The Time the Protesters Won

Summary

Science Vs: The Time the Protesters Won Hosted by Wendy Zuckerman, Spotify Studios Release Date: September 26, 2024

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Introduction: A David vs. Goliath Battle for Change

In the September 26, 2024 episode of Science Vs, Wendy Zuckerman delves into an inspiring yet tumultuous chapter of American activism—the takeover of Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx by the Young Lords in 1970. This detailed narrative explores how a marginalized community, feeling unheard and neglected, orchestrated a series of protests that ultimately led to significant changes in public health policy and infrastructure.

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Setting the Stage: El Barrio's Struggles

Timestamp: [00:00–07:05]

The story begins in East Harlem, affectionately known as El Barrio, a neighborhood plagued by poverty, substandard housing, and rampant infestation. Residents, predominantly recent migrants from Puerto Rico, lived in cramped tenements with issues like lead poisoning from deteriorating paint and a severe garbage crisis due to NYC's failing sanitation services.

Notable Quotes:

• Cleo Silvers: "Roaches live with you." [04:30]
• Mickey Melendez: "We were so excited and we had been reading all this stuff about revolution..." [04:55]

Mickey Melendez, one of the Young Lords, recounts how his time in college ignited a passion for social justice, leading him and his peers to recognize the systemic neglect their community faced. This realization set the foundation for their eventual activism.

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The Garbage Offensive: Mobilizing the Community

Timestamp: [07:05–11:11]

Frustrated by the continuous neglect, the Young Lords initiated the Garbage Offensive. They first attempted peaceful clean-ups, with residents affectionately calling them "muchachitos" (little kids). However, the persistent issue of uncollected garbage led to a more radical approach.

Notable Quotes:

• Sid Davidoff: "They're still putting their reports together. It's very sketchy." [00:41]
