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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Lolita Lebrón, A Bold Fighter
for Puerto Rican Independence</h1>
February 28, 2021</div>
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<p><strong><em>By Carlito Rovira</em></strong></p>
<p>Throughout Puerto Rican history, women have played an
exemplary and leading role in the struggle against
colonialism and oppression. Political and military
leaders like Mariana Bracetti, Lola Rodríguez De Tío,
Juana Colón, Blanca Canales and many others, have been
models of courage and devotion to the struggle for
independence and self-determination.</p>
<p>One of the most widely known and respected women from
the 20th century Puerto Rican liberation struggle is
Lolita Lebrón.</p>
<div><img
src="https://carlitoboricua.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/44s-1.png?w=280"
alt="" style="margin-right: 0px;"
moz-do-not-send="true" width="280" height="311">LOLITA
LEBRON</div>
<p>Lolita came from a poor, working-class family. She
was born in the year 1919, when U.S. colonial rule in
Puerto Rico was open and brutal, with rampant social
misery. Her family lived in the legendary city of
Lares, known for the 1868 “<strong><em><a
href="https://carlitoboricua.blog/2016/09/17/the-birth-of-puerto-ricos-fight-for-independence-el-grito-de-lares/"
target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"
moz-do-not-send="true"><span>El Grito de Lares</span></a></em></strong>”
uprising against Spanish colonialism and chattel
slavery in Puerto Rico.</p>
<p>The hardships Lolita’s family faced during her youth,
brought upon by the tightening of U.S. colonialism’s
economic dominance in the country, contributed to
Lolita Lebrón’s strong character. As a young woman,
like so many of her compatriots, she decided to leave
Puerto Rico in 1940 in search of a better life.</p>
<p>After World War II and into the 1960s, an average of
63,000 people migrated annually to the United States
from Puerto Rico. By the end of this migration, nearly
half of the Puerto Rican nation would be uprooted.
They were pushed off their land in order to make way
for lucrative agricultural and mining industries. This
was an aspect of Washington’s colonial policy in the
interests of giant capitalist corporations but at the
expense of the Puerto Rican masses.</p>
<p>Lolita Lebrón settled in New York City’s East Harlem,
then the largest community of Puerto Ricans outside of
Puerto Rico. Like so many who migrated to find work in
New York City, Lolita was employed as a stitcher in
the city’s garment district. She immediately came face
to face with the racism and exploitation that defines
life for immigrant workers in the United States.</p>
<h2><strong>The Nationalist Party</strong></h2>
<div><img
src="https://carlitoboricua.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/553px-flag_of_the_puerto_rican_nationalist_party.jpg?w=553"
alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;"
moz-do-not-send="true" width="431" height="313">Flag
of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico.</div>
<p>Having a proud sense of her self-identity and a
strong belief in the cause for Puerto Rico’s
independence, Lolita increasingly developed resentment
for the presence of a foreign invader in the homeland
she adored. And because Lolita witnessed first hand
the suffering of her people who were compelled by
colonialism to migrate to a distant land to endure
racism and discrimination, she joined the New York
committee of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico, led
by <strong><em><a
href="https://carlitoboricua.blog/2020/09/05/salute-to-dr-pedro-albizu-campos-on-the-date-of-his-birth/"
target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"
moz-do-not-send="true"><span>Dr. Pedro Albizu
Campos</span></a></em></strong>.</p>
<p>The Nationalist Party was banned in 1938. It
continued its activities under intense repression,
especially following the <strong><em><a
href="https://carlitoboricua.blog/2016/10/30/remember-the-1950-jayuya-uprising/"
target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"
moz-do-not-send="true"><span>1950 Jayuya
Uprising</span></a></em></strong> and the
attempted assassination in the same year of President
Harry S. Truman by Nationalists Oscar Collazo and
Griselio Torresola in retaliation for the crackdown
that followed Jayuya. During the anti-communist,
anti-labor and racist witch-hunts of the McCarthy era,
the Nationalist Party committee in New York City
secretly operated under the name “Movimiento
Libertador” (Liberation Movement).</p>
<p>The New York committee served as a rear guard within
the colonizing country to gather political and
financial support for the movement in Puerto Rico.
They held many public meetings with the hope of
organizing the Puerto Rican community and to draw
allies around the issue of independence.</p>
<h2><strong>Colonizers shift tactics</strong></h2>
<p>Taking advantage of the imprisonment of the
revolutionary leadership, the U.S. government shifted
its methods to disguise its role as colonizers. The
governorship of Puerto Rico was no longer to be a
military official appointed by the U.S. president.
