Jose Cha Cha Jimenez

Called "Cha Cha", José Jiménez was born in Caguas, Puerto Rico to parents Eugenia Rodríguez Flores (1929-2013), of San Lorenzo, and Antonio Jiménez Rodríguez (1924-1973) from San Salvador barrio in Caguas.

José "Cha Cha" Jiménez (born August 8, 1948) is a political activist and the founder of the Young Lords Organization, a Chicago-based street gang that became a civil and human rights organization.

In 1949, when José was an infant, his mother Eugenia (Doña Genia) Rodríguez moved with him from Puerto Rico to New York City.

They traveled to a migrant worker camp near Boston, where they were reunited with his father Antonio.

They rented a work cabin from the Italian family-owners of the migrant camp.

In fewer than two years, the Jiménez family moved to Chicago to be near relatives.

His mother worked in a candy factory and did piece-work in several TV factories.

Doña Genia also volunteered and contributed to organizing the Catholic Daughters of Mary (Damas de María) in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood.

The Jiménez family lived near Holy Name Cathedral, on the Near North Side, in what became one of the first two Puerto Rican neighborhoods in Chicago; it was known as La Clark by Puerto Ricans.

It had previously been predominately ethnic German.

Orlando Dávila, who later founded the Young Lords street gang, graduated from one of Doña Genia's neighborhood catechism classes and became one of José's best friends.

Originally the Young Lords developed for mutual protection, recognition and reputation, in a city where their members were a mostly poor minority.

White gangs considered them a disruption to the Lincoln Park neighborhood and confrontations became frequent.

Most of the new Latino children in Lincoln Park joined some form of street gang or neighborhood "club" to make their way.

During the 1960s, the city continued its urban renewal program.

Puerto Ricans had been displaced into Lincoln Park from other developing areas, but the city began to eye that neighborhood for redevelopment.

City planners argued that Lincoln Park should be renovated as an inner-city suburb, in order to attract professionals and increase tax revenues, and to profit from housing turnover as lower standard properties were redeveloped.

Lincoln Park was next to Lake Michigan and near downtown; it became a successful showcase for urban living for upper classes.

It is now ranked as one of the richest neighborhoods in the world.

Neighborhood associations, such as the Lincoln Park Conservation Association, never consulted with the poor residents.

These neighborhood associations assisted Mayor Daley by changing zoning laws, calling for building inspectors to pressure small owners into selling, and assisting real-estate agents and bankers with neighborhood housing group tours.

The bankers, building inspectors, and real-estate agents who supported Daley's master plan for Chicago were caught illegally redlining.

They were still successful in keeping African Americans largely in housing south of North Avenue.

Latinos needing less expensive housing moved north to Lakeview or west to Wicker Park and Humboldt Park.

Whites moved further northwest and north.

Court rulings that overturned some of the redlining came too late for most poorer families, who sometimes had to leave their homes in the Lakeview, Wicker Park and Humboldt Park neighborhoods.

Jimenez and his family were forced to move often, and he attended four different elementary schools during this period.

When the Young Lords were a street gang, they respected and looked for guidance from major African American gangs such as the Egyptian Cobras and the Almighty Vice Lord Nation, as well as the Black P. Stones.

The latter was a large, new group from the urban-renewal-designated area of 63rd Street.

By 1967, most of the formerly white areas of Lincoln Park had been occupied by Latino residents, many of them ethnic Puerto Ricans.

The original Young Lords had reached their late teens and lacked gang wars and organized meetings at the YMCA, so they ceased to exist as an organized gang.

They still hung around together in certain locations, but without structure.

Many then chose a chaotic, drug-filled, purposeless life.

Started in September 23, 1968, it was most active in the late 1960s and 1970s.

Born in Caguas, Puerto Rico, Jiménez was taken as an infant by his mother to the United States the following year.

They lived for a time with his father near Boston, Massachusetts, but within two years the family moved to Chicago to join relatives.

As a youth, he ran with a street gang, but made a turn-around in 1968 and devoted himself to reviving the Young Lords to work on issues of human rights, beginning in Chicago.

Issues included redlining, displacement of the poor, welfare rights and dignity, police relations, and community needs.

In addition to establishing breakfast, education and health programs, they organized politically to negotiate with city officials.

They also set up chapters in other cities with Puerto Rican and Latino populations, to work on social justice.