 |
The
Young Lords and Gentrification |
|
Index of Interview
|
Cha Cha Jimenez on
Urban Renewal in 1960s Lincoln Park |
Cha Cha: Well we go in there and this guy Mingo Alyah from the that I had worked with at the YMCA detachment program.
And the reason he was there was he was trying to get
some money for his group. He had a group and he was trying to get some
money for his group and they had invited him like they needed somebody
to be in like a
whatdo you call you know like from the Spanish community. They were trying
to start to look into them.
I guess some of these groups were saying hey you don't have no Latinos
in your community so some of them, that was.. so they were trying to get
some Latinos in there and Mingo was gonna go there because he needed money
to start his group and he was from the Paragons.... But so we went inside
the urban renewal meeting as a group of about 60 of us and I didn't know
what to say.... I knew about the thing by representation so that's
what I said. I said you know what this meeting is closed and we're sitting
on top of the stage you know the urban renewal people and I just said
you know this meeting is closed. And... they said well what are you
talking about you know. I'm interrupting the meeting, they're in the middle
of the meeting. I say this meeting is closed. I said...Do you have Black
white or Latino representation the meeting is closed and you can't meet.
Urban renewal will not meet here. I mean I didn't say it like that but,
but I said until you have black, white and Latino representation you can't
meet and I was just repeating stuff...
... So we left and there was a big display and I told the guys, and again I don't even know what I was, I don't know what the display was. I know the display was about our neighborhood but I saw some spots that were like either not completed or missing but I just started telling 'em you know what see this this is your neighborhood and look their knocking down your house, your house is being knocked down. And there's 20 different things. Well anyway the first thing to go was the display. Then they went to the bathroom, they you know they messed with all the toilets, and the plumbing and everything and things flooded. The windows were all busted up broken and then everybody just lept to the, everybody just lept to their place. To their homes. That was the agreement, so nobody got caught. I mean we were able to get away with it and the next day we were already giving each other "five" on the corner anyway. They didn't... understand that that was a deprivement of Urban Renewal's office or whatever. We didn't know what it was, we just thought it was a meeting. But that wasn't, the department of urban renewal at that time for Lincoln Park.
Then right after that since we had already got that victory, that was like a victory. Then we had like a riot.., we're gonna have a organized riot we're not just gonna have a riot in like the business street. We're gonna have an organized riot. So basically all the stores 'cause we call em. Like there was the old town school of folk music and all these other stores. And actually they were on our side later. I went to them only because anything that said Old Town we were against. So there were some stores that said Old Town on it and since we had already been kicked out of Old Town anything that said Old Town we were threatened by it. I mean anything that said we're gonna conserve this neighborhood or whatever we were threatened you know at that time.
And so basically what we did, we it was like in a gang fight we were able, we were, everybody took a window and these people they synchronized watches and everything. Because these were you know we had people from Vietnam you know and stuff like that in the gang. To them it was like we're in a war thing you know so they synchronized watches and everything and boom all the windows went down, everybody went home, nobody got arrested. Another victory. So I mean we were getting like victories like that.
Then..I was waiting and standing on the corner and the police came and picked me up. And they were coming to pick me up. So I mean I was the leader of the Young Lords but when you got into a gang fight it was everybody for themselves, whether you're the leader or not, you know what I'm saying? You're still the leader but we don't have to defend you, we want to look out for ourselves first and then we'll defend you or whatever you know. So I didn't expect to be defended but I know that the police got out of their car and said they wanted to talk to me and I had been reading about Hewy Newton and the 5th Amendment and you don't have to talk and all that other stuff so you know I asked 'em am I under arrest you know. 'Cause usually if they wanted to talk to me they'd just stop me and put me in the car and they would talk to me and usually they try to find something or whatever and I would tell them some __ or whatever and that was it. That got me you know, I figure something to tell them but that was it.