Instead, the U.S. granted supposedly “free elections”
from among Puerto Rican candidates who were approved
exclusively by the U.S. rulers. In addition, in 1952
the U.S.-dominated United Nations was persuaded to
approve a resolution that designated the case of
Puerto Rico as an internal matter of the United
States.</p>
<p>Faced with this new reality, anti-colonial activists
had to find new tactics to expose the colonial reality
that Puerto Rico still experienced. Albizu Campos put
out a call to carry out any form of action that would
highlight the criminal nature of the U.S. domination
of Puerto Rico.</p>
<p>A group of members from the New York committee—Rafael
Cancel Miranda, Andrés Figueroa Cordero, Irvin Flores
and Lolita Lebrón—secretly prepared to respond to
Albizu Campos’s call. For many weeks and months the
four patriots met to discuss the target, chosen with
no regard for their own personal safety or survival.</p>
<p>With no mention of their plan to their families or
friends, the four left for Washington, expecting never
to return. Their only concern was to achieve the
political objective in the action they were to take.</p>
<h2>A bold and daring attack</h2>
<div><img
src="https://carlitoboricua.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/ll.png?w=951"
alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;"
moz-do-not-send="true" width="431" height="316"></div>
<p>On the morning of March 1, 1954, members of the House
of Representatives were meeting to discuss immigration
policy and the government of democratically elected
President Jacobo Árbenz of Guatemala—a government that
the CIA overthrew in November of that year. The four
patriots calmly entered the Capitol building, passing
through the lobby and up the stairs to a balcony
designated for visitors.</p>
<p>As the proceedings went on, the Nationalists unfurled
the <strong><em><a
href="https://carlitoboricua.blog/2018/06/03/the-puerto-rican-flag-a-symbol-of-anti-colonial-struggle/"
target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"
moz-do-not-send="true"><span>Puerto Rican flag</span></a></em></strong>.
Lolita Lebrón then shouted, “<em><strong>QUE VIVA
PUERTO RICO LIBRE</strong>!</em>” Within seconds
of brandishing and aiming their automatic weapons, the
four revolutionaries opened fire on the U.S. Congress.</p>
<p>Gunfire broke out and bullets whistled through the
air. Panic erupted in the chamber. Many congressional
figures and their staff began screaming as they
frantically pushed one another to get to the exit
doors. Others avoided being shot by running to hide
underneath tables and behind chairs</p>
<p>Before it ended, 30 rounds were fired. Five
congressmen were wounded. All government buildings
were shut down, and security throughout the city of
Washington was increased.</p>
<p>The four Nationalists were immediately apprehended.
The mass media launched a vicious campaign to demonize
them and the entire Puerto Rican independence
movement. The four were ultimately convicted and
sentenced to life imprisonment.</p>
<div><img
src="https://carlitoboricua.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/bbbb.png?w=507"
alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;"
moz-do-not-send="true" width="431" height="321">Members
of the NYC Committee to Free the Nationalists took
over the Statue of Liberty to demand their release.</div>
<p>As the Puerto Rican people mounted their struggle for
the right of self-determination in Puerto Rico and in
the United States during the upsurge of the 1960s and
1970s, more and more people raised the demand for the
immediate release of Puerto Rican political prisoners.
Thanks to the diplomatic work and solidarity of the
Cuban revolutionary government, an international
campaign galvanized widespread support for their
release.</p>
<p>The political pressure paid off in 1979, when
President Jimmy Carter granted amnesty to Lolita
Lebrón, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Andrés Figueroa
Cordero, Irvin Flores as well as Oscar Collazo. All
five were released from prison.</p>
<div><img
src="https://carlitoboricua.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/vid.png?w=696"
alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;"
moz-do-not-send="true" width="431" height="331">Cuban
President Fidel Castro Ruz invited the formerly
imprisoned Nationalists to Cuba to receive that
country’s highest honor, Medal of the Order of the Bay
of Pigs.</div>
<div><img
src="https://carlitoboricua.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/ap-lola.png?w=746"
alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;"
moz-do-not-send="true" width="431" height="301">Lolita
Lebron was arrested in 2001 for civil disobedience
demanding the U.S. Navy out of Vieques.</div>
<p>The bold action taken by the four Puerto Rican
patriots was an event that shocked the imperial-minded
men of privilege — a shock that the U.S. ruling class
has never forgotten. The colonizers of Puerto Rico
never imagined that the people they victimized would
dare such a bold act within the capital of the empire.</p>
<p>What Lolita, Rafael, Andrés and Irvin did on that day
symbolizes not only the fury of the colonized Puerto
Rican nation but of every oppressed people that
strives for a world without imperialist oppression.</p>
<h2><span>¡QUE VIVA PUERTO RICO LIBRE!</span></h2>
<img
src="https://carlitoboricua.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/pr-flag.png?w=860"
alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;"
moz-do-not-send="true" width="431" height="249"> </div>
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