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The Young Lords was a Chicago-based street gang that became a civil rights and human rights organization. The group, most active in the late 1960s and 1970s, aimed to fight for neighborhood empowerment and self-determination for Puerto Rico, Latino, and colonized ("Third World") people. Tactics used by the Young Lords include mass education, canvassing, community programs, occupations, and direct confrontation. The Young Lords became targets of the United States FBI's COINTELPRO program.

expressing, among other things, opposition to U.S. military presence in Puerto Rico The platform follows the mission clearly, stating: "We demand immediate withdrawal of U.S. military forces and bases from Puerto Rico, Vietnam, and all oppressed communities inside and outside the U.S. No Puerto Rican should serve in the U.S. Army against his brothers and sisters, for the only true army of oppressed people is the people's army to fight all rulers.

The Young Lords started in 1960 in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood as a Puerto Rican turf gang. On Grito de Lares, September 23, 1968, Jose Cha Cha Jimenez reorganized them and formed the Young Lords as a national political and civil rights movement. The new community-wide movement then spread to nearly 30 cities, including three branches in New York, which at the time served as the entry point for 90% of Puerto Ricans. In addition, the Young Lords began operating free programs for the community. In addition to their support for Puerto Ricos' independence, all Latino nations, and oppressed nations of the world, the Young Lords also supported neighborhood empowerment. The radical movement of the Young Lords modeled themselves after the Black Panther Party, calling for a vanguard of revolutionary minority parties coming together that felt oppressed by a system that wasn’t designed to be of assistance to minorities.

Multiple chapters formed nationwide based on the original Chicago chapter, including several branches in New York City and along the East Coast. The National Headquarters in Chicago asked the loose coalition of chapters in New York to unite as a single regional branch. All chapters considered neighborhood empowerment and Puerto Rican self-determination as unifying missions.

The Great Migrations of the late 1940s resulted in many Puerto Ricans coming to the mainland for opportunity and settling in the Midwest, Florida, and on the East Coast of the United States. Chicago, one of the most populated centers of the Puerto Rican diaspora, took on a significant role as a regional headquarters of the movement.

The National Headquarters' first action was to ransack and close the Department of Urban Renewal office in Chicago. The Young Lords attended an Urban Renewal meeting and told the panel of the local neighborhood association that no more meetings would be permitted in Lincoln Park until people of color were included on the Urban Renewal Board.

On July 27, 1969, the chapter office in New York City mounted a "Garbage Offensive" to commemorate the 1968 Sanitation Strike and to protest the substandard garbage collection service in East Harlem. The event also promoted the opening of the Young Lords' New York City office. The offensives targeted local city services and were aligned with the National Headquarters mission to develop neighborhood empowerment. In Chicago, the Young Lords occupied local institutions in the Lincoln Park neighborhood to support low-income housing for working families.

The New York members had first read about the Chicago Young Lords in an issue of the Black Panther newspaper. It reported actions for Puerto Rican and Latino self-determination and publicized the increasing repression of Jose "Cha Cha" Jimenez and the Chicago National Headquarters. The New York office followed the actions of the People's Church in Chicago and took over the First Spanish United Methodist Church in East Harlem. Over 100 members were arrested in the two-week takeover. National Headquarters members encouraged the New York members not to resist arrests, in order to avoid bloodshed

The New York occupation of First Spanish United Methodist Church in East Harlem took place on December 28, 1969, after several similar actions in Chicago: the sit-in at Grant Hospital, the take-over of People's Park, the occupation of McCormick Seminary, and the occupation of Chicago's People's Church (Armitage Avenue United Methodist Church). In several cities, the Young Lords set up free community programs, such as breakfast and classes. United Methodist Pastor Rev. Bruce Johnson, of the North Side Cooperative Ministry, worked to obtain funds to support the Young Lords programs. Rev. Sergio Herrera, a Cuban assistant pastor of the Young Lords People's Church in Chicago, did not initially agree with their occupation of the church, nor of their murals of Che Guevara and Pedro Albizu Campos. Later he participated in all the neighborhood events.

Occupying the Armitage Avenue United Methodist Church in May 1969, the Young Lords set up programs inside what they called the People's Church. The building remained a church but also served as the Young Lords National Headquarters for nearly two years. UMC Bishop Pryor was pressured to oust the two UMC ministers and the Young Lords from the People's Church by Alderman George Barr McCutcheon and members of the Lincoln Park Conservation Association. The Court fined the People's Church $200 each day the free daycare center remained open.

