with author, May 6, 2015; Jim Rice and Ray Waldrep, “Ministers Hear MAYO Speaker,” Houston Chronicle, April 30, 1970. . Ron Durham, “MAYO Demands Presented at Catholic Charities Parley,” Houston Post, October 1, 1969; “Demand List Presented by Mexican Americans,” Houston Post, February 20, 1970. MAYO demanded, among other things, that Juan Marcos should be both serving and saving souls, that community members must constitute 60 percent of the church’s governing body, and that all money raised in the church should go toward community welfare. Ruben Armendariz admitted that MAYO had a lot of good ideas but argued that you cannot turn a “church into a cafeteria overnight and expect to start running a day nursery.” “Demands List Presented by Mexican Americans,” Houston Post, February 20, 1970.

Notes to Pages –

« 189 »

. Meeting of Concerned Catholics, May 13, 1969, Concerned Catholics, box 5, folder 12, Albert A. Peña Jr. Papers, University of Texas San Antonio Special Collections, San Antonio, Texas. . “Proposal for Use of Christ Church, Fulton and Moody Streets Houston,” submitted to Brazos Presbytery by the Mexican-American Youth Organization, Gregory Salazar Collection, box 1, folder 11, HMRC. . Letter from Jim McLeod to Robert Frere, January 30, 1970, box F072, Houston general fi les, HAI archives. . Letter from Robert Frere to William Fogleman, January 29, 1970, box F072, general fi les: Houston, HAI archives, Austin Presbyterian Seminary, Austin, Texas. In that same memo Frere wrote that he did give MAYO three options: “forget about the church, re-submit a proposal, or demand the building, take it by force. . . . I said it means jail and possible negation of everything you want to eventually accomplish, but it is an option.” . On February 10, 1970, the Brazos Presbytery gave the Juan Marcos church members permission to move into the church building. Members of the new church made the agreement that they would lease the building for five years at no charge and after that buy the building. “Church Elders to Seek Agreement with MAYO,” Houston Post, February 18, 1970. . Ron Durham, “Service in the Midst of Storm,” Houston Post, March 21, 1970. . “Proposed Plan of Relocation” February 7, 1970, box F073, Juan Marcos fi le, HAI archives. . Matthew Pehl, The Making of Working-Class Religion (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2016), 26. . “Reaction to the Juan Marcos Proposed Plan of Relocation,” February 19, 1970, box F073, Juan Marcos fi le, HAI archives. . Durham, “Service in the Midst of Storm.” . Dr. Jack Lancaster, oral history interview, October 9, 1987, First Presbyterian Church Collection, box 15, folder 19, HMRC Archives. . David Jeff rey Cameron, “Race and Religion in the Bayou City: Latino/a, African American, and Anglo Baptists in Houston’s Long Civil Rights Movement” (PhD diss., Texas A&M University, August 2017), 153–154. . Ibid., 166–167. . Letter from Jorge Lara-Braud to the Reverend Ruben Armendariz, February 20, 1970, box F073, Juan Marcos fi le, HAI archives. . Letter from Jorge Lara-Braud to Yolanda Garza Birdwell, February 21, 1970, box F073, Juan Marcos fi le, HAI archives. . “Church Sets Deadline at 3PM for MAYO to Vacate Building,” Houston Post, February 26, 1970. . J. B. Arnold, “Chicanos Eyeing Other Churches,” Houston Post, n.d. . Associated Press, “MAYO Wants Building Back,” Houston Post, March 10, 1970.

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Notes to Pages  – 

. “Houston MAYOs Agree to Leave Church,” Houston Post, February 25, 1970. . Ibid. . “Proposed Plan for Usage of Juan Marcos Presbyterian Church Building, General Understanding,” February 24, 1970, box F073, Juan Marcos fi le, HAI archives. . After being forced out of the Juan Marcos Church, MAYO reopened the Northside People’s Center (summer 1970) at another location that was funded in part by the First Church’s Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC). . “2 MAYOS Get Church Seats,” Houston Post, March 30, 1970; “Pastor to Seek Legal Help in MAYO Dispute,” Houston Post, April 6, 1970. MAYO activists disrupted services on Sunday mornings for five straight weeks. About thirty MAYO members marched down the aisles of the church, fists raised and shouting, with another seventy-five people outside. Instead of listening to MAYO’s demands, church leaders invited the activists to worship with them. That is not what they wanted. Each disruption lasted no more than three or four minutes, according to church leaders. . David Cameron, “Race and Faith in the Bayou City: African American, Latina/o, and Anglo Baptists in Houston’s Civil Rights Movements,” paper presented at the Texas State Historical Association, Annual Meeting, Corpus Christi, Texas, March 2015. . Henry Holcomb, “MAYOs Refused Entry into Services,” Houston Post, n.d., First Presbyterian Church Collection, box 7, folder 11, HMRC Archives. . “Special Called Session Meeting,” First Presbyterian Church, April 2, 1970, First Presbyterian Church Collection, box 15, folder 19, HMRC Archives. . “Pastor Wants Ban on MAYO,” Houston Post, April 6, 1970. . “Presbyterian Church Sues MAYO,” Houston Post, April 6, 1970. . Ernest Bailey, “MAYO Ordered Not to Disrupt Church Activities,” Houston Post, April 11, 1970. . Mexican American Task Force, June 3, 1970, box F077, Mexican American Task Force fi le, HAI archives. . “There is no doubt that the Christian witness is at the center of the work. . . . Christian service and social action instead of excluding the witness of faith and life in Christ are among the most worthy and pertinent forms of Christian witness in the neighborhoods and everywhere.” Original in Spanish: “No hay duda que el testimonio Cristiano está al centro de el trabajo . . . servicio Cristiano y acción social en lugar de excluir el testimonio de la fe y de la vida en Cristo están entre las formas más dignas y pertinentes del testimonio Cristiano en los barrios y en todo lugar.” Asociación Ministerial Mexico-Americana de Houston, 1971, box F076, Mexican American Church Conference fi le, 1970–1971, HAI archives. . “Meeting for Church Workers and Clergy,” Valley Community Center, December 7, 1970, box F076, Mexican American Church Conference fi le, 1970–1971, HAI archives.

