“The Young Lords Speak delivers an in-depth exploration of the Young Lords Organization from its origins as a street gang in Chicago to its transformation into a powerful revolutionary force. Professor Lazú expertly curates the first collection of primary sources, filling a critical gap in the historical narrative of the Young Lords. The anthology illuminates the ideals and actions that ignited a radical social justice movement within the Puerto Rican diaspora in the late 1960s and continues to inspire the ongoing struggle for Puerto Rican liberation.”

“This dazzling collection—part archive, part memoir and ethnography, part the everyday poetry of the street—hits like a hammer and then settles like an abiding life-lesson. Its authenticity—meaning its contradictions, disagreements, ambiguities, paradoxes, and uncertainties—illuminates the movement muddle in full. There’s no attempt here to present the fragmented, dynamic, and contested reality of revolutionary struggle as linear or coherent, but rather as it truly is: achingly human, deeply aspirational, trembling, and real. I left my encounter with The Young Lords Speak energized, refreshed, and with my radical imagination unleashed and my courage renewed.”

“Through memoir, speeches, oral histories, primary sources, and incisive framing, this reader ushers in a long-awaited compendium of the history of the Chicago Young Lords Organization. Attending to how the history of the Young Lords has often been told through the works of their counterparts and comrades, Lazu carefully lays out an archive of political thought and action that remain ever salient.”

“This reader offers an essential collection of primary sources on the Chicago Young Lords Organization. Covering various aspects of the group’s history, the documents provide critical evidence of the activities, motivations, political ideologies, and achievements of the YLO.”

“Each of us engaged in the struggle for a more just society do so standing on the shoulders of those who went before. Knowing that history and sharing it is our path to building the sea for future change makers to swim in and be successful. For an important piece of that history this book is a must read.”