Early on the morning of July 14, 1970, the Young Lords, a predominantly Puerto Rican group of community activists in New York City, storm Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx and barricade themselves inside. The Young Lords claimed the hospital as their own, placing a Puerto Rican flag on the roof and flying signs from its windows reading “Welcome to the people’s hospital” and “Bienvenidos al hospital del pueblo.” It was the beginning of what became a 12-hour-long occupation in protest of the hospital’s poor care conditions.

The Young Lords, who were united around revolutionary socialist principles, had a list of seven demands for hospital administrators, including increased minimum wage for all workers, funds for a new hospital building and a day care center for patients and staff. Their takeover of the hospital grew out of a series of protests that sought to draw attention to detrimental health conditions in their poverty-stricken neighborhood. “Lincoln Hospital is only [a] butcher shop that kills patients and frustrates workers from serving these patients,” said Young Lords member Gloria Cruz. “This is because Lincoln exists under a capitalist system that only looks for profit. But even this system made an effort at scrapping this butcher shop by condemning this building 25 years ago.

After hours of negotiations, the city gave the Young Lords no public guarantee that it would open a new Lincoln Hospital or meet their demands. So with police lined outside the building, the Young Lords donned hospital apparel, such as white coats, and slyly exited the building alongside other workers. They successfully vacated the premises, though two members, Pablo Yoruba Guzman and Louis Alvarez Perez, were soon after arrested for possession of dangerous weapons—charges that were later dismissed.

The Young Lords successfully drew attention to the material conditions of health care in the South Bronx. Tragically, their occupation was followed days later by the death of Carmen Rodriguez, who was treated negligently at Lincoln Hospital. These events are credited with helping accelerate the building of a new Lincoln Hospital six years later.

The Young Lords were a target of the FBI's COINTELPRO program that targeted Puerto Rican independence groups. The New York-Chicago schism mirrored the divisions within other New Left groups including the Black Panther Party, Students for a Democratic Society and Brown Berets, often as a result of COINTELPRO activities of police infiltration by informants and provocateurs. The Young Lords leaders were framed and discredited by both Mayor Richard J. Daley forces and the FBI. The entire Chicago leadership of the Young Lords was forced underground to reorganize and avoid complete destruction. COINTELPRO tactics used against the movements such as the Young Lords included rumor campaigns and pitting groups against each other to create factionalism, distrust, and personality conflicts. In Chicago, COINTELPRO created an anti-Rainbow Coalition component. The Red Squad also monitored the Young Lords National Headquarters 24 hours a day. Jose Cha Cha Jimenez became a main police target and was indicted 18 times in a six-week period on felony charges including assault and battery on police and creating a mob action. The intent of the police action was to cripple the organization. While the Young Lords advocated armed strategies similar to those advocated by the Black Panthers, the basis was as a right to self-defense. Such self defense was advocated after the shooting of Manuel Ramos, the suspected police involvement in the death of José (Pancho) Lind, the alleged suicide of Julio Roldan while in the custody of the New York Police Department, the fatal stabbings in Chicago of the United Methodist Church Rev. Bruce Johnson and his wife Eugenia, and the murder of Assistant Pastor Sergio Herrera shortly after his transfer to Los Angeles. The Young Lords accused the FBI CointelPro of a conspiracy to murder Young Lords and Black Panthers.

The National Headquarters Young Lords' mission called for self determination for Puerto Rico, all Latino nations, all oppressed nations of the world, and for barrio empowerment. The Young Lords also created a 10-point program modeled after the Black Panthers 10 point program. The New York office created a 13-point program after they split from Chicago National Headquarters as follows:

1. We want self-determination for Puerto Ricans—Liberation on the island and inside the United States.
2. We want self-determination for all Latinos.
3. We want liberation for all third world people.
4. We are revolutionary nationalists and oppose racism.
5. We want community control of our institutions and land.
6. We want true education of our creole culture.
7. We oppose capitalists and alliances with traitors.
8. We oppose the amerikkkan military.
9. We want freedom for all political prisoners.
10. We want equality for women. Machismo must be revolutionary ... not oppressive.
11. We fight anti-Communism with international unity.
12. We believe armed self-defense and armed struggle are the only means to liberation.
13. We want a socialist society.

In November 1970, that platform was revised. The revised 5th point called for women's equality and opposed male chauvinism. The revised 6th point focused on community control of institutions and land. The revised 7th point demanded education of the Afro-Indio culture and the Spanish language. The revised 10th point called for freedom for political prisoners. The revised 11th point focused on the group's internationalist perspective.