So... it was a thing that they were going to stop me. I mean because I'm the leader, I was the leader there of the group. So they tried that but this time I'm not gonna go with them. I said you know am I under arrest you know. And I told 'em the same thing, I repeat what Huey Newman said about "you know ?". He goes 5 what? I go you know the 5th Amendment I don't have to say nothing that you know. So you know if I'm not under arrest I'm not going no where. So then they pull out the guns and then the guys came right away. ___ broke the fences and right away that's all they could grab and bricks and everything and start, they started getting ready to throw the bricks and that. And so then I decided to go. I said no no it's no... but I felt good that they did that. That made me feel, that was a victory for me. So you know that made me feel good.
For, you know cause these guys are standing up. And everybody
knew what it was. You know everybody in the neighborhood knew what the
situation was. So I went to the police station and basically... they wanted
to talk to me and Commander Brash... I told em they start saying are these
people communists? "Tell us who it is, Cha Cha we're not against
you or whatever, just tell us about the communists". I says you know,
I'm thinking you know we're, here comes this guy talking about this. Nobody
inspired this but us. Sure Pat Devine was talking to us about the conditions
in our neighborhood but this was a decision by us. He's thinking that
there's all these implicators that infiltrated our group and so
so I said you know I don't know what you're talking about ... I
don't know if I told them that they were communists. I said you know you
sound like you're...the one
that's harrassing us!
I: They're using the word communist?
you know between the police and us and then for the first time I could
see that they were like an enemy at that time. That was the first time
that I really realized that they were the enemy was when they were trying
to tell me to go against these people who were trying to help us. So then
I saw them as an enemy. And I told them, you know and they got shocked
when I told them cause I'd never come right out like that. I said well
you know, these people are, you're kicking us out, you're trying to kick
us out of our neighborhood, so you know I don't want to talk to you. Lock
me up if you're gonna lock me up or do what you gonna do but I don't wanna
talk to you.
So he got all pissed off, you know the Brash the commander and he says you know lock em up. So one of the sargents lock his ass up so you know. So then when they threw me into the cell and I just went to sleep. 'Cause I figure you know I go to jail I'm gonna take me a nap cause I'll probably get out tomorrow if I'm lucky if not I'll do my 30 days or 10 days, whatever it is. So I was getting ready to do you know an overnight and figure I can go to the judge and talk my way out of it the next day. So anyway this guy comes in there and he's my lawyer, he says he's my lawyer. The guy at the bullpen tells me your lawyer's here to see you. I said lawyer? You know I said yeah bring him in. I figured here you go trying to sneak another cop in so I can talk to him so I said well let him come in. you know. So I figured you know let me spend a little time goofing around with this guy.
So he comes in and he tells me he's my lawyer and all that and that there's people outside waiting for me about 200 people and that not to worry, that he's gonna get me out and you know is there anything that he can do for me. So.. I forget that he's telling me that there's 200 people out there so what I told him was yeah you can do anything? He says yeah I'll do anything that you want you know I can do. I said you can get me a polish sausage. I mean that's all I thought about was eating at that time. Cause I knew ___ ___. So you know sure enough he went and got me a polish sausage and he came back and I said woah you know, it's a big thing. Now I'm feeling important I got my polish sausage in the ___. So I come out, he comes back and I come out and I go out and I sign the paper, like a personal recogniscance. What they had done while I was upstairs, telling him that I don't want to talk to them was they found two old warrants that I didn't even know what I had.
So they kept me there wasting time trying to get me to
two old warrants that they were gonna bring and show me you know you got
these warrants we'll... lock you up to see if I would talk or something
like that. But when I didn't they just found the two old warrants and
they had to charge me with em. But so the lawyer was able, I was able
to sign my recognicence later and those cases were dropped but I came
out and there was you know like this crowd cheering and everything. 200
people in front of the police station. So you know for me.. I had never
been kind of defended or anything... so to me it was real, it was a real...
I just felt real good. I mean I felt real good.
I: Who were the people that were out there cheering?
I: What, when the few words that you said were they
kind of like the political nature?
Cha Cha: I basically was like thank you, I appreciate
it. 'Cause I'm asking what should I say, I don't know what to <laugh>
you know. You know. I didn't know that they were gonna be out there so
it was more like thank you and stuff like that. But it did talk about,
it did mention about the, I don't remember exactly what
I said but I know it was basically thank you and I might have said something
political. We were not as like political like when you see things like
the Young Lords of New York we're not at that level yet. We became that
level later but not at that level yet. I know that right away then the
way that we got together with the Panthers was because we were getting
more political 'cause I need to say this because a lot of people say that,
see they keep saying that we had no intelligence and that's something
that really aggravates me because when we got together with the Panthers
in Chicago we had already had contact with the Panthers in Oakland. With
the National Panthers.
