José “Cha Cha” Jiménez, the renowned civil rights activist and founder of the Puerto Rican civil rights group Young Lords Organization, died Friday, January 10. He was 76.
His sister, Daisy Rodriguez, announced the news on Facebook, but did not reveal a cause of death.
Jiménez founded the Young Lords Organization at Chicago’s famed Lincoln Park in 1968, as cited by the Library of Congress.
Jiménez took what started as a Puerto Rican street gang and transformed it into a political group and community-based organization modeled on and inspired by the Black Panther
Party. The self-identified “revolutionary nationalists” advocated for minority access to healthcare, education, housing, and employment, as well as for Puerto Rico’s independence and empowering marginalized communities.The Young Lords Organization (YLO) prided itself in being a diverse and inclusive organization that welcomed African American, Latino/x, women, and LGBTQ members who took a stand against police brutality, U.S. imperialism, and militarism. The group was guided by a 13-Point Program and Platform outlining its policies, principles, and commitments.
As the Young Lords expanded, its established chapters in other cities, including New York City, where a group of college students formed a branch and rebranded it as the Young Lords Party (YLP).
Jiménez was born in Puerto Rico on August 8, 1948, the same month as Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, a mentor and friend who died in a 1969 Chicago police raid.
Young Lords member Felipe Luciano noted that Jiménez’s friendship with Hampton laid the foundation for a broader alliance among Black, Latino, white, and other communities united in the fight for civil rights.
“He was the one who got Cha Cha to move away from gang warfare to organization,” Luciano said
in 2021. “From then on, they became long, fast friends. Cha Cha talks about it with love and admiration often. The rest is history.”Under Jiménez’s leadership, the Young Lords became part of the Rainbow Coalition—a groundbreaking movement led by the Black Panther Party that united Puerto Rican activists, Confederate flag-waving white Southerners, and other marginalized groups to combat poverty and discrimination.
A public funeral service for Jiménez will be held Thursday evening in Chicago. His cremation is scheduled for Friday, with his final resting place to be alongside his mother in Puerto Rico, his sister shared.
Jiménez is survived by his children—Jacqueline, Sonia, Melisa, Alejandro, and Jodette Lozano—as well as his sisters, Jenny and Mirna Jiménez, and Rodríguez.
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