Many real life Puerto Rican heroes like the Young Lords Party fought for social justice and inspired Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez to create La Borinqueña.
The Young Lords began as a Puerto Rican turf gang in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago in the fall of 1960 and as a civil and human rights movement on Grito de Lares, September 23, 1868.
During Mayor Daley’s tenure, Puerto Ricans in Lincoln Park (the first hub of Puerto Ricans in Chicago) and several Mexican communities were completely evicted from areas near the Loop, lakefront, Old Town, Lakeview and Lincoln Park, in order to increase property tax revenues.
When they realized that urban renewal was evicting their families from their barrios and witnessed police abuses, some Puerto Ricans became involved in the June 1966 Division Street Riots in Wicker Park and Humboldt Park.
They were officially reorganized from the gang into a civil and human rights movement by Jose Cha Cha Jimenez, who was the last president of the former gang and became the founder of the new Young Lords Movement.
Puerto Rican self-determination and the displacement of Puerto Ricans and poor residents from prime real estate areas for profit became the primary focus of the original movement. Since there were few Latino students and no outspoken leadership at the time, the former street-gang transformed themselves, training leadership and organizing the broad community.
“My culture is a very dominant culture, and it’s imposing and it’s causing problems. If you don’t do something about it, you’re going to have taco trucks on every corner.”
That was Marco Gutierrez, founder of the group Latinos for Trump, issuing a dire warning to the United States in an interview with Joy Reid on MSNBC on Thursday night, September 1.
When hatred takes human form, it looks a lot like the founder and chairman of the Liberty Counsel Matthew Staver
You may recognize him as the lawyer for the infamous Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis who refused to do her job because her hatred was too big a burden to bear so she chose prison instead.
She just couldn’t stand the thought of two loving people of the same gender getting married, so she showed us just a taste of what was about come in terms of hating the LGBT community.
And she had Staver as her equally bigoted lawyer.
What’s come since Davis’ hissy fit has been a string of anti-LGBT bills disguised as “religious freedom” laws, and Staver is the man behind the hate nationwide. CBS News investigated and came to find out that it’s been Staver leading this zealous crusade.
From laws prohibiting transgender individuals from using the proper bathroom to allowing businesses the right to refuse service to the LGBT community, Staver has been there through it all.
Yet, he cleverly words his hatred as such:
“It is only about being free to pursue your faith.
We have no interest in discriminating against anyone.”
No, Staver, the First Amendment already guarantees your freedom to pursue your faith, what you’re doing is helping states all across the nation write laws to specifically discriminate against LGBT individuals.
You are making it legal to deny service or evict tenants based on sexual orientation. This legislated hate is taking away the freedom of LGBT citizens to grant the freedom to legally discriminate to religious zealots afraid gay money has gay cooties.
And God forbid a transgender person needs to pee.
Oh, and get this, Staver doesn’t think businesses are really going to pull out of the states that have enacted these laws. He’s supposedly calling their “bluff.” He’s about to be in for a rude awakening, because being on the wrong side of history has never boded well for any bigot. His hatred for the gay community is bizarre. If he wants freedom, live and let live. It really can be that easy.
CBS News investigation finds Kim Davis’ lawyer behind anti-LGBT bills in 20 states
By: David Edwards
After governors in North Carolina and Mississippi recently signed laws limiting the rights of LGBT people, CBS News began investigating why so many anti-LGBT bills were cropping up in state legislatures around the country.
The network found that the conservative group Liberty Counsel had placed lawyers in all 50 states to draft legislation and advise lawmakers on how to rein in the rights of LGBT people in response to a Supreme Court ruling which legalized same-sex marriage in 2015.
CBS determined that bills tied to Liberty Counsel have been filed in at least 20 states so far.
“Well I certainly want to push back against that [same-sex marriage] ruling,” Liberty Counsel founder Matt Staver told CBS News. “It was a wrong ruling. It has no basis in the constitution.”
“The Supreme Court in the 5-4 opinion on marriage in 2015 lit the house on fire,” he added. “All we’re trying to do is control the fire at this point in time.”
Staver insisted that the bills were “about being free to pursue your faith,” and that his group had “no interest in discriminating against anyone.”
He also asserted that companies did not have the guts to go through with boycotts of states that enacted pro-discrimination legislation.
“They’re not gonna follow through,” he declared. “It’s a bluff. They’re not leaving.”
~~Group behind states’ religious freedom laws speaks out~~
~~Published on Apr 13, 2016~~
Lawmakers in several states are passing bills to protect those who cite religious beliefs for refusing to serve or employ people in the LGBT community. These bills began to crop up in state legislatures soon after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage last year. As Dean Reynolds reports, the same group is behind most of the new legislation.
The Empowerment Project is the incredible journey of a crew of female filmmakers driving across America to encourage, empower, and inspire the next generation of strong women to go after their career ambitions.
Driving over 7,000 miles from Los Angeles to New York over the course of 30 days, the documentary spotlights 17 positive and powerful women leaders across a variety of lifestyles and industries.
In celebration of the all-female focus in front of and behind the camera, the filmmakers turned the cameras on themselves, capturing their transformational journey.
The film challenges the audience to ask themselves,
“What would you do if you weren’t afraid to fail?”
This is a very special project, close to our hearts, as they are going to do amazing things in the life of many young American women.
The documentary features some incredible pioneer women from a range of different industries such as aviation, medical, entertainment, fashion, sport, law, food and a superstar Ballerina. All the women interviewed are at the top of their game, and furthermore are committed to making a change for many other young women who will come after them.
Many of them have come up against person and societal hardship, but their stories will inspire all of us that difficulties aren’t intended to make us fail, but force us to become strong!
And while we’re on the topic of amazing women, the documentary’s two executive producers, Sarah Moshman and Dana Cook just won their very first Emmy Award for a previous documentary they made called ‘Growing Up Strong: Girls On The Run‘.
Amy Robach with The Empowerment Project filmmakers Sarah Moshman and Dana Michelle Cook
This is an organization which the two are personally very involved in, and also featured the founder, Molly Barker in The Empowerment Project. It seems everything has come full circle for this dynamic duo.
Guru Nanak (15 April 1469 – 22 September 1539) was the founder of Sikhism and the first of the Sikh Gurus.
His birth is celebrated world-wide as Guru Nanak Gurpurab on Kartik Poornima, the full-moon day which falls on different dates each year in the month of Katak, October–November.
Guru Nanak traveled far and wide teaching people the message of one God who dwells in every one of His creations and constitutes the eternal Truth. He set up a unique spiritual, social, and political platform based on equality, fraternal love, goodness, and virtue.
It Is What It Is 