Notes to Pages  –

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. “Preliminary Design: Las Congregaciones Extendidas,” Brazos Presbytery, Presbyterian Church US, June 23, 1971, box F072, Houston fi le, HAI archives. . Letter to the Houston City Council and Houston Independent School District from Mexican-American clergy, September 21, 1970, box F072, Houston general fi les, HAI archives. The letter, signed by the Reverend Arturo Fernández (Ministro Metodista/Methodist Minister), the Reverend Ruben Armendariz (Minister, Juan Marcos Presbyterian Church), the Reverend Noé Móntez (Ministro, Iglesia Metodista El Mesías/Minister, The Messiah Methodist Church), Padre Antonio Mazañón (Católico/Catholic), the Reverend Guillermo Chávez (Iglesia Metodista El Buen Pastor/Minister, Good Shephard Methodist Church), the Reverend Doroteo Alaniz (Ministro, Iglesia Discípulos de Cristo/Minister, Disciples of Christ), and the Reverend Ismael Maldonado (Pastor Asociado, Iglesia Presbiteriana Juan Marcos/Associate Pastor, Juan Marcos Presbyterian Church). . Salazar, interview with Kreneck, May 9, 1989. . Charlene Warnken, “Apostle of Change Here to Help Poor of Community,” Houston Post, February 17, 1970. . For more information on the church, see its website: http://juanmarcospc .tripod.com/ (accessed November 2019).

Conclusion . The sociologists Ana María Díaz-Stevens and Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo have called the 1970s the era of “the Latino religious resurgence” in Recognizing the Latino Resurgence in U.S. Religion: The Emmaus Paradigm (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1998), 120. See also Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo, “From Barrios to Barricades: Religion and Religiosity in Latino Life,” in The Columbia History of Latinos in the United States since 1960, ed. David Gutiérrez (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 303–354. The Reverend Jorge Lara-Braud believed that “the road to renaissance lies unmistakably in their willingness and ability to insist on indigenous leadership and to make their forms of church life consonant with the spirit of self-assertion sweeping through the entire ethnic community”: Jorge Lara-Braud, “The Status of Religion among Mexican Americans,” in La Causa Chicana: The Movement for Justice, ed. Margaret M. Mangold and Family Service Association of America (New York: Family Service Association of America, 1972), 91. . Bryan Burrough, Days of Rage: America’s Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence (New York: Penguin Books, 2016). . Darrel Enck-Wanzer, ed., The Young Lords: A Reader (New York: New York University Press, 2010), 32. . Fernández, The Young Lords, 191. . Juan González, interview with author, New Brunswick, New Jersey, July 11, 2018. . See, for example, the claims made by Juan F. Martínez, The Story of Latino

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Notes to Pages –

Protestants in the United States (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 2018); Helene Slessarev-Jamir, Prophetic Activism: Progressive Religious Justice Movements in Contemporary America (New York: New York University Press, 2011), 14–15; and see David R. Swartz, Moral Minority: The Evangelical Left in an Age of Conservatism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). . The work of José Muñoz has been especially helpful, as this sort of visioning can be described as a “concrete utopia.” Muñoz offers the following definition: “relational to historically situated struggles, a collectivity that is actualized or potential. . . . Concrete utopias can also be daydream-like, but they are the hopes of the collective, an emergent group, or even the solitary oddball who is the one who dreams for many. Concrete utopias are the realm of educated hope.” José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity (New York: New York University Press, 2009), 3. . James Carroll, “To Save the Church, Dismantle the Priesthood,” Atlantic (June 2019): 83. . “Three Arrested in St. Louis for Disrupting Services,” Religious News Service, June 18, 1969, box 34, folder 35: “Black Manifesto Press Statements,” National Council of Churches Records, Presbyterian Historical Society Archives, Philadelphia. . Carmen Teresa Whalen, “Bridging Homeland and Barrio Politics: The Young Lords in Philadelphia,” in The Puerto Rican Movement: Voices from the Diaspora, ed. Andrés Torres and José Emiliano Velázquez (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998), 116. . “Young Methodist Demonstrators Fire ‘Blanks’ at Conference,” Religious News Service, June 18, 1969, box 34, folder 35: “Black Manifesto Press Statements,” National Council of Churches Records; Robert Strommen, “Crisis in the Nation,” National Council of Churches, July 11, 1969, transcript of telephone report, box 34, folder 15: “Black Manifesto,” National Council of Churches Records, Presbyterian Historical Society Archives, Philadelphia. . Cary Cordova beautifully highlights this point in her own work when she argues that “acknowledging the history of local communities in the larger national landscape is imperative for understanding the inclusions and exclusions that have played out in forming a national pan-Latino identity.” Cary Cordova, The Heart of the Mission: Latino Art and Politics in San Francisco (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 8. . Belinda Robnett, Carol L. Glasser, and Rebecca Trammell, “Waves of Contention: Relations among Radical, Moderate, and Conservative Organizations,” Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change (September 2, 2015): 71: https:// doi.org/10.1108/S0163-786X20150000038003. . Moises Sandoval, Fronteras: A History of the Latin American Church in the USA since 1513 (San Antonio: Mexican American Cultural Center, 1983), 419. . Spring Meeting of HAI Board of Trustees, May 6, 1972, box F060, Individual Name Files folder, Ben Canales; and Report to the General Council Special

Notes to Pages –

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Committee on the Chicano Education Project, September 28, 1970, box F060, Administrative Files folder, Texas Synod of Texas UPUSA, HAI archives. . Alan J. Watt, Farm Workers and the Churches: The Movement in California and Texas (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2010); Lloyd Barba, “California’s Cross: A Cultural History of Pentecostalism, Race, and Agriculture” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2016). . “Report on Ministry with Spanish Americans to the General Assembly,” 175th General Assembly, Des Moines, Iowa, May 1966, box F060, Administrative Files Texas folder, Synod of Texas UPUSA, 11, HAI archives; Presbyterian Historical Society, Record Group 301.9, box 9, Board of Christian Education, Commission on Religion and Race, Spanish Speaking 1964 folder, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia. . Mario T. García, Father Luis Olivares, a Biography: Faith Politics and the Origins of the Sanctuary Movement in Los Angeles (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018); Roberto R. Treviño, The Church in the Barrio: Mexican American Ethno-Catholicism in Houston (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006); Lara Medina, Las Hermanas: Chicana/Latina Religious-Political Activism in the U.S. Catholic Church (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2005); Luis D. León, La Llorona’s Children: Religion, Life, and Death in the U.S.-Mexican Borderlands (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004); Felipe Hinojosa, Latino Mennonites: Civil Rights, Faith, and Evangelical Culture (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014). . “The Dallas Declaration of the National Planning Committee of the Spanish-American Crisis,” box F069, Dallas 1968–1972, January 29, 1971, presented to Section of Hispanic American Ministries, National Council of Churches. HAI archives. . Ibid., 7, 8. In the spring of 1971, the United Methodist group Methodists Associated Representing the Cause of Hispanic Americans (MARCHA) held its first national strategy meeting, with a grant of $42,000 from the board of missions. MARCHA worked hard to gain this grant, but the board of missions was probably the closest to the occupation and most sympathetic. . Ibid., 7. . David Vidal, “Hispanic Protestant Church Group Forges New Role for the Spanish-Speaking in New York City’s Affairs,” New York Times, August 2, 1976; George Dugan, “Lower East Side Churches Mobilize against Vandalism and Fires,” New York Times, October 31, 1976. During the late summer of 1976, Latina/o Protestant churches on the Lower East Side were burned down. The Damascus Christian Church went first, followed by the Emmanuel Spanish Baptist Church, and a few weeks after that the pastor at Iglesia El Divino Maestro received a phone call and heard an anonymous caller shout: “Your church will be next.” Latina/o pastors began meeting with city officials to fend off attacks on Latina/o churches and to complain that police officers were often slow to respond to their calls or unwilling to in-

