Articles

Lolita Lebrón stayed faithful to her ideals to the end. An incredible example of courage, strength and love. (Photo Getty Images)

Lolita Lebrón, a Puerto Rican independence activist who spent 25 years in prison for participating in a gun attack on the U.S. House of Representatives in 1954, died Sunday. She was 90.

Lebrón died at a hospital in San Juan of complications from respiratory disease, said Francisco Torres, president of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico.

“Lolita was the mother of the independence movement. This is an insurmountable loss,” said Maria de Lourdes Santiago, a member of the U.S. commonwealth’s Senate from the Puerto Rican Independence Party.

Lolita is an example of the courage, beauty, strength and love of the Puerto Rican woman. May she rest in peace.

A South Bronx Memorial service will be held for Lolita on Sunday August 8th, 2010 at 10:30 AM at La Resurrección United Methodist Church 790 Elton Avenue (corner of 158th St.). The service is open to all who want to attend.

Rest In Peace Lolita on YouTube

Press Conference: Woodlawn Cemetery, 233^rd St. & Webster Avenue @ 4:30 p.m.

On July 16^th 2010 at 4:30 at the Woodlawn Cemetery (233^rd Street and Webster Ave. in the Bronx), a large group of South Bronx Community organizations will announce a Borough wide campaign to pressure the cemeteries Board of Directors to cease the discriminatory treatment of many of its Black and Latino employees.

The campaign has already generated 10,000 signatures from New York residents. Speaking for the group, Pastor Lydia Lebron stated “By the end of the summer we expect to have 25,000 signatures all calling for an end to these discriminatory practices”.

The group alleges that there is a foreman who normally uses the “N word”, the “S word” and uses racial taunts such as “spear chucker”. They state that those who complain are isolated, harassed, given the most difficult jobs or unjustly disciplined. There are no minority supervisors at the Woodlawn Cemetery, nor are there many minorities in skilled positions.

Speaking for the South Bronx Community Congress, Maxi Rivera stated “We are not going to allow our people to be treated as if this was Mississippi in the 40’s”. In a Cemetery where great Civil Rights leaders are buried, we cannot accept such practices.

Along with numerous organizations from the South Bronx, Gubernatorial Candidate, Honorable City Councilman Charles Barron will be present.

Advisory for Thursday July 15, 2010

Contact: Robert Carrillo, 4DSBXCoalition: 347-739-9825 or 4DSBxCoalition@gmail.com www.4dsbxcoalition.org

BRONX COMMUNITY TO DeMAND YANKEES LIVE UP TO PROMISED Benefits FOR LOCAL Residents, BUSINESSES & Organizations

On Thursday, July 15^th at 12 noon, the South Bronx community will stage a press conference outside Yankee Stadium with For The South Bronx Coalition (4DSBXCoalition) and attorneys from the Urban Justice Center to demand that team management deliver on its promises to support local residents, organizations and businesses.

The group will deliver a demand letter to Randy Levine, President of the New York Yankee Partnership, which owns the team, challenging them to release documents tracking each commitment made in the 2006 Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) to transparently show whether they have lived up to – or how far they have fallen short of – those pledges. The Yankees’ CBA outlined specific support for local business development; employment opportunities for Bronx residents; environmental protection oversight; and resources for local not-for-profit and community based organizations. In particular, the team committed to hiring local businesses and residents for the stadium construction and to establishing both a one million dollar job training program and an annual $800,000 fund to provide grants and equipment to local community groups.  Almost $4 million is now at stake with very little if any accountability to the community.

“The Yankees may be All Stars on the playing field, but how Randy Levine and his partnership play with the South Bronx is real bush league”, stated Robert Carrillo, the Coalition’s chairperson. “This is an uphill battle with the Yankees. They have, sadly, local politicians in their back pockets clamoring for a photo op at every opportunity. The truth of the matter is that all these improvements in the community, be they the Metro North Station, Mill Pond Park, even the 3 ball fields, which if the NYCEDC, Parks & Recreation, and the Yankees had done a hint of a community study would know the community had bigger visions for that space, are not intended for those in the community. They’re part of a larger vision by a few for what this community should be. We must fight on, and we will. Our differences notwithstanding, we offer our condolences to the Steinbrenner family on their loss”, he concluded.

On July 16^th 2010 at 4:30 at the Woodlawn Cemetery (233^rd Street and Webster Ave. in the Bronx), a large group of South Bronx Community organizations will announce a Borough wide campaign to pressure the cemeteries Board of Directors to cease the discriminatory treatment of many of its Black and Latino employees.

The campaign has already generated 10,000 signatures from New York residents. Speaking for the group, Pastor Lydia Lebron stated “By the end of the summer we expect to have 25,000 signatures all calling for an end to these discriminatory practices”.

