This Day in History

July 14, 1970: Young Lords Occupy Lincoln Hospital

Time Periods: 1961
Themes: Health, Civil Rights Movements, Latinx, Organizing
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In the early morning hours of July 14, 1970, the Young Lords occupied Lincoln Hospital’s major administrative building in response to the city’s indifference to the health needs of Puerto Ricans and African Americans in the South Bronx and the deplorable conditions of health care delivery at Lincoln Hospital. (The Young Lords was a radical group founded by Puerto Ricans and modeled on the Black Panther Party.)

The Young Lords’ actions at Lincoln were an extension of the group’s activism around issues of public health in East Harlem.

Rally at Lincoln Hospital, July 1970. Image by Billy Dee, based on a photo in Palante by Michael Abramson.

Their heath activism included:

  • the Garbage Offensive, which protested irregular sanitation services;
  • the launch of breakfast programs for poor children;
  • the Lead Offensive, during which they conducted door-to-door medical home visits in collaboration with progressive nurses, medical technicians and doctors to test local children for lead poisoning and adults for tuberculosis; and
  • the takeover of a city operated Tuberculosis truck.

This description is from the Bronx Museum and from the September 2015 Democracy Now! broadcast (watch below), “From Garbage Offensives to Occupying Churches, Actions of the Young Lords Continue to Inspire.”

We recommend the new short documentary called “Takeover.” Watch an interview with the director Emma Francis-Snyder on Democracy Now!.

Learn more about the Lincoln Hospital occupation and the rise of acupuncture as a form of detoxification in the essay Dr. Mutulu Shakur and the Lincoln Detox Center.

Find related resources below, including a young adult novel about the Young Lords.

Related Resources
A photograph of Black Panther children in a classroom with their teacher, Evon Carter, widow of Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter, at the Intercommunal Youth Institute, the Black Panther Party school.
Spanish/Bilingual, Teaching Activities (Free)

‘What We Want, What We Believe’: Teaching with the Black Panthers’ 10-Point Program

Teaching Activity. By Wayne Au. Rethinking Schools. 7 pages.
How students can use the Black Panther Party’s 10-Point Program to assess issues in their own communities and to develop 10-Point Programs of their own. Available in Spanish.

If We Knew Our History

What We Don’t Learn About the Black Panther Party — but Should

Article. By Adam Sanchez and Jesse Hagopian. If We Knew Our History series.
The local organizing that Black Panthers engaged in — giving the poor access to decent housing, health care, education, and much more — has been erased in the textbooks, yet it is precisely what won them such widespread support.

Why We Should Learn About the FBI’s War on the Civil Rights Movement (If We Knew Our History) | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History
Articles

Why We Should Teach About the FBI’s War on the Civil Rights Movement

Article. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. If We Knew Our History series.
A 1971 break-in at FBI offices revealed a conspiracy—known as COINTELPRO—for the FBI to infiltrate, disrupt, and destroy a wide range of activist groups, especially civil rights organizations. Textbooks ignore this chapter in U.S. history, but it’s essential background to understand what’s happening today.

 

book cover showing photo of protesting Black Panthers, along with graphic imagery by BPP artist Emory Douglas.
Books: Non-Fiction

Look for Me in the Whirlwind: From the Panther 21 to 21st-Century Revolutions

Book — Non-fiction. Edited by déqui kioni-sadiki and Matt Meyer. 2017. 648 pages.
The collective autobiography of the New York Panther 21, an infamous conspiracy case that highlighted government repression of Black liberation activists during the 1960s and 1970s.

Books: Fiction

The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano

Book — Historical fiction. By Sonia Manzano. 2012. 224 pages.
A coming-of-age story set in New York’s El Barrio in 1969 using actual news accounts of the Young Lords taking control of their destinies.

Books: Non-Fiction

We Took the Streets: Fighting for Latino Rights with the Young Lords

Book — Non-fiction. By Miguel Melendez. 2003. 260 pages.
Legacy of the Young Lords in the Puerto Rican struggle for equality and independence.

Books: Non-Fiction

The Young Lords: A Radical History

Book — Non-fiction. By Johanna Fernández. 2020. 480 pages.
Fernandez demonstrates how the Young Lords redefined the character of protest, the color of politics, and the cadence of popular urban culture in the age of great dreams.

Films

Takeover: How We Occupied a Hospital and Changed Public Health Care

Film. By Emma Francis-Snyder. 2021. 38 minutes.
Takeover tells the story of the Young Lords’ 12-hour occupation of Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx in 1970.

This Day in History

Sept. 23, 1968: Young Lords Founded

The Young Lords were established in Chicago, Illinois in 1968, led by a street activist named Cha Cha Jiménez, who organized the group to fight local gentrification, police brutality, and racism.

Drawing by an elementary school student for the cover of the Lincoln Collective’s recruitment pamphlet.
This Day in History

July 1, 1970: The Lincoln Pediatric Collective Forms to Serve Bronx Community

Over three dozen young doctors bucked prestige and embraced justice in the summer of 1970 when they began work at Lincoln Hospital, a run-down, underfunded public hospital in the South Bronx that also the site of an occupation by the Young Lords.