latinos stood in tompkins square park in the east village and made an announcement that they were founding a new york branch of a revolutionary political party called the young lords inspired by the black panthers and  earlier street gang turned activist young lord scroope in chicago their purpose was to gain social justice for new york's working class latino population then largely puerto rican and treated by the city with general contempt and this of they were invisible the lord soon became an important force and inspiration in the community and around the nation part of the mosaic of various political groups and movements of the sixty's and seventy's advocating radical progressive change and greater respect for everyday people to gain the trust and cooperation of the latino communities in new york concentrated mainly in the east village east harlem and the south bronx in those days the lords mobilized to take direct action against the city bureaucracies and agencies that were daily harassing and disrespecting the health security and welfare of those communities the group launch an effort to force the city to increase the garbage pick up for example in these harlem known as the garbage offensive members of the young lords cleared the streets of the barrio pile the garbage into the middle of rd avenue they were doing that right and set it on fire they occupied churches and hospitals to offer concrete services open the spaces for the community they challenge police violence and practices and educated people about puerto rican culture poetry music food dance and history they call full self the permanent for all puerto ricans independence for the island of puerto rico community control of institutions and land freedom for all political prisoners and the withdrawal of u s troops from vietnam puerto rico and other areas the group largely disbanded in the mid seventy's but its impact is alive today as witness the overflow audience they drew at the recent young lords th commemorative event at the sherm berg center in harlem on july th it's even more incredible to recall that most of the members of the lord you were fourteen right around that most everyone else was seventeen or eighteen some as young as fourteen some as young as fourteen thousand that was and you've already one of those founding older leaders the elders elder older leaders and driving forces behind the young lord movement is with us today in the radical magination our past cross several years ago at union see a logical seminary of all places where you were finishing your graduate work you finished it yeah i graduate congratulations in listening to his powerful impassioned opening keynote message to lie twenty six and schonberg it rang true to the political exuberance and idealism of his youth the speech also reflect a more mature understanding of the complexity of the issues through his eloquent expressions of radical love redemption and forgiveness still speaking truth to power and still understanding that through knowledge of ourselves often comes by listening to the voices of the voiceless and most despised now if we've learned anything over the last fifty years it's the need for healing as individuals and as societies and cultures it's a need for the transformation of our political economic and moral systems it's the need to fully and finally grasp the prophetic tradition of understanding that through revolution and love comes out of a memory comes out of a and ecological devastation simply cannot continue in its various forms if we are to survive as a species we've tried to add that spirit of aggressive voice to the narrative of the show we're gratified to see how marianne williamson is doing that as well in the presidential campaign and we're thrilled to have as our guest today one of the most dynamic and eloquent spokesman for that narrative as well he's a political comrade and a spiritual soul mate who and i'm not sure how exactly does this offer you insights into your own cultural background at the same time you learn more about his the more you talk thank you for being here it is an honor play it was it was warming to hear your overture if you will want me to hear that in the end it's the interconnectedness of all worlds that makes for a peace that makes for resolution of conflict that makes for progress we are in the birth pangs of a new paradigm and you know did you realize that i agree with you totally did you really fully understand that realize that when you helped organize the lords at that time was that i knew that the world needed to move to a new paradigm right but the overriding factor was that there was a power structure in this country of course throughout western europe that was intent on producing strife racism militarism massage any and death i had to do something about it i didn't know then what i know now internal transformation equals external manifestation that is you have to change inside before you can manifest anything outside i didn't know that then i just knew that we had to fight against a system that was murderous it was calloused that was  really ignorant and cruel that's what i knew was that ignorance was one thing conscious to certain extent what they were doing or what they're trying to achieve doesn't the system in a sense rational trying to bite everybody is he rational he's aware of his place in time but he's not rational you know this country at this point is going to the rabid dog syndrome that doesn't mean that we're told allow it to bite us in all it has little ism there has never been a time in the history of the world that history of this world robbed with the advent of capitalism feudalism there's never been a time when capitalism has left an area a continent a country better than it was before never been a time and a case in point except for perhaps a small segment of the population if there was if you're laughing at one of those co operative capital as if there was a capitalism that took into account people who didn't have as much and use the mill the philosopher john mill approach that which is