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vestigate the burning of churches. Nonetheless, the pastors got the attention of the mayor and police department, claiming that they did not have enough Latina/o police who could better relate to the community. Acción Civica had already started a fundraising campaign to help the churches recover thousands in damages and get them to rebuild. . Helen Parmley, “Seminaries Challenged to Relate to Reality,” Dallas Morning News, January 30, 1971. . Jorge Lara-Braud, “The Status of Religion among Mexican Americans,” American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature—Southwest Region, March 19, 1971, F098, File Speeches and Addresses Folder II, HAI archives. . Elenita Ravicz, “Casa Guadalupe Urges Students to Mingle with Community,” Los Angeles Times, February 25, 1985. . For an excellent history of the development of Latina/o theology in the United States, see Eduardo C. Fernández, La Cosecha: Harvesting Contemporary United States Hispanic Theology (1972–1998) (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000); Felipe Hinojosa, “Educating ‘Hispano Hoosiers’: From the Hispanic Ministries Program to the Center for Intercultural Teaching and Learning at Goshen College, 1979–2006,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 86, no. 4 (October 2012): 446. . Luis Vázquez, “Go and Make Disciples: An Analysis of the Salsa Evangélica Movement in Puerto Rico,” CENTRO Journal 16, no. 2 (Fall 2004): 194–225. . Terry Lindvall and Andrew Quicke, Celluloid Sermons: The Emergence of the Christian Film Industry, 1930–1986 (New York: New York University Press, 2011), 159. . Shana L. Redmond, Anthem: Social Movements and the Sound of Solidarity in the African Diaspora (New York: New York University Press, 2014), 269–270. . Gustavo Esteva and Madhu Suri Prakash, Grassroots Post-Modernism: Remaking the Soil of Cultures (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1998), 33. . Gaye Theresa Johnson, “Constellations of Struggle: Luisa Moreno, Charlotta Bass, and the Legacy for Ethnic Studies,” Aztlán: A Journal for Chicano Studies 33, no. 1 (Spring 2008): 155–172. . Lydia López, interview with author, Alhambra, California, July 4, 2018. According to Lydia, this comment was made by Juan Gomez Quiñones. . Lydia herself used this characterization as we discussed her work during the July 4, 2018, interview. . Frank del Olmo, “Latino Activists from UNO Turn Backs on Ballot Box,” Los Angeles Times, July 27, 1980.

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Index

Illustrations are denoted by f following the page number. Acción Civica Evangélica, 155, 193– 194n22 Action Committee to Oppose Racism (ACTOR), 36 Addams, Jane, 29 African American churches, 49, 109, 161n2 African Americans, 25, 98, 129, 136 Albizu Campos, Pedro, 13, 98, 100 Alcatraz occupation, 11–12, 146 Alinsky, Saul, 127 Alvarez, Ezequiel, 48 American Baptist Convention, 13 American Baptist Home Missions Society, 168n43 American GI Forum, 127 American Indian Movement, 51 anticolonial movements, 22, 23, 28–29 Aponte-Parés, Luis, 96 Archdiocese of Los Angeles, 63–65, 68– 71, 78–80 Arizmendi Society, 13 Armendariz, Ruben, 136, 140, 143–144, 188n45 Armitage Methodist Church, 24f, 46f, 48f; and activist demands, 45; and breakfast program, 102; occupation

of, 100; and urban renewal, 1–2, 26; and YLO, 16, 172–173n76 “Armitage Street” (Hernandez), 26 Austin Seminary, 152 Badillo, Herman, 91, 114, 115 Baptist Convention USA, 14 Barber, Llana, 7 Barretto, Ray, 117 barrios: and churches, 130; and church occupations, 158; demographics of, 129; and desegregation, 142–143; and local religious movements, 145; and SAC, 100; and social movements, 121, 123; and urban renewal, 6–9 Bataan, Joe, 117 Bautista, Fulgencio, 101 Bernal, Paulino, 156 Birdwell, Walter, 125 Birdwell, Yolanda Garza, 128f, 139f; and First Presbyterian picket, 141, 142; and Juan Marcos Church occupation, 123, 124, 145, 186n7, 186n8; and MAYO, 125–126; and Mexican American Task Force, 143–144 Bishop’s Committee for the SpanishSpeaking, 152

« 208 »

Index

Black, Jonathan, 107 Black Active and Determined (BAD), 31 Black Economic Development Conference, 150 black freedom struggle: and Latina/o radicals, 166n24; and new awakening, 94; and religious institutions, 36; and religious leaders, 9, 11; and religious progressives, 50–51; and YLO, 98–99 Black Manifesto, 13–14, 38–39, 39–40, 56, 150 Black Methodists for Church Renewal, 117 Black Panther Party, 28, 54, 100, 101–102 Black Panthers: and FBI surveillance, 33; and Holy Covenant Methodist Church, 30; and MAYO, 127; and McCormick Theological Seminary occupation, 31; and YLO, 20 Black Power: and American Christianity, 14; and black Catholics, 9; and churches, 2–3; and identity politics, 162–163n6; and Latina/o radicals, 148; and liberation theology, 147; and NSCM, 30; and Religious Left, 11 Blanton, Carlos, 3 Blivas, Donald, 52 Board of Puerto Rican Affairs, 48 Bonpane, Blase, 73 Boone, Pat, 156 Borjón, Pat, 70 Brazos Presbytery: and Centro de Urbanización, 144; and Christ Presbyterian Church, 131; and ecumenical activism, 133; and Juan Marcos Church, 189n50; and Lack Project, 132; and MAYO, 123, 124, 134–136, 137–139, 141–142, 141f Broadway Temple United Methodist Church, 104 Brown Berets, 58, 71, 125 Browning, Frank, 20