The group alleges that there is a foreman who normally uses the “N word”, the “S word” and uses racial taunts such as “spear chucker”. They state that those who complain are isolated, harassed, given the most difficult jobs or disciplined. There are no minority supervisors at the Woodlawn Cemetery, nor are there many minorities in skilled positions.

Speaking for the South Bronx Community Congress, Maxi Rivera stated “We are not going to allow our people to be treated as if this was Mississippi in the 40’s”. In a Cemetery where great Civil Rights leaders are buried, we cannot accept such practices.

Along with numerous organizations from the South Bronx, Gubernatorial Candidate, City Councilman Charles Barron will be present.

For more information call Ramon Jimenez (917) 517-1320

New York, NY: July 8th Lunch Time rally at 12 noon in front of MLB’s Park Ave office. Read more at:

http://latinosports.com/featured/july-8th-rally-at-mlbs-park-ave.-move-2011-all-star-game-out-of-az.html

If you missed this great NYC concert with the great Silvio Rodríguez, then read the report below from the President of Casa de Las Americas. Enjoy;

The Silvio Rodriguez concert brought many of us together last night, Friday, June 4^th at New York’s Carnegie Hall.  We were united in the spirit of solidarity with Cuba.   We gathered, as we have repeatedly, for reasons that are profoundly felt in our hearts and clearly understood in our minds.  Many of us arrived at 57^th St. and 7^th Avenue before 6PM.  Our presence was immediately felt when we began to distribute information about the Wives Without Rights, The Cuban Five, and the “In Defense of Cuba” statement.  One group brought a large sign of the Five that was visible from afar.  Individuals carrying Cuban flags filled the sidewalk with color and proud elegance.  Our Wives Without Rights t-shirts visibly united our force and ignited the interest of the curious.

Silvio Rodríguez in his performance at Carnegie Hall.

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Everyone Out To Citi-Field On Friday July 30th When Th eArizona Diamondbacks Come To NYC.

Yesterday, the New York State Assembly passed a resolution condemning the recently passed Arizona SB 1070 law that will unfairly impact many Latinos in the state. Also yesterday approximately 50 people were arrested protesting the Arizona law. Below is the remarks of:

Jonathan Tasini, candidate for the Democratic nomination for the 15th Congressional District in New York, issued the following statement on his arrest yesterday during a demonstration against the Arizona immigration law.

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After almost half a year of meetings, talks, negotiations, debates and a lot of warmth from so many people and organizations that love our borough, the South Bronx Congress will be born this coming Saturday June 5th, 2010 at the Hostos Community College Savoy Manor Building on 149th St. & Walton Avenue.

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“RI lawmaker files immigration bill that follows Arizona’s law” by Karen Ziner, Providence Journal (May 19, 2010)

“Other states taking cue from Arizona law: Legislators call feds ‘AWOL’ on ‘invaders’” by Chuck Neubauer, Washington Times (May 10, 2010)

RI lawmaker files immigration bill that follows Arizona’s law

By Karen Ziner

Providence Journal (May 19, 2010)

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — State Rep. Peter Palumbo, D-District 16, Cranston, has filed a bill that largely copies a controversial Arizona law considered the toughest immigration legislation in the country.

Palumbo’s bill, like the Arizona law, makes failure to carry alien registration cards a state crime, and requires police to question people “where reasonable suspicion exists” that the person is unlawfully in the United States.

The bill, H 8142, filed Tuesday, also targets people who hire illegal immigrants, or who knowingly transport them.

Much of Palumbo’s bill is taken verbatim from the Arizona bill, SB 1070, which was signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer last month, over President Obama’s objections.

Palumbo could not be reached for comment Wednesday morning.

Brewer’s signing of the Arizona law set off protests around the country, and prompted the filing of a number of constitutional challenges and lawsuits, and attempts to boycott Arizona businesses.

The latest challenge, a federal class-action suit, was filed Monday by the American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights organizations.

Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island affiliate of the ACLU, called Palumbo’s bill “nothing less than a deliberate recipe for increased racial profiling in the state. It purports to give police this magical bloodhound quality of being able to sniff out any individual who is in the country illegally. How a police officer otherwise is able to adopt this reasonable suspicion that somebody is here illegally is beyond me.”

Brown added, “I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of support for this. I think Rhode Islanders on the whole are much more cognizant of the incredibly divisive and mean-spirited nature of a bill like this.”

Terry Gorman, head of Rhode Islanders for Immigration Law Enforcement (RIILE), said he and his organization plan to support Palumbo’s effort.

“It’s incredibly important that we have laws like the Arizona law if we’re ever going to do anything about illegal immigration,” Gorman said. “The situation is never going to be resolved unless measures are taken.”