When the Puerto Rican were pushed to move and were being threatened in their new neighborhood, they fought against the displacement from Lincoln Park in Chicago, which they called the seek of social justice. Later, it had become the Young Lords’ sought for self-determination for Puerto Rico, Latino nations and all oppressed nations across the country. The party’s effort covered three dimensions: people’s daily needs, social needs and the needs of education. They created community projects centralized around Latinos, such as free food, free health care service, free education about Latino history. They also demanded more environmental and political protections to the Latino community in New York City. Whether this movement was a successful one, it had pointed the Puerto Rican people a way to speak for themselves and to make changes. “Speak Up” and “Revolution” are their legacy.

The world is always changing, but society never spontaneously care for the relatively weaker group of people. The minority groups must fight for their rights. This process of fighting is a critical part of achieving democracy. According to Chantal Mouffe, the true democracy would be accomplished by different groups fighting for their own benefits and eventually they would reach an equilibrium point that every group would be happy about it. However, that point is a dynamic one. It is always changing because as the world keeps developing, the equilibrium would break, creating inequalities between groups. Hence, the groups will restart the process of fighting for benefits until a new equilibrium point is reached. In this manner, fighting is always necessary for the Puerto Rican people. In modern times, the social influence that Young Lords left is so minimal to be helpful for the young generations. From the movie “Millie and the Lords”, we can see that the Puerto Rican people are being marginalized and were too lost to find a way out of the living pressure. And the legacy of the Young Lords would raise their consciousness that it is not their fault that their life ends up like this; it is the failure of the society and they need to stick together and change it. The experience of the Young Lords would give them the guidance of how to fight for their rights and tell the people that success is not impossible

Z.L

During the 1920s, racism, especially to the African Americans, had reached an unprecedented scale and range. Thousands of African Americans were lynched, falsely accused and tens of thousands were segregated, failed to receive the equal benefits and opportunities from the mainstream society led by white people. Started from this point, in Harlem in New York City, African Americans organized together to fight for their own benefits.

During the time white supremacy prevailed, the African Americans suffered, but then resisted with their pens. In 1899, an illiterate sharecropper Sam Hose was accused of killing his landlord and raping the landlord’s wife. Even though other people professed that he was defending himself during a violent argument, he was still assumed guilty and was brutally killed in front of 4,000 people. In Atlanta, on September 22, 1906, about 10,000 white mobs started killing all the African Americans they could find including children just because of the news of a series of suspected rapes of white women by African Americans. Harvard University’s first African American Ph.D. W.E.B. Du Bois was shocked and determined to turn the table for themselves. He joined The Crisis, the publication of NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). In his writing, he tried to visualize the issues of racism and convey the positive images of black people to catch public attention and promote the status of African Americans. Furthermore, he distributed the publications to the members in Congress, wanting to seduce the government to improve the situations of African Americans. Later, the Dyer Bill defined lynching as the murder of U.S Citizen.

Meanwhile, the other African American activists like Marcus Garvey in Harlem were fighting for a prosperous life in New York City. They created their own city-spade in Harlem to let people like writers, artists, and performers to participate in the discussion of racism. “They created the image of a ‘New Negro’- independent, proud, and willing to fight against racism”(Jaffe 161). It shows that they were having the capability to participate in society as the other ethnic groups did in the US. They were not inferior to white people. Eventually, a series of such events, which called Harlem Renaissance, successfully arose the public attention, generalizing the idea of racial equality to the whole city even the country.

“Let the world understand that 400,000,000 Negroes are determined to die for liberty. If we must die we shall die nobly. We shall die gallantly fighting on the battle heights of Africa to plant the standard that represents liberty” Marcus Garvey had a different vision of the future of African Americans. He wanted to establish the community and systems controlled by black people. He intended that moving to Africa was the only way for black Americans to completely avoid racism. His organization Universal Negro Improvement Association(UNIA), funded by its transportation business Black Star Line, tried to help the African American to move to Africa.

All the efforts that African Americans did in the past intended to improve the social equality in the US, but it was more than just equality. It means that the colored people, the minorities in the country started to think about themselves as the citizens or one of the masters of the United States and were holding the benefits of the country to fight against the racism. It was an improvement of status and human rights for African American, but it was more like the self-redemption: they just fight for what they were supposed to have hundreds of years ago.

-Z.L

“No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” This comes from the state of nature of Thomas Hobbes, who used it to describe the natural condition of mankind and the primitive society before there is a government, but he may never anticipate that it would happen in the twentieth century New York.  The Chapter 8 of Activist New York by Steven Jaffe introduces us the harsh living conditions of the women at that time and the intense social, family and even survival pressure of women have reached an unprecedented level. This is the exploitation of the capitalist and the lack of protection from the government deteriorated the situation. As highlighted by “Immigrant Women and Work” by Nancy Foner, the upheaval is inevitable since the pressure on female immigrants were suffering in such an inhumane way, just like the state of nature.

For the immigrant women, working and taking care of family is their way of showing value in the society and inside the family. As described by Nancy Foner, over 40% of the family income was contributed by the working female immigrants in the factories, at the cost of working at least fourteen hours a day with an extremely low wage. “They worked in hundreds of garment-making factory lofts, often for as little as three dollars for a 56- or 58-hour work week”(Jaffe 124). They did this for their family because they need to support their family to survive, not thrive in New York City. Socially, that was already the lower limit of their life in this city: they came here with no possessions and no land. Working in factories or at home was the only way to create income and maintain survival. This revealed the tragic fact: they have no way back except being exploited. Because of the competition of the factories and also the excessive supply of labor force, they only could receive the extremely low income and extremely poor working condition, which also increased their degree of suffering. “Fourteen hours you sit on a chair, often without a back, felling coats”(Foner 113). Meanwhile, the local government did not see this as severe issues because it would not affect the well-being of New York City and the people other than immigrants. On the other hand, the exploitation of the immigrants would continue benefitting the capitalists and landlords in the city, making the government less likely to protect the rights of immigrants.

Immigrant women in the family were having the same level of exploitation. They had to take care of the children and the household while making home products to earn money to support the family. “In addition, the poor living conditions and diseases were not providing a good environment for the women to work effectively. The contributions of women did not bring them to rise in the family status; they were still facing an imbalance status inside the family, which means the women had to face the pressure from husband or brothers. “Women were excluded from seats of power in the community and from positions in the religious sphere.”(Foner 116) Pressure from triple ways was added to women. In this situation, survival is the chief task in the family. As the lowest level in the family’s hierarchy, women were expected to suffer more than men did.

As the inhumane suffering went on, women’s opposition started to grow. 20,000 young garment workers picketed hundreds of shops in 1909. That means they were getting to be aware of the power of the group and started to establish trade union among themselves. “Many of these allies belonged to the Women’s Trade Union League …and working-class women in efforts to unionize female workers and to win the vote for women”(Jaffe 126). That means women, as one of the most important while also the most marginalized group since the patriarchal society, started to raise their power and gain independence after the severe sufferings. The settlement reached in February 1910 was the temporary victory of female workers and was the transition of this group from an outsider of the country to the activists in the development of the city. After that, the group expanded its influence from New York City to the whole country. The National Labor Relations Act, known as the Wagner Act, brings the vision of resistance for the working class over decades.

Although in the early times the female immigrant workers suffered greatly from the poor living and working environments and various social, economic and family pressure. The spirit of resistance made them fight for their rights altogether, which later became a power of activism in New York City. It was not only a victory for women, but it was also the success of the activist in New York City.

-Z.L