José “Cha Cha” Jiménez, a prominent Puerto Rican civil rights leader and founder of the Young Lords Organization, has died.
He was 76.
Jiménez died Friday morning, according to his sister Daisy Rodriguez, who first announced it in a Facebook post.
In 1968, Jiménez founded the Young Lords Organization at Lincoln Park, one of Chicago’s most impoverished neighborhoods. He transformed what was once a Puerto Rican street gang into a political group and community-based organization modeled on and inspired by the Black Panther Party, according to the Library of Congress.
The Young Lords advocated for health care access, education, affordable housing and employment. It also spearheaded community programs that provided free medical clinics and free breakfast for children, helping standardize the current federal children’s nutrition program.
The organization ran a monthly newspaper to promote these community services and advance its causes. It also led efforts to create cultural centers to preserve and celebrate the history and heritage of all Puerto Ricans.
While the group was predominantly Puerto Rican, the Young Lords considered itself a multiethnic organization inclusive of Black, Latino, women and LGBTQ members. It also self-identified as “revolutionist nationalists” who rallied for Puerto Rico’s independence.
The Young Lords also fought against police brutality, U.S. imperialism and militarism.
Jiménez was born in Puerto Rico on Aug. 8, 1948 — the same month as Black Panthers leader Fred Hampton, who was killed at age 21 in a Chicago police raid.
According to Young Lords member Felipe Luciano, Jiménez’s friendship with Hampton planted the seed for a much wider alliance among Black, Latino, whites and other members of communities working for civil rights.
“He was the one who got Cha Cha to move away from gang warfare to organization,” Luciano told NBC News in 2021. “From then on, they became long, fast friends. Cha Cha talks about it with love and admiration often.”
“The rest is history,” Luciano said.
Under Jiménez’s leadership, the Young Lords eventually expanded to New York City and, in 1969, the organization joined the Rainbow Coalition — a then little-known movement that brought together Puerto Rican radicals and Confederate flag-waving white Southerners to help tackle poverty and discrimination under the leadership of the Black Panther Party.
At the time, the union shocked some allies and scared police and the FBI, who feared the coalition would upend the social order.
Filmmaker Ray Santisteban, who made a documentary about origins of the Rainbow Coalition and the political groups that joined in, said Jiménez was critical to making the film possible.
In mourning Jiménez’s death, Santisteban wrote on Facebook, “From the time I first met him in 1992 until the last time I saw him, he was solely focused on working to uplift and empower the Puerto Rican community and all poor people in the world.”
Jiménez’s family relocated from Puerto Rico to the United States when he was an infant and he lived most of his life in Chicago.
In addition to his work with the Young Lords, Jiménez was also the first candidate to run against Mayor Richard J. Daley in 1974. According to the Library of Congress, the Young Lords held a campaign rally that attracted more than 1,500 people.
In 1995, Jiménez and other Young Lords members partnered with DePaul University’s Center for Latino Research to create the Lincoln Park Project designed to archive and document the organization’s history.
A public funeral service for Jiménez will take place Thursday evening in Chicago, his family said in a statement on social media.
“As the founding leader and chairman of the Young Lords Organization in Chicago, Cha Cha became one of the most pivotal figures in the civil rights and liberation movements,” the family statement reads. “He leaves behind a profound legacy of revolutionary spirit, a vision for Puerto Rican self-determination, and a commitment to justice for the People.”
According to Rodriguez, Jiménez’s body will be cremated Friday and “his final resting place will be with our mom in Puerto Rico.”