the lowest of us thought that which doesn't have power we have to give power to look at that is that is when you see things change other than that it has not produced  any grand benefit to most people we have to understand that and what's worse is that every seventy or eighty years that same system produces bile it produces fascism tries to institutionalize the inmate to become a card most of them don't become cars but they become atomic sounds that is they don't fit into the system but they become rigid and it's unfortunate and as i've noticed most of the guys who come out now are indelibly marked it's sad to me really is let me read this thing is about the jail that i went to when i was sixteen i went to jail once two solid years of insurance are nothing but my mind and potatoes yand pushups done quickly at six in the morning in between the white cold toilet in the great coal bed and the freakin guard who was once a german who hated jews but now was a christian and love them who once not tommy's head against the wall fifteen times for talking in line and the only reason he stopped was that blood from tom he said were clinging to his blue uniform like red unraveled thread who said he'd like to talk to me in the mornings about christianity but instead would always lick my body with his eyes as i exercised he would stare at my zipper for minutes on end talking about jesus christ in heaven in glory faster and faster he would talk appearing at me staring at me ripping my pants off with his eyes the animal would go on talking very very fast now the spit coming to his lips like a form if i turned on him i could feel his nasty eyes on my butt so i would make believe i was readjusting myself and would put my army green colaco number forty two in between his eyes and me then i would sit sideways on my hard wooden bench that also had the number forty to one so that all he could see was the profile of my face and my bro gamble but it would matter he was already into tarzan's africa black hot moist savage cannibal africa where orgasms come every minute on the hour he would be speed talking now about the virgin and joseph and the trinity and mary and judgment and judgement and judgement and god will judge on that day and then he would stop breathing like a horse a sweat coming down from under his cup or to his german square chin he would rattle the door by hitting it with his shiny chrome flashlight with a r tonight it's other people's you know there are many people who grew up believing we are a meritocracy i did before i went to jail i thought you know let's not hear about this racist stuff let's not hear about it there were black men in bush brooklyn where we had moved after we came back from l a who told me philippe you were a little off racism is realize i'm in it it's real if you're allowed to be real meritocracy if you do what you do and read and pass the test i thought  under force so this is your world and this is what you experience you were saying before your mother was born here your father was born in puerto rico my father was born and put up with the who right next to the  he was raised in what we call funky two flats which was a area that was undeveloped full of mosquitoes swamp land and had not been drained so a lot of people to make it he told me he came here and he never really wanted to go back it's amazing people of that generation the twenty's and before that when they came here they stated they'd never want to go back it's amazing how many of us born of that of that of those loans right want to go back my grandmother told me you will complete circle you will go back and complete the circle i mean not to the swamp no man i you know what things now that whole area is right over there but i think what yeah the metaphor is we came here because we needed to make money we want to  to do better by our children and virus molds immigrants yes actually most whatever but they she told me what she was talking with when they stroking my hair my grandmother was one of the few puerto ricans i have ever met who loved blackness back on faith i was able for back on god i was able for back on my ancestors that's important so the point i'm trying to make is that you know what we want to go back now after hurricane maria after all of the madness and the corruption in puerto rico many of us want to go back now we love the island that much i missed it physically that is in my bones my sense of sight for you to go because i can feel it i don't know how this happened i have no idea my brother doesn't go through that my now so my grandmother told me i'll tell you why we had to leave we were not eating we were starving and when i look at the pictures of the twenty's of puerto ricans they have red hair which is a complete clear sign of malnutrition bloated bellies another sign of malnutrition  they had to come here there was no way she came in a freighter or reconverted freighter and she had a little piece of paper she told me her name she stopped in williamsburg which is all where all of us disembarked since we were already citizens this is three years after citizenship one hundred and seventeen ok she stopped in ways broke went over the gang plank went into the streets and they left her that's where mark when my people came around that i want all of us came around that so many of us were immigrants came to atlanta and she looked so it's a fascinating story a hostler a guy who was working for the boys for the italians doing a bathtub gin i took a liking to her and kept on bringing her shirts even when she said she knew that he liked it because he would bring shirts in every two days i just watched this but he liked her and he was he like giving her money eventually they got married had five kids my mother was the st of those wow what a story what are and you brought this because we want to get back to that home but yeah but this is the puerto rican and i'd like to add that even a survival i'd like to show people this book please if you can ladies and it's called the puerto rican diaspora by frank a spotter this is a wonderful