Moderated by Omar Eaton-Martínez
This session seeks to interrogate the notion that blackness can only be expressed through a singular African American lens. The Young Lords are heirs to the Black Power Movement echoing the freedom cries of antiwar and black radicalism by African American organizations like the Black Panther Party and the Independence Movement in Puerto Rico by Afro Puerto Rican figures like Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos, the movement's outspoken leader.
Featured Speakers:
Dr. Johanna Fernández, Afro-Dominican - professor, curator and author “Radical History of the Young Lords” https://uncpress.org/author/12498-johanna-fernandez/
Dr. Noel López, Afro-Cuban - dissertation on the Original Rainbow Coalition (Young Lords, Black Panthers, Young Patriots, etc) https://www.linkedin.com/in/noel-lopez-phd-44402336/
Dr. Yasmin Ramirez, Afro-Puerto Rican - independent curator and curator (with Dr. Fernández) on “Presente! The Young Lords in New York) https://www.yasminramirezphd.com/
Resources recommended by the panelists:
Through the Eyes of Rebel Women: The Young Lords 1969-1976 by Iris Morales
The Young Lords: A Radical History by Johanna Fernández
The Afro-Latin@ Reader: History and Culture in the United States, Edited by Miriam Jiménez Román and Juan Flores
Moderator: Omar Eaton-Martínez, M. Ed., Assistant Division Chief of Historical Resources, Maryland-National Capital Parks and Planning Commission, Natural and Historical Resources Division, Prince George’s County Parks and Recreation, 301-627-8507, Omar.Eaton-Martinez@pgparks.com Twitter @oeatonmartinez
Omar leads the Prince George’s County Historical Resources which include historical house museums, an aviation museum, the Black History Program and archaeological parks.
He has recently worked at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, National Park Service, the Office of the National Museum of the American Latino Commission, NASA and he also was a K-12 teacher in NYC and DC.
He has had a leading roles in racial equity organizations like Museums and Race: Transformation and Justice, Museum Hue as well as a part of the Museum as Site for Social Action project.
His research interests are Afro Latinx identity in museum exhibitions, Diversity and Inclusion in museums and cultural institutions; and Hip Hop history, culture and education. Moreover, he has supported public history projects centering blackness in Puerto Rico.
In 2019, Omar was selected to be an American Alliance of Museums Diversity. Equity. Accessibility. Inclusion (DEAI) Senior Fellow, which is dedicated to diversify museum board and is a gubernatorial appointee to the Maryland Lynching Truth & Reconciliation Commission. In 2020, he was elected to the Board of Directors for the Association of African American Museums.
Johanna Fernández is associate professor of History at Baruch College (CUNY) and author of The Young Lords: A Radical History. Dr. Fernández’s Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) lawsuit against the NYPD, led to the recovery of the "lost" Handschu files, the largest repository of police surveillance records in the country, namely over one million surveillance files of New Yorkers compiled by the NYPD between 1954-1972, including those of Malcolm X. She is editor of Writing on the Wall: Selected Prison Writings of Mumia Abu-Jamal and writer and producer of the film, Justice on Trial: the Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Her awards include the Fulbright Scholars grant to the Middle East and North Africa, which took her to Jordan; and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship in the Scholars-in-Residence program at the Schomburg Center. She directed and co-curated, ¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York an exhibition in three NYC museums cited by the New York Times as one of 2015’s Top 10, Best In Art. Fernández received a B.A. in Literature and American Civilization from Brown University and a Ph.D. in U.S. History from Columbia University. She’s the host of A New Day, WBAI’s morning show, from 7-8am, M-TH, at 99.5 FM in New York.
Noel López is the Regional Cultural Anthropologist and the Regional Tribal Liaison Officer with the National Park Service (NPS), National Capital Area Office. Trained through the Library of Congress’ Field School for Cultural Documentation, Noel uses ethnographic research to better understand how people interact with and value public spaces. At NPS he manages the Cultural Anthropology program whose aim is to better understand parks and resources through the lens of their associated communities and, in particular, provide a space and platform for underrepresented voices. Some of these projects include studies on urban subsistence fishing, Tribal affiliation, and the DC GoGo and Punk music scenes.
Noel holds a PhD from George Mason University where he wrote his dissertation on a Chicago-based group of white Appalachians known as the Young Patriots who became members of the Original Rainbow Coalition: a pact of political unity with the Young Lords and Black Panthers in the 1960s.
Noel was selected as a Edwin C. Bearss History Fellow and is a member of various local and national boards focused on humanities, racial equity and public spaces including the DC Humanities Truck and the Society of Outdoor Recreation Professionals. Raised throughout DC, Maryland and Virginia, today he lives with his wife and three kids in Alexandria, VA.
Yasmin Ramirez holds a PhD in Art History from the Graduate Center, CUNY. Born in Brooklyn, she was active in the downtown art scene of the early 1980s as a club kid and art critic for the East Village Eye. Attracted to street art and hip hop, she became acquainted with emerging artists and writers, many of whom are now icons of the 1980s. A self-described art worker, Dr. Ramirez is an advocate for progressive institutional change in the New York art world and academia. Her critically acclaimed exhibitions and panels include: Pasado y Presente: Art after the Young Lords, 1969-2019 (2019); Home, Memory, and Future (2016); Martin Wong: Human Instamatic (2015); ¡Presente!: The Young Lords in New York (2015); The Puerto Rican Art Workers and the Construction of the Nuyorican Art Movement (2014); Re-Membering Loisaida: On Archiving and the Lure of the Retro Lens (2009); “Esto A Veces Tiene Nombre": Latin@ Art Collectives in a Post-Movement Millennium (2008); The Boricua in Basquiat (2005); Voices From Our Communities: Perspectives on a Decade of Collecting at El Museo del Barrio (2000); Pressing the Point: Parallel Expressions in the Graphic Arts of the Chicano and Puerto Rican Movements (1999). Dr. Ramirez is currently writing a book on Latinx art movements and collectives in New York.