José Jiménez (1948 –2025), nicknamed Cha Cha, was a Puerto Rican political activist and the founder of the Young Lords, a Chicago-based street gang that became a civil and human rights organization.
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Started on September 23, 1968, it was most active in the
late 1960s and 1970s.
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Born in Caguas, Puerto Rico, Jiménez was taken as an infant
by his mother to the United States in 1949. They lived for a time with his
father near Boston, Massachusetts, but within two years the family moved to
Chicago to join relatives. As a youth, he ran with a street gang but made a
turn-around in 1968 and devoted himself to reviving the Young Lords to work on
issues of human rights, beginning in Chicago.
Issues included redlining, displacement of the poor, welfare
rights and dignity, police relations, and community needs. In addition to
establishing breakfast, education and health programs, they organized
politically to negotiate with city officials. They also set up chapters in
other cities with Puerto Rican and Latino populations, to work on social
justice.
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