wonderful book please pick it up and let me just show look at this look at this yeah wow i mean we're clear get beauty and the lines in the face the characters there's one shot that i really wanted they had a life like you're pretty much a lifelong new yorker yes i am all right and you're ready to i mean i look at it  book at all well if she gorgeous or what yes this these are my people please pick this up it's called the puerto rican diaspora frank as part of the other book that i'd like to recommend to all of you who are listening thank you very much is this book by historical cultural and racial sense of why puerto rico is the way it is today please pick it up the four story country jose luis gonzalez these two books will allow you and empower you inspire you thank you very much ok so this experience yes in the jail was was it was riveting it had to be yes it was and it was i'm i'm i'm gangs and so many gang fatalities that they would publish it in the new york times while of how many little being killed you know i we had gone to california because my mother thought that i was joining  gangs no no we had gone to california the st time because she wanted to get away from my dad this is how we use i was in the rd grade so i was about eight or nine and i went to california i loved it i fell in the woods to wilmington california about thirty miles south of l harlem right not too far from one hundred and twelve street between th and lenox and then since we were living with my aunt sixty eight people in two rooms we had to move my mother applied for the projects and she was given the worse in those days nights her new city housing authority made sure that those women who did not have husbands who did not have solid incomes were sent to the worst projects the hinterlands and so we ended up in the brownsville projects those of you who are old enough to ruin the browns for projects was the warrior capital of the world i often tell people this and they seem not to understand those who come from brooklyn would understand harlem had tremendous fighters all had sugary sugar ray robinson h me i said i i don't even know you man he said doesn't matter i want to fight you i said you don't know me brother he said i want to fight you i had to fight this guy told to me and we were rolling around on the ground and i just couldn't understand it so i tried to protect myself you know from him hurting me it was ended up a draw i had a little blood in my mouth your little blood above his eye and he just got up and walked away i said what's wrong with you man he sounds i like to fight there in lies the difference he then gravitating toward the lords or well st of all see that one prepared me prepared you have heard me prepare me because it taught me that the st thing you do is jump st your st blood it also taught me the south carolinians i was brought up with on the puerto ricans were little more passive they were lethal don't get me wrong if you mess with the spanish romans in brownsville if you mess with the who are the other group there was a flaming satans any of those groups they would react their reaction was murderous but they would attack unless you attack them now the jolly stompers were another one but the the ones i grew up with in brownsville the ones i grew up with i've been diagnosed with that i know that i have it after the laws it was through so i grew up fighting i wasn't afraid to fight they used to say that pretty boy that pretty boy can't fight here will do nothing and that was when i was on top of them already you know and they learned the hard way so you learn to defend yourself very well you learn very fighting techniques when i went to jail i learned these techniques but anyway so i'm there in brownsville and now we have to my mother sees that i'm getting into gangs with a group called frenchmen and she moved us out again to move me out to l a th our group which our projects were called aliso village when they came in mainly mexican but there were many many african americans there and it was uneasy truce they couldn't they couldn't understand me how is the black i speak spanish that they couldn't understand but i t fight which my cousin engineered he had come to from brooklyn from canarsie and he had caught over what over a girl there was him with an axe i went to tell the gentleman who had just made the pact  with touch my family he said you're not supposed to touch your family or brother or sister this is your cousin i said oh no you don't understand the puerto rican thing the puerto rican thing is anybody will leave it to me by blood is my family he said no that's not the way we see it i said i would never touch your mother your grandmother your aunt you know you're not this is your cousin i don't know this boy and he's rapping to my woman and we told him not to rap to all woman and to not to have to my woman and i had i had told my cousin jose not to do it but he was guys who knew me from junior high school to from junior high school and high school pull them away i would have been dead right then and there we called it out my grandmother who was in her seventy's and i'm pulled us apart and i gram my family's home to cast my my my aunt started speaking tongues she was totally use really my my my own fainted my own fainted she was huge woman my mother started speaking tongues and it was horrible it was like wait a minute scene was i need you guys here so my bush right now and i told my mother you should leave in california i have a very bad feeling about this if i go back to bushwick if we go back to brooklyn not going to make it and i knew it times he got me but we came back to brooklyn within two years i was in jail for murder in one of these ga thoughts control your health if you think negatively all the time and believe me i know there are times when i'm in a bad state and i can tell in my eyes i can tell in the fluidity of my skin i can tell in my countenance that i'm not thinking positively i'm not thinking affirmatively when you think like that you do not age well we talked about was the year