Brown Power: and Católicos, 166n23; and churches, 2–3; and identity politics, 162–163n6; and Latina/o freedom movement, 164n14; and Latina/o radicals, 148; and liberation theology, 147; and NSCM, 30; and theology, 151 Brown Revolution Manifesto, 40, 41 Burgos, José, 47, 49, 120–121, 145 Burgos, Juan, 97 Burrough, Bryan, 147 Calbillo, Carlos, 125 California Migrant Ministry, 10 California Rural Legal Assistance, 57 Camarillo, Albert, 6 Cameron, David, 136 Camp Oliver, 67–68 Campos Torres, José, 123 Carranza, Humberto, 97, 102, 104, 109, 115 Carrasco, Davíd, 51 Carroll, James, 150 Casa Guadalupe, 156 Casso, Henry, 133 Castillo, Leonel, 134 Catholic Charities, 133, 134 Catholic church: and advocacy, 152; and Católicos, 58, 166n23; and Chicana/o movement, 71; and Chicana/os in Texas, 133–134; and church occupations, 57; and Cursillo movement, 72; and IFCO, 168n43; and Latina/o communities, 64–65; and liberation theology, 110–111; and Mexican Americans, 86, 178n73; and PADRES, 81–82; and sexual abuse crisis, 150; and Vatican II, 10 Católicos Por La Raza (CPLR: Catholics for the People), 4, 67f; activist membership of, 60; aims of, 61; and Brown Power movement, 166n23; and Camp Oliver, 67–68; and Car-

Index dinal McIntyre, 69–71, 79; and Chicana/os in Texas, 133–134; critiques of, 78; demands of, 65–66; establishment of, 146; formation of, 57–58; legacy of, 86–88; and liberation theology, 72, 157–158; and Lydia López, 159; and police brutality, 104; and religious leaders, 8; and St. Basil’s Church action, 17, 73–77 Center for Intercultural Documentation, 112 Centro Cultural de la Raza (People’s Cultural Center), 67–68 Centro de Urbanización, 144 Chapman, Robert, 107 Chavez, Cesar, 10, 55, 57, 72, 87, 167n31 Chávez, Gloria, 60, 77, 85f Chicago, 24f; and activist occupations, 20–21; and community activism, 29–30; and Latina/o Presbyterians, 49–50; and racism, 7; and SDS convention, 124; and urban renewal, 2, 25–27, 51–53; and YLO origins, 99 Chicago Presbytery, 22–23, 44 Chicago Tribune, 37 Chicana/o movement: and Catholic church, 87, 133–134; and Católicos, 58, 71, 84, 86; and demographic transition, 18; diversity of, 17; and local religious movements, 144; and Leo Nieto, 109; and religion, 15 Chicano Moratorium, 84 Chicanos in a Changing Society (Camarillo), 6 Children’s Memorial Hospital, 21, 23 Chivera, Alberto, 45 Christ Guerrilla (Rostgaard 1969), 110 Christianity: in Chicago, 2; and liberation theology, 69, 111; and revolution, 13–14; and YLO, 112, 115, 118 Christianity Today, 4 Christ Presbyterian Church, 17–18, 123, 130–131, 134–135, 136–137, 188n37.

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See also Juan Marcos Presbyterian Church churches: and activist occupations, 2–4, 5–6, 8–9, 108, 139–140, 147, 148– 152, 157–159; burning of, 193–194n22; and Católicos, 87; defined, 163n7; in Houston, 121, 130; and Latina/o activism, 155–156; and Latina/o radicals, 151–152; and mariachi mass, 80–81; and MAYO, 133–135, 142, 144; and/in New York City, 97; and progressive politics, 154; and racism, 136–137; and radical movements, 29– 30; and Eliezer Risco, 39; and social change, 36; and social programs, 131–132; and social service, 117; and Spanish-speaking constituency, 50, 65; and urban renewal, 27; and YLO, 102, 109–110, 118 church occupations: biblical justification for, 15–16; and Católicos, 66; coverage of, 91; and faith politics, 147–148; and La Raza, 56–57; and Latina/o freedom movement, 4–6; and Latina/o religious politics, 158; and liberation theology, 110–111; and radical politics, 13; scholarship on, 162n4; and urban crisis, 7. See also specific occupations Church of the Epiphany, 56 Cinquemani, Anthony, 98 City College, 182–183n53 civil rights movement: and Cardinal McIntyre, 64; and churches, 163n7; and demographic transition, 98; and identity politics, 148; and Latina/o activism, 99; and Latina/o radicals, 164n14; and NSCM, 30; and religious institutions, 22; and social change, 147; and Stonewall riots, 146; and Vatican II, 10; and YLO, 98 Cline, David, 36

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Index

coalition building: and antiracist class struggle, 28–29; and Black Manifesto, 40; and Latina/o radicals, 151, 166n24; and MAYO, 128–129; and occupation, 11; and revolutionary nationalism, 94 Coalition of Concerned Catholics, 78–79 coalition politics, 6, 82, 149 Cold War, 111 colonialism, 54, 94, 146, 156, 178n73 Columbia University, 100, 101, 118, 148, 182–183n53 Community Conservation Council, 174n99 community organizing, 15, 30, 124 Compeán, Mario, 127 Concerned Citizens of Lincoln Park, 27, 31 concrete utopias, 192n7 Congreso Mundial de Pax Romana (1962), 111 Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 136 Conjunto Bernal, 156 Contreras, Eduardo, 7 Cookman Methodist Church, 150 Cotera, Martha, 15 Cressler, Matthew, 9 Cresswell, Tim, 11 Cross and the Switchblade, The (Wil kerson), 156 Crusade for Justice Conference (1968), 99 Cruz, Benjamin, 103 Cruz, Bobby, 156 Cruz, José, 118, 119 Cruz, Ricardo: and atheism, 85; and Católicos, 57–58, 69–70; and Cursillo movement, 72; and Timothy Manning, 80; on mysticism, 71; sentence of, 83; and St. Basil’s Church action, 73

Cruz, Ruben, 48 Cuba, Joe, 117 Cuban refugees, 10 Cursillo movement, 72, 86 Cuyler Warren Street Community Church, 110 Cuza, Luis, 36–37 Daley, Richard, 27 Dallas Declaration, 154–155 Damascus Christian Church, 193–194n22 Dávila, Orlando, 19–20 Davis, William, 78 Day, Mark, 68, 77 Department of Urban Renewal (Chicago), 53 DePaul University, 21, 23, 26, 32 De Rivero, Sal, 20 desegregation, 142–143 Devine-Reed, Patricia, 27–28, 30–31, 53 Diaz, José, 103 Díaz, Salvador, 103, 114 “Diosa y Hembra” (Goddess and Female), 15 displacement: in Chicago, 25–26, 162n3; and church occupations, 148–149; and East Harlem, 92, 96; and federal policies, 3; and Latina/o radicals, 8, 148; and Lincoln Park, 23, 43, 52; and occupation, 2, 12, 96; resistance to, 147; and social movements, 123; and solidarity networks, 29; and urban renewal, 6–7, 30; and YLO, 28, 54 Doherty, Duana, 60, 83 Duarte, Marta, 117 Dylan, Bob, 84 East Harlem Interfaith, 117 Eastland, James, 30 economic inequality, 3, 8 El Barrio (East Harlem), 93f; and breakfast program, 102; and FSUMC, 97;

