FRSO: Remembering Cha Cha Jimenez

The Freedom Road Socialist Organization shares its condolences with the family, friends and comrades of Jose “Cha Cha” Jimenez, chairman of the Young Lords Organization. He died on January 10, 2025, at the age of 75 in Chicago.

All those who knew him appreciated Jimenez’s determination and his ability to motivate others to action, all the while teaching about the need for revolution and socialism. A revolutionary to the end, he often quoted Mao Tse Tung on the united front strategy, “Unite the many to defeat the few!”

The Young Lords Organization was founded by Jose “Cha Cha” Jimenez in 1968 in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago. Puerto Ricans and other working people were being forced out of the now wealthy neighborhood by big financiers and real estate firms working with Mayor Richard Daley’s Democrat political machine.

At that time, Jimenez turned a street gang into one of the most successful political movements of its day, resisting community displacement and opposing the U.S. war in Vietnam. Their militant tactics attracted masses of people to protest for better housing, education, childcare and health care in Chicago. The Young Lords spread to New York and many other cities, inspiring Puerto Rican people who were forced to move from the island by U.S. domination and exploitation. Cha Cha popularized the slogan, “Tengo Puerto Rico en mi corazón!” [I have Puerto Rico in my heart]

The Young Lords travelled and met the Brown Berets, whose stance for national self-determination for the Chicano people was an inspiration. They also took leadership from Fred Hampton and the Black Panther Party in Chicago, beginning to study Marxism-Leninism and devising ways to oppose the violent repression and assassinations they faced from the FBI, COINTELPRO and the Chicago Police.

It was the Young Lords who had ties to the Young Patriots, an Appalachian youth group in the Uptown neighborhood. This was key to Fred Hampton and the Black Panther Party forming the first Rainbow Coalition.

In recent years, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization organized closely with and supported Cha Cha Jimenez and the Young Lords. We promoted the Young Lords and their lessons while participating in the Trayvon Martin protests and the George Floyd uprising. There was the launch of the Young Lords Archive at Grand Valley State University in Michigan, the 50 Years of Young Lords Anniversary Conference at DePaul University in Chicago, and the “Young Lords Pass the Torch, Honor Cha Cha Jimenez” event in Humboldt Park on June 4, 2022, recognizing a new era of Young Lords leaders.

In one of his last interviews, Cha Cha Jimenez told Fight Back!, “Ours is a protracted struggle until victory and beyond!”

Long live the legacy of Jose Cha Cha Jimenez!

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