or two ago and you were some guy was hassling you a little bit and you were going to like do and i said i was what you were yeah but gone through that period and we were traveling all over the united states and then some people came from east harlem and told me they wanted to join start a new puerto rican group called the society of a piece of campus was it called the awards organization joined i told them i don't really want to do this you guys are not ready because i thought i thought i was ready for revolution i thought i was ready form struggle and to some extent i was i had already learned arms already learned  been taught i had been taught by some of the best and i were ready to do it i thought this was a been in jail for a couple i had been in jail but out in the streets i already reorganized by some people and right i knew what i had to do and i knew it how can i explain it was in a passion it was an excitement to me when you're about to enter into a struggle you know that nine times out of ten you probably won't make it but your ideological fervor and your passion is so great your love for your fellow m and women is so great that you're willing to die for a cause so that's where you were at that's where i was at so when these kids come up to me and tell to me about well we need to educate our people i said this is this is not up to my standards and i told my they want to be part of it but they kept on to was assassinated assessable police and he was the guy the twenty years old he was the guy who put together the concept of the ring coalition right he was the guy who said there's no reason why you me and the other guy cannot be together and he was incredible  and they didn't pick him and i don't know why when i asked why i asked mickey melendez why and he said because you seem to be the only two fisted one you seem to be the one full of pippin vigor and you know women very you want to go you are ready to fight and we needed somebody who was down to fight so that was it if i had known that the the price i would pay for that if i had known the consequences of that kind of anger i might have decided against it but the fighting the violence understandably reacting to what you found here and the experience of racism and so on yeah i was modified by that love yes acting a lot of acting i didn't community work after all of that i was mainstream media right three children right i wasn't with any of their mothers i was empty i was empty  york and it didn't matter there was a hole in my heart there was a hole in my soul i wasn't feeling it and so i was into drugs for a long time and i said to myself and screwing around for a long time i said to myself wait a minute is this what happens after you've reached it's a day no more is this what happens after you've gone through everything you think you have to go to as a man something is wrong and one day i got on my knees and i said god you and i have been pals for a long time i've not always agree with you we have our fights because we argue all the time god and i i said i'm very jewish yeah well i was raised with ask the we feel that we're going to do the same thing i just understand i still feel i feel puerto ricans have not really reach their potential we're right here to to not just to make puerto rico free to make it in the present we're here to literally enrich and inspire the world wrists these restrictive laws are the tell them they can't do this and can't do that when so and i take the situations in the new testament and i turned them into modern day situations and he was also now he was all of them not only because he's strong very very physical and likes to fight but he was solve them because he has twelve crazy puerto ricans around him and nobody wants to mess with them finally because he believes in the independence of puerto rico and because they've had problems with terrorism they accused him of terrorism and they give him intravenous they kill him and he was remember the trip to the gurney for the intravenous injection is across his across you know actually and i should have given you all of this information this is great but i'm writing i'm writing it down it's very exciting getting up in the mornings it's very exciting putting this on paper i just hope i can give it all the way i think the action will take there's some things in it to you you will not expect and i hope you enjoy it i hope you do and you're going to be j c you're going to know i'm not going to be j c you're going to direct me to write it and hopefully get somebody directed but i'm going to have to find someone black puerto rican child and then an older person there are three stages there's the child way into a short clip by reverend barber when he was on the border and i think some connections there to the movie that you're also ok developing here so this is reverend barber in a short clip bring you over to the moral core of what's happening here you were in in el paso you were in that region just before the shooting to express solidarity with people who have been demonized on from the very top of the administration from the president on down just tell me what you found there and what your thoughts are indeed a few days later when this terrible thing happens th actually christan almost a week to the date and we were there with other religious leaders from across the country we went to juarez to the refugee camp we went to stand with the border action network that's there on the ground in the twenty some years we were there with human solomon and rabbi jacobson terry owens and we went there to see how ugly it is the way in which we have demonized the whole community and made it ok normalize the demonization of immigrants and how we're tolerating it at the highest levels of children and women and mothers and fathers being caged like animals in many ways being treated worse than worst and then some people treat their own dogs and then to see this happen right out now i think from our perspective which all of this is a moral issue we st must mourn deeply we must mourn deeply with the