Index and FSUMC occupation, 17; and liberation theology, 112; and Felipe Luciano, 90; and Pentecostal churches, 97; and Puerto Ricans, 179–180n2; and YLO, 91, 102 El Comité, 181–182n31 Elizondo, Virgilio, 87 ELLA, 135 El Museo del Barrio, 117 El Teatro del Barrio, 51 El Teatro del Desengaño, 51 Emmanuel Presbyterian Church, 120 Emmanuel Spanish Baptist Church, 193–194n22 Emmaus House, 102, 148 encuentros (encounters), 86 Episcopal Church, 13, 14, 132, 155, 168n43 Escalante, Alicia, 60, 73, 75, 83 Esteva, Gustavo, 158 Estrada, Erik, 156 ethnic studies programs, 156 Fair Play for Cuba, 42 Faith Temple Church, 137 Falwell, Jerry, 154 farmworker movement: and Catholic church, 57–58, 68, 77, 78, 87; and Latina/o Christians, 152–153; and religion, 15; and religious leaders, 5, 9–11; and UPCUSA, 44 FBI surveillance, 33, 54, 147, 148 Fernández, Johanna, 92, 94, 103, 112, 117 Fernández, Lilia, 7, 28 First Baptist Church, 136 First Presbyterian Church, 132, 136, 141–142 First Spanish United Methodist Church (FSUMC), 93f; and breakfast program, 102–103, 106f, 107f; history of, 97; and Felipe Luciano, 89–90; negotiations with, 115; occupation of, 91–92, 104–105, 106f, 107–110, 182– 183n53; and Pedro Pietri, 182n44;

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and Pedro Pirone, 117; theology of, 181n24; and urban renewal, 96; and YLO, 17, 92f Flores, Patricio, 59, 80–81, 82, 84, 152, 156 Fogleman, William, 135 Fonda, Jane, 117 Forman, James: and Black Manifesto, 13–14, 56; and Brown Revolution Manifesto, 41; and UPCUSA, 38–39, 38f, 39, 40 Frei, Eduardo, 111 From Colonia to Community (SánchezKorrol), 6 gang violence, 54 garbage offensive, 91, 101, 180n9 García, Ignacio, 127, 128 García, Mario T., 60, 69 García, Mike, 70, 74–75 Garza, Luis, 82f GI Forum, 153 Gómez, Alan, 94 González, Corky, 39, 99 González, Elena, 103 González, Henry B., 127 González, Juan, 95, 100, 105f, 148 González, Mirta, 103, 114 Granados, Roger, 39 Grebler, Leo, 64 Groppi, James, 68 Gutiérrez, Gustavo, 10, 111 Gutiérrez, José Ángel, 127, 140 Guzmán, Pablo, 100 Hahn, Larry, 82f, 85f Hampton, Fred, 28, 54, 124 Hartford Construction Company, 53 Heinze, Frank H., 38f Hernandez, David, 25–26 Hernández, Gloria, 140 Hernández, José, 49 Hernández, Tony, 8, 66

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Index

Herrera, David, 78 Hidalgo y Costilla, Miguel, 13 Hill, Joseph, 103, 114 Hispanic American Institute, 137–138, 152, 156 Holy Covenant Methodist Church, 30 Holy Name Catholic Church, 133 Horn, Milton, 52 Housing Acts, 25 Houston, 122f; and demographic transition, 17–18, 129–131, 136–137, 185n4; and desegregation, 142–143, 144–145; and mariachi mass, 80; and MAYO, 127–129; and Moody Park riots, 123; and white Southern Protestants, 121; and white supremacy, 132. See also Northside barrio Houston Metropolitan Ministries, 131 Howard Alan and Associates, 51–52 Hull House, 29 Humboldt Park, 20, 29, 41, 42 identity politics, 148, 153, 162–163n6 Iglesia El Divino Maestro, 193–194n22 Iglesia Pentecostal La Sinagoga, 90 Illich, Ivan, 95, 111–112 Immaculate Heart nuns, 17, 58, 64, 79, 84 Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, 130 Indians of All Tribes, 11–12 Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO), 15, 168n43 Isasi-Diaz, Ada María, 87 Ivany, Sonia, 103 Jackson, J. H., 14 Jesus Christ: and Latina/o radicals, 157– 158; and Pharisees, 90; revolutionary politics of, 112; and social change, 36; and temple money changers, 12–13; and YLO, 95, 110 “Jibaro, My Pretty Nigger” (Luciano), 100

Jiménez, José “Cha Cha,” 32f; and Ruben Cruz, 48; and Department of Urban Renewal, 53; and Patricia Devine-Reed, 27–28, 30–31; influence of, 8; and Johnson memorial service, 46–47; and MAYO, 124; and Mickey Melendez, 99; and Manuel Ramos, 20; and Don Ruben, 37; and SAC, 100; and seminary students, 36; on YLO mission, 23 Jiménez, Juan, 97 Johnson, Bruce W., Jr., 1, 26, 45, 46– 47, 54 Johnson, Eugenia “Genie” Ransier, 1, 46, 54 Juan Marcos Presbyterian Church, 122f, 128f, 137f, 138f; and Brazos Presbytery, 134–135, 136, 189n50; and José Burgos, 120–121; and MAYO, 123, 126, 129, 137–140, 141–142, 188n45, 190n67, 190n68; and Northside barrio, 145; occupation of, 17–18. See also Christ Presbyterian Church July 26th Movement, 101 Kaufman, Michael, 108 King, Martin Luther Jr., 64, 148 Kingsway Lutheran Church, 150 Kirk, David, 102, 148 Korn, Hyman, 112 labor rights, 10, 44, 85 Lack Project, 131–132 Lakewood Church, 121 Lamb, James, 20 La Milagrosa, 102 Lancaster, John William, 142 Laó, Agustín, 110, 112, 119 Lara-Braud, Jorge, 137–138, 152–153, 156, 191n1 La Raza, 39, 56–57 La Raza Unida Party, 128 Las Congregaciones Extendidas, 144

