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The following are general questions and answers pertaining to social protests and demonstrations by a group called The Young Lords.
Who were the Young Lords?
They were Puerto Rican students who wanted to improve the living conditions of their own communities: East Harlem (El Barrio) and in the Lower East Side. Using the skills they gained from participating in anti-war movements, these students formed the Young Lords Organization as a student run revolutionary group to improve the conditions in the communities.
Why?
Puerto Ricans, like many ethnic minorities, faced strong discrimination from their fellow citizens as well as from the government.
What did the Young Lords do?
In the summer of 1969, the Young Lords led a community-wide rebellion against the New York City and the Sanitation Department. The sidewalks of the Barrio were filled with garbage; yet, the garbage trucks didn't bother to pick them up. Fed up with doing the City's job, store owners, residents, students, and many others living in East Harlem dragged the garbage from the sidewalks into the middle of Third Avenue. The four-foot high barricades of garbage were set on fire to prevent any traffic from moving through the Avenue. The City finally responded by sending the Police and Fire Departments at which the citizens threw trash.
These Young Lords also took over the First Spanish Methodist Church (La Iglesia de la Gente) for 11 days—days filled with poetry, personal testimonies of El Barrio life, and planning for the Revolution. This takeover won National and Federal attention. As a result, the Young Lords in New York City were infiltrated by the FBI and NYPD.
In addition to taking their protests to the streets, the Young Lords also looked after the health of their communities by established the Health Revolutionary Unity Movement (HRUM). The participants of this Movement discovered that a City TB (tuberculosis) testing truck never came to El Barrio. They "liberated" it and performed door-to-door TB testing on East Harlem residents.
(Information on this page came from http://www.criminalanarchy.com/History/palante.htm)