people in el paso in dayton we must listen to them from the ground because in the belly of the beast they're talking about winds to having an action a vigil we need to join that but when i listen to kellyanne today it's almost like dr jekyll mr hyde dr jekyll mr not being the willing to own the frankenstein that you have actually created the president and his words not only his words but his works this three dimensions to racism the words of racism the works of racism which is the policy and then the war of racism and white nationalism and violence has always been a part of white nationalism and riches spencer who is a white nationalist said the reason he was joint drawn to trump because he understood that the war against immigrants was the st war that america had to fight against brown images and he heard that in trump and for a politician to now try to denounce the racism age of an individual and not denounce their own racism to call him a monster but not call your all words in rest is of it is not to deal with the depths of the problem it is to skate the issue it is to not understand it what we are seeing is the result of the failure of society the failure of leadership the failures of laws and yes it is dead and the president was day because his words these words and his policies are the breeding ground for violence it always has been that way check it throughout history whenever you've had these words and policies you've also had the loosing of this kind of violence and so for someone to try to make this an anomaly just that person is but you notice kelly i keep saying that person that person they want to put on that one case and not deal with the whole society not how people were killed not what killed them but what created the environment to loose this kind of violence so i mean look let's be very frank i'm sure neither daniel benjamin or you reverend expected the president to do a math culpa in front of the world today however maybe  of racism and white nationalism conversation now you may not do it but i sure will demand it must be done if he won't do it the senate the congress and we must and people in the street must make the nation repent even if he does i should have very much connected to react to impulse union was part of that part of that process and hanging out with you guys and start that process let me read this yeah this is the home to you work a cry of do or die there is a meat eating meat cutting fas fast face slashing frenzy going on in new york city and while we're discussing the finer points of the head heart battle between our politicians or the dangers of brownshirts versus conservative republican nominations where knowing the bubble of anger so laden would pass its plummeting down d not throwing up that bubble is moving perils perilously close to the black hole that hovers just above street level in the projects in tenements of this town swooping up teenage dreams with a suction of a shark vacuum cleaner the frenzy doesn't see care about the differences between democrats or republican socialists or independents it is mindless narcissistic neolithic and frustrated you can't scare with threats of jail it's been there you can't plead about future consequences it doesn't see any and you can't talk about god or spirituality because in the main church is meaningless something grandma and old folks are into it is hungry see the wood self hatred and broke it has no money because there are no jobs in direct contradiction to government political statistics they claim unemployment figures are going down it has no logic no belief system no where to go in the morning is just wakes up eat some lucky charms whatever milk is left in the fridge and lingers near the doorway of whatever apartment lives and laughing at the chumps who go to work for nothing and wish you could find a quick fix miracle cure for money and that's exactly what happens out here i say the good book says by their fruits ye shall know them we're not producing good for fruits folks we're not producing good futures and nature of course trees that don't produce if we don't change our evil ways the be will not come back neither will human values where we're left with here what we're left with we're left with the challenge if we are spiritual beings we're left with the channel to go by faith faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen i truly believe this term if we have that kind of faith we can go forward in these projects the jeffersons and the johnsons in the king towers in the in all of them and say we want to help this is what i told them was if you remember i said we need as elders we need to go into these places not expect them to come to us we need to go into these places and begin to enlist their aid in building their community of we can do it we've gone through the drugs we've gone to the gangs we've gone to broken relationships and now i realize how important family is and of course we say the ruin of a nation starts in the families and all the shanty problem from god so i believe that it's time for us the elders to put roll their sleeves up and stop saying was time for me to go and la car you can afford to retire we've got to be able to help our youth and in helping our youth we're helping america i believe in america i believe in the idea of america i believe we need to change its principles i think we need to change the paradigm but i believe that this can be the city on the hill it sounds like you fifty years ago yes and no and as beautiful well maybe it was a lot of seems like a minute ago but fifty years later and the same i've heard only hollow share the same that we have a serious article straight talk and i talk about the new america i believe that it's time for us to believe in ourselves again to believe in hope again to believe in fa to say forget about the rapture let's do something new let's get out there and begin to cause culture is the spirit of all revolution then the politics changes then theologians come in you know the church is always the last to join the parade it's it's the food the