Index Las Hermanas, 59, 60, 155 Latin American Defense Organization (LADO): and coalition building, 42– 43; critiques of, 47–49; and Obed López, 33; and McCormick Theological Seminary occupation, 31; and Mickey Melendez, 99; and UPCUSA, 38; and YLO, 53–54 Latina/o activists: and church occupations, 5–6, 12, 16; and church reform, 9; and People’s Church, 18; and religious progressives, 51; and YLO, 7–8 Latina/o Christians, 152–153 Latina/o churches: burning of, 193– 194n22; in Chicago, 29; and cultural expression, 156–157; in Houston, 108; and organizing, 49–50; and progressive politics, 154; and social service, 117 Latina/o clergy, 154–155 Latina/o freedom movements: and church occupations, 5–6, 14–15; and coalition building, 149–150; defined, 164n14; and internationalism, 8; and religious leaders, 114–115; and urban segregation, 7 Latina/o politics, 5, 41, 94, 162n3 Latina/o Protestant churches, 193–194n22 Latina/o radicals: and church occupations, 2, 13, 150; and coalition building, 151; defined, 166n24; and identity politics, 162–163n6; and Latino clergy, 55; and progressive religious movements, 153–154; and reformist activists, 164n14; and religion, 9; and religious leaders, 4–6, 15, 154–155; and sacred space, 16, 148–149 Latina/o religion, 9, 119, 158 Latina/o theology, 59–60, 87, 156, 194n26 Latino clergy, 22–23, 47–51, 55, 114–115

« 213 »

lead poisoning, 103, 105, 107 League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), 127 Leavey, Stan, 79 Lee, Robert E. (NYC sheriff ), 112 liberalism, 94 liberation theology, 10, 72, 95, 110–111, 157–158 Lincoln Park, 24f; and grassroots housing dream, 2; and urban renewal, 24–27, 51–54; and YLO, 16, 20, 23 Lincoln Park Conservation Association (LPCA), 25, 35, 174n99 Lind, José, 20 Lipsitz, George, 6–7 Logan, Cathy, 38 López, Fred, 73, 77 López, Lydia, 74f, 85f; acquittal of, 83; activism of, 86, 88, 158–160; and Católicos, 60; and solidarity, 78– 79; and St. Basil’s Church action, 65, 73, 77 López, Obed: and José Burgos, 49; demands of, 33, 44–45; and Department of Urban Renewal, 53; and Latina/o religious politics, 158; and McCormick Theological Seminary occupation, 34; and Mickey Melendez, 99; on occupation, 23; political formation of, 41–43; and UPCUSA, 22, 36, 38–41, 38f López, Omar, 28, 31–32, 48 López Tijerina, Reies, 15, 155 Los Angeles, 60–61, 62f, 63–65, 71, 78–80 Los Angeles Community College (LACC), 57 Luciano, Felipe: and advent disruption, 103, 104; as Bible scholar, 89–90; and breakfast program, 102; charges against, 114; and Mickey Melendez, 100; and Iris Morales, 182n34; on occupation, 118; and Pentecostalism,

« 214 »

Index

Luciano, Felipe (continued) 95; on revolutionary nationalism, 94; and Second People’s Church, 116f Lutheran Church in America, 13, 14 Maciel, Lupe, 132 Maldonado, Benito, 125 Manning, Timothy, 80 Manuel Ramos Memorial Building, 32f, 34f, 53, 157 mariachi mass, 80–81, 87, 156 Mariscal, George, 8 Martinez, Benjamin, 114 Martinez, Pedro, 20 Martínez, Ricardo, 60, 70, 83 Martínez, Rosa, 71 Mater et Magista (1961), 111 Matovina, Timothy, 60, 72 McCormick Theological Seminary, 24f; and activist demands, 44; and black students, 171n49; and José Burgos, 120; and clergy-radical coalition, 30; flyer on protest, 35f; and Latino clergy, 51; and Lincoln Park, 23; occupation of, 21–22, 31–34, 53–54, 55, 157; and PLAC, 47; and race, 35–36; and YLO, 16, 36–39 McIntyre, James: and Católicos, 60, 65– 66, 68, 69–71; conservatism of, 63– 64; and Ricardo Cruz, 77; and prosecution of Católicos, 78; retirement of, 59, 79; and St. Basil’s Church action, 74 McKay, Arthur, 37 MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán), 57 Medellín bishops’ meeting (1968), 10, 72 Medina, Antonio, 39 Medina, Lara, 60 Medina, Victor, 85f Melendez, Miguel “Mickey,” 99–100 Mendoza, Victor, 82f

Mennonite Minority Ministries Council, 155 Mercado, Fidel, 155–156 Methodists Associated Representing the Cause of Hispanic Americans (MARCHA), 155 Metropolitan Hospital, 103 Mexican-American Clergymen Association, 144–145 Mexican American Cultural Center, 156 Mexican American Political Association (MAPA), 153 Mexican American Program (Perkins School of Theology, Dallas), 156 Mexican Americans: and Catholic church, 57, 58, 64–65, 78, 84, 86, 87, 133; and desegregation, 142–143, 144–145; and Houston, 121, 123, 129– 130; and MAYO, 127; and St. Basil’s Church, 61; and YLO, 28 Mexican American Task Force, 143–144 Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO), 141f; and Brazos Presbytery, 131, 133, 134–135; and brown Virgin action, 57; and José Burgos, 120– 121; and church occupations, 16; and CPC occupation, 123–124; demands of, 188n45, 190n68; establishment of, 146; factions of, 186n14; and Robert Frere, 189n49; and gender equality, 187n19; and Houston Presbyterians, 6; and Juan Marcos Church occupation, 136, 137–140, 139f, 143f, 186n8, 186n11; legacy of, 145; and liberation theology, 157–158; and Northside People’s Center, 190n67; politics of, 127–129; and religious leaders, 8; and Gloria Rubac, 187n18; spokespersons for, 125–126 Miranda, Marie “Keta,” 60 Misa Panamericana, 80 Montejano, David, 127 Montemayor, Aurelio, 133

Index

« 215 »

Moody Bible Institute, 29 Moody Park riots, 123 Morales, Connie (Cruz), 105, 107 Morales, Iris, 8, 91, 99, 119, 182n34 Moses, Robert, 96 Movimiento Estudiantil Profesional (MEP), 111 música evangélica (gospel music), 156

ford Place, 132; support for MAYO in, 138–139; and white Houston churches, 137. See also Houston North Side Cooperative Ministry (NSCM), 29–30, 35 Northside People’s Center, 123, 137f, 190n67 Nuyorican identity, 117