And what happened in Chicago was they, because we had gone through to Denver already, I mean we had gone there and we had made some contacts. But when we got together with Fred Hampton was because of, literally I mean we were into the police station and not violently but we went with our berets in our pockets and our coats and that. There was a police-community workshop meeting and they were telling senior citizens, they were passing flyers in the neighborhood telling senior citizens that they should watch out for the Young Lords. This is Commander Brash who also was later indicted himself for extorting the businesses in old town saying that they were going to protect them from a gang and the only gang there was us. So this is in our gang days. So he got indicted later for that and got sent to jail for that but nobody understands the connection because he also gave us 18 charges in 6 weeks and ___ we had whatever.
But anyway the Panthers, we had gone into the police
community workshop meeting and we went in there because of the senior
citizen stuff, we took a whole busload in there. So we kinda snuck in
there we just
walked in there, upstairs to the meeting. By the time they had realized
what was going on we had closed all the doors and the Commander was inside
and I was pushing him to the side and saying I'm gonna talk loud to this
group. You know and I talked to the group and basically told them they
had nothing to fear from us that we were not against them. That these
were lies that the police commander was saying. That you know we were
just fighting for our community and stuff like that we were not you know,
not to, don't let these people lie to you. They're lying. And basically
after that we walked out. Slowly we all walked out, nobody got arrested
or anything like that. But the reporters were inside and it came out on
the front page.
And I don't know the date but it came out on the front
page. And it was the next day is when Fred Hampton came to the church.
So that was after we had already taken over the church and everything.
And that was in '69. .... But they had seen us in the newspaper and so
we, basically what they came, they were having problems with the police
and they knew that we told us that you guys are, do you know what you
did? You went in to take over this police station, you know, you guys
are dead. You know they're gonna kill you. You know, basically that's
what they told us. So so then we started meeting with Fred Hampton and
them and then we formed the Rainbow Coalition with the Young Patriots.
That was a group that was an Appalachian white that was doing some work
in Uptown.
Okay I, when this began origanizing the young lords
as a political group, I had split up with Mary Lou we were living together,
we had an apartment at Sheffield. In fact that;s in those papers, you
know the Red Squad papers that I showed you. We got split up and she went
with her mother to live and my daughters and so I was left with the apartment
by myself and we in order to pay the rent we all kind of, you know I started
origanizing. And people were living there and we all kinda pitched in
and paid the rent and we kept it alive actually I don't think we paid
rent that's why they kicked us out. That's basically what it was, we didn't
pay any rent at all. But anyway we had, I don't know, we had the records
of Malcolm X speaks in records so we would listen to that. Because I had
already read about Malcolm X you know. There was a record about Fidel
Castro's speeches so we were reading that. We had the red book I think
and we were kind of looking at that. You know it was, like I said it was
like a fad at that time, everybody was doing that. And the movement groups
you know were pretty big at the time.
I: Corky Gonzales comes before the taking of
the seminary?
Cha Cha: yeah, Corky Gonzales comes before all
that. Yeah, yes. Before most of the stuff that we did. And you know then
you know we got connected with the Black Panther Party and the Rainbow
Coalition and so I went speaking tours with Fred Hampton. I was on and
you know I just hung around with him all day. He went from one university
to the other to speak. So I got into that. I was learning how to speak
from him you know I was just. Then I went to Oakland and spent a month
over there with Bobby Seale and stuff like that. And saw him putting the
paper together and all that. And I would go and a couple of times I would
go on speaking trips with the you know with, we would go out to the west
coast for his money and I would go on speaking trips to send that back
to the office. So basically athat was going on at that time. Because thatŐs
when the transformation started and now we got rolling then. Then we formed
you know, and then we started seeing even more urban renewal because we
were dealing with other issues. We were dealing with self-determination
for Puerto Rico