User:Marine 69-71/Civil rights and/or political activists

Civil rights and/or Political activists

• Mariana Bracetti a.k.a. "Brazo de Oro" (Golden Arm) - Political activist, Bracetti was the leader of the "Lares's Revolutionary Council" during the Grito de Lares. Bracetti knit the first flag of the future "Republic of Puerto Rico".

• Mathias Brugman - Political activist, Leader of the Grito de Lares. Brugman founded the first revolutionary committee in the City of Mayagüez. His revolutionary cell was code named: "Capa Prieto" (Black Cape).

• Dr. María Cadilla - Women rights activist and one the first women in Puerto Rico to earn a doctoral degree.

• Blanca Canales - Political activist, Nationalist leader who led the Jayuya Uprising.

• Rafael Cancel Miranda - Political activist who is a member of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and advocate of Puerto Rican independence who attacked the United States House of Representatives in 1954.

• Luisa Capetillo - Labor activist who was one of Puerto Rico's most famous labor organizers. She was also a writer and an anarchist who fought for workers and women's rights.

• Oscar Collazo - Political activist and one of two nationalists who attempted to assassinate President Harry S. Truman.

• Sylvia del Villard - Afro-Puerto Rican activist and founder of the Afro-Boricua El Coqui Theater. She was known to be an outspoken activist who fought for the equal rights of the Black Puerto Rican artist. In 1981, she became the first and only director of the office of the Afro-Puerto Rican affairs of the Puerto Rican Institute of Culture. (see also actresses)

• Raimundo Díaz Pacheco - Political activist who served as the Comandante (Commander) of the Cadets of the Republic (Cadets of the Republica) also known as the "Ejército Libertador de Puerto Rico" (The Liberation Army of Puerto Rico), the official youth organization within the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party.

• Isabel González - Civil Rights activist who as a young Puerto Rican mother paved the way for Puerto Ricans to be given United States citizenship.

• Lolita Lebrón - Political activist and Nationalist leader. Lebrón was the leader of a group of nationalists, who attacked the United States House of Representatives in 1954.

• Tomás López de Victoria - Political activist and Sub-Commander of the Cadets of the Republic. López de Victoria was the Captain in charge of the cadets who participated in the peaceful march which ended up as the Ponce Massacre. He led the Nationalists in the Arecibo revolt in what is knoan as the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party Revolts of the 1950s.

• Felicitas Mendez - A Puerto Rican woman who became an American civil rights pioneer. In 1946, Mendez and her husband took it upon themselves the task of leading a community battle that changed California and set an important legal precedent for ending de jure segregation in the United States. The landmark desegregation case, known as the Mendez v. Westminster case, paved the way for integration and the American civil rights movement.

• Sylvia Mendez - Civil Rights activist and educator. She played an instrumental role in the landmark Mendez v. Westminster case.

• María de las Mercedes Barbudo - Political activist who is considered to be the first female from Puerto Rico "Independentista" meaning that she was the woman to become an avid advocate of the Puerto Rican Independence.

• Ana María O'Neill - Women Rights activist and educator.

• Manuel Olivieri Sanchez - Civil Rights activist. Olivieri Sanchez was a court interpreter and a civil rights activist who led the legal battle which granted U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans living in Hawaii.

• Isolina Rondón - Political activist and Treasurer of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. She was one of the few witnesses of the killing of four Nationalists committed by local police officers in Puerto Rico during a confrontation with the supporters of the Nationalist Party that occurred in October 24, 1935,and which is known as the Rio Piedras massacre.

• Isabel Rosado - Political activist who was imprisoned multiple times because of her commitment to the cause of Puerto Rican independence.

• Ana Roque - Women Rights activist, educator and suffragist. She was also one of the founders of the University of Puerto Rico.

• Arturo Alfonso Schomburg - Civil rights activist. Schomburg was a pioneer in black history. He helped raise awareness of the great contribution that Afro-Latin Americans and Afro-Americans have made to society.

• Griselio Torresola - Political activist and Nationalist who died in the attempted assassination of President Harry S. Truman in 1950.

• Carlos Vélez Rieckehoff - Political activist and former President of the New York chapter of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party in the 1930s. In the 1990s Rieckehoff was among the protesters who protested against the United States Navy's use of his place of birth, the island of Vieques, as a bombing range.

• Vidal Santiago Díaz - Barber and political activist. Santiago Díaz was the barber of Pedro Albizu Campos. He made Puerto Rican media history when numerous police officers and National Guards men attacked him at his barbershop "Salon Boricua" because of his ideals of Puerto Rican independence. It was the first time in Puerto Rican history that an attack of such nature was transmitted via radio to the Puerto Rican public in general.

• Dr. Olga Viscal Garriga - Political activist and member of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. During the late 1940s she became a student leader at the University of Puerto Rico and spokesperson of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party's branch in Rio Piedras.

• Marcos Xiorro - House slave who in 1821, planned and conspired to lead a slave revolt against the sugar plantation owners and the Spanish Colonial government in Puerto Rico.

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