National Committee of Black Churchmen, 14 National Council of Bishops, 81–82 National Council of Churches: and evangelical missionaries, 29; and FSUMC occupation, 107, 108, 114; and Latina/o Christians, 50; and occupations, 13, 150; and religious politics, 154–155; and SOHAM, 153 National Farm Workers Association, 10 National Welfare Rights Organization, 124 Navarro, Jamita, 138f New York Seminary, 156 Nieto, Connie, 85f Nieto, Leo, 108–109 NietoGomez, Anna, 56–57, 58, 59f, 60, 70–71 Nixon, Richard, 123, 124 North Side Baptist Church, 137 Northside barrio, 122f; and Brazos Presbytery, 131; and José Burgos, 120–121; and coalition building, 151; community vision for, 149; and demographic transition, 17–18, 123, 129–130; and Holy Name Catholic Church, 133; and Juan Marcos Church occupation, 145; and Juan Marcos Church relocation, 135; and liberation theology, 157; MAYO faction in, 8, 125, 186n14; and MAYO social programs, 140; MAYO’s vision for, 124; and Mexican American Task Force, 143–144; and Ox-

occupation: and Católicos, 66; and displacement, 96, 148–149; as revolutionary strategy, 11–12; and sacred space, 117–118; and social service, 149–150; as tactic for social change, 140; during UPCUSA General Assembly, 40; widespread nature of, 150–151 Olivares, Luis, 88 Oliver, Denise, 100, 103, 114, 119 Operation Pedro Pan, 10 Origen, 12 Our Lady of Guadalupe, 130 Our Lady of Sorrows, 130 Oxford Place, 132 Padres Asociados para Derechos Religiosos, Educativos y Sociales (PADRES), 5, 59, 60, 81–82, 133, 155 PALANTE, 110 pan-Latino identity, 192n12 Parrilla, Antulio, 68–69, 72, 77–78 Pehl, Matthew, 136 Peinado, Luis, 78 Peña, Albert Jr., 133 Pensado, Jaime, 111 Pentecostalism, 90 Pentecostals, 10, 152 People’s Church, 2, 18 People’s Church (Chicago), 45, 46f, 48f, 157, 172–173n76 People’s Church (NYC), 15, 104, 110– 111, 117, 151, 157. See also First Spanish United Methodist Church

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Index

Perez, David, 95, 117 Perrin, Nicholas, 12 Pharr, Texas, riots, 152 Photography Workshop, 101 Pietri, Pedro, 182n44 Pingarron, Luis, 85f Pirone, Pedro, 117 police brutality: and advent disruption, 103–104; and Division Street riots, 42; in Houston, 121; and Moody Park riots, 123; protests against, 2; and Julio Roldán, 115; and Tlatelolco student uprising, 111; and YLO, 55, 99 Political Association of SpanishSpeaking Organizations (PASO), 135, 153 Poor People’s Campaign, 109 Poor People’s Coalition (PPC), 34f; and coalition building, 151; and Community Conservation Council, 52; and Obed López, 33; and McCormick Theological Seminary occupation, 21, 22, 31; and UPCUSA grants, 155; and urban renewal, 26, 44, 53– 54, 172n73 Poteat, Wallace B., 131 Prakash, Madhu Suri, 158 Presbyterian Church in the US, 152 Presbyterian Commission on Religion and Race, 153 Presbyterian Latin American Caucus (PLAC), 5, 44, 47–51 Primera Iglesia Congregacional de Chicago (First Congregational Church of Chicago), 29 progressive politics, 69, 82, 153–154 Protestants: and Black Manifesto, 13– 14; and Católicos, 66; and Cesar Chavez, 57; and farmworker movement, 10–11, 152–153; and Houston, 121, 136; and Lydia López, 73; and Oxford Place, 132; and solidarity,

156; and Spanish-speaking constituency, 50–51 Pryor, Thomas, 46 public schools, 50 Puerto Rican nationalists, 13 Puerto Ricans: and coalition building, 26, 151; Community Conservation Council, 52; and displacement, 7, 30; and East Harlem, 179–180n2; and FSUMC occupation, 102; and identity politics, 162–163n6; and liberation theology, 157; and Lincoln Park, 169n19; and New York City, 95–100; and police brutality, 42; and revolutionary nationalism, 94; and urban renewal, 32–33; and YLO, 118 Puerto Rican Socialist Party (PSP), 181–182n31 Quiceno, William, 47–48 racial injustice, 10, 30 racism: and the barrio, 7; and Catholic church, 65; and church occupations, 2, 8, 55; and FSUMC occupation, 102; and Latina/os, 153; and Latina/o theology, 156; and MAYO, 140; and McCormick Theological Seminary, 35–36, 51; and Protestant denominations, 154; and YLO, 99 radical activism, 8, 14–15, 151 radical flank effect, 151–152 Rainbow Coalition, 28 Ramos, Manuel, 20, 31, 53, 54, 157 Rankin, Walter, 186n11 Ravenswood Presbyterian Church, 48 Ray, Richie, 156 Razo, Joe, 83, 85f Real Great Society (RGS), 99, 100, 181–182n31 Redmond, Shana, 157 Red Power, 11–12 Reed, James, 30

Index Reformed Church in America, 13–14, 150 religion: African American, 161n2; conservative, 148; function of, 135, 167n28; Latina/o, 119; and Latina/o freedom movements, 4–6; and Latina/o history, 9; and Latina/o theology, 156, 158; and MAYO, 126, 133; progressive, 153–154; and radical activism, 13–15, 110–112, 157; scholarship on, 164n16; and social networks, 71; and YLO, 95 religious activism, 7–8, 58, 72, 149, 154, 159–160 Religious Left, 4, 11, 18, 153, 163–164n12, 167n32 religious radicalism, 110–111 religious reformers, 5, 17, 55, 153, 158 Religious Right, 18, 148 reparations, 13–14, 39 revolutionary nationalism, 3, 8, 92, 94, 99, 158, 164n14 Reyes, Juan, 97 Risco, Eliezer, 38f, 39, 40, 57 Rising Up Angry (RUA), 28 Rivera, Josie, 138f Rivera, Rafael, 20 Riverside Church, 14, 56 Rodriguez, Alex: and Holy Name Catholic Church, 133; and Juan Marcos Church occupation, 123, 186n7, 186n8; and MAYO, 124–125, 145; and Gloria Rubac, 187n18 Rodriguez, Ezra, 97 Rodriguez, Reinaldo, 98 Roldán, Julio, 115, 116f Rollins, J. Metz, 38f Romero, Juan, 103 Rostgaard, Alfredo, 110 Rovira, Carlito, 103 Roy, Ralph Lord, 110 Rúa, Mérida, 26 Rubac, Gloria, 187n18

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Ruben, Don, 37, 39 Ruiz, Poncho, 125, 128f, 139f, 145, 186n7 Ruiz, Raul, 39, 60, 70, 71, 82f, 133 sacred space: and Black Manifesto, 14; and Chicana/o movement politics, 87; and church occupations, 3, 16, 18; and FSUMC occupation, 117–118; and Latina/o radicals, 148; and occupation, 117–118; and radical activism, 151 Salamanuvich, Paul, 75–77 Salazar, Gregory, 8, 124, 125–126, 126f, 128f, 145 Salazar, Ruben, 84–85 San Antonio, 80 Sánchez, George I., 163n7 Sánchez, José Ramón, 91 Sánchez-Korrol, Virginia, 6 sanctuary movement, 88, 159–160 Sandoval-Strausz, A. K., 3, 7 Santiago, Gloria, 107 Secretariat for Latin America, 87 Section of Hispanic-American Ministries (SOHAM), 153, 155–156 segregation: and Richard Daley, 27; and MAYO, 142–143; and religious leaders, 10, 11; seminarian protests against, 36; and urban renewal, 6–7; and YLO, 54–55 settlement house movement, 29 Sezonov, Erika, 103, 114 Sharkey, John, 77 Shelton, Kyle, 121 Sider, Ron, 154 Sinitiere, Phillip, 121 Smith, Kenny, 28 Smith, Shearn, 142 Smith, Sherrill, 133 social services: and Black Panther Party, 182n42; and church occupations, 8, 17, 157; and FSUMC occupation, 102–103; in Houston, 130; and

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Index

social services (continued) Latina/o religious leaders, 151–152; and MAYO, 133; and PLAC, 47; and YLO, 54 Sociedad Albizu Campos (SAC), 100– 101 Sorett, Josef, 9 Space City News, 124, 186n15 Spanish Coalition for Jobs, 51 Spanish Ministerial Association, 50 spirituality, 15–16, 85, 118, 144, 157–158, 167n31 Spivey, Charles S., 114 Spragg, Howard E., 114 Starr, Ellen Gates, 29 St. Basil’s Church, 59f, 61f, 62f, 67f; and Católicos, 17, 58–59; and Chicana/o activists, 157; and Christmas Eve action, 73–77; costly construction of, 60; dedication of, 63; and Antulio Parilla, 72 St. Joseph Catholic Church, 80 Stonewall Inn riots, 146 Straus, Gene, 105 Streit, Saul S., 113–114 St. Teresa’s Catholic Church, 20 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 13–14, 40, 127 Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), 28, 30, 31, 99, 124, 186n15 Sutherland, Donald, 117 Tabor, Willis C., 38f Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation (Gutiérrez), 111 Thomas, Lorrin, 94, 115 Thomas, Piri, 97 Thornton, Conchita, 74f Tinajero, Antonio, 65 Tlatelolco student uprising (1968), 111 Torres, Andrés, 94 Torres, Camilo, 110

Torres, Neftali, 108 Treviño, Roberto, 60, 121, 130 Union Seminary, 182–183n53 Union Theological Seminary, 56 Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC), 190n67 United Church of Christ (UCC), 13, 13– 14, 131, 150 United Farm Workers, 55 United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC), 74f United Methodist Board of Missions, 111, 114, 117, 118, 150, 193n20 United Methodist Church, 13, 108–109, 114–115 United Methodist Church Conference, 150, 182–183n53 United Neighborhood Organization (UNO), 159 United Presbyterian Church in the USA (UPCUSA): and activist demands, 44–45; and Black Manifesto, 13–14; general assembly of, 38f; and grants to YLO and PPC, 155; and HAI, 152; and Obed López, 36, 38–39, 43– 44, 133; and McCormick Theological Seminary, 35; and poverty alleviation mandate, 33–34; and YLO, 22–23 United Presbyterian Church National Board of Missions, 40, 44 urban crisis: and Catholic church, 63; and church occupations, 4, 7, 148– 149; and coalition building, 11; and federal policies, 3; and FSUMC occupation, 96; and Latina/o clergy, 147; and Latina/o religious activism, 154 urban ministry, 30, 156, 170n33 urban renewal: and Armitage Methodist Church, 1–2; and the barrio, 6–9; and churches, 3; and Lincoln Park,

Index 21–23; and low-income housing, 53; and national policy, 25; and New York City, 96; and San Francisco activists, 172n73 Urban Task Force of the US Catholic Church (USCC), 65 Urban Training Center, 29 Varela, Maria, 39 Vatican II (1962–1965), 10, 63, 72, 87, 110–111, 150 Velasquez, David, 103, 114 Velázquez, José E., 94 Virgen de Guadalupe, 10, 13 Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), 131–132 Walker, Herbert, 33, 37 Wanzer-Serrano, Darrel, 98 War on Poverty, 131, 151 Welfare and Working Mothers of Wicker Park, 31 Westside Christian Parish, 29 Westside Organization, 29 White, K. Owen, 136 white flight, 17–18, 96, 98, 119, 136, 140–141 white supremacy, 3, 87, 132, 166n24, 178n73 Wilmore, Gayraud, 38f, 39, 41, 153 Wilson, Robert L., 109 World Council of Churches, 14 Yoruba Guzmán, Pablo, 95, 105, 111–112 Young Christian Students, 27 Young Lords Organization (YLO), 32f, 48f, 105f; accomplishments of, 55; and Armitage Methodist Church, 1,

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172–173n76; and breakfast program, 102–103; and José Burgos, 120; critiques of, 47–49; decline of, 117; demands of, 44–45; and end of occupation, 112–114, 113f; establishment of, 146; and FSUMC occupation, 17, 89– 92, 92f, 104–105, 115, 119; and garbage offensive, 180n9; and Holy Covenant Methodist Church, 30; and Howard Alan and Associates, 52; and identity politics, 162–163n6; and Kingsway Lutheran Church, 150; and David Kirk, 148; and La Raza, 56–57; and Latina/o activism, 7–8; and liberation theology, 95, 112, 157–158; and McCormick Theological Seminary occupation, 31–34, 34f, 36–39; media attention to, 108, 109; and National Council of Churches, 107; and New York City, 95–96; and old Puerto Rican Left, 181–182n31; and People’s Church, 45; political development of, 28; and radical activism, 98–101; and Manuel Ramos, 20, 21f; and Religious Left, 4; and revolutionary nationalism, 94; and Julio Roldán, 116f; scholarship on, 180n6; supporters of, 118; and United Methodist Church, 5; and UPCUSA, 22–23, 44; and urban renewal, 53–54 Young Lords Way, 91 Young Patriots, 20, 28, 30 Zeta Acosta, Oscar, 76f, 82f, 85f; and Católicos, 60, 75, 77; on Timothy Manning, 80; on St. Basil’s, 63; and St. Basil’s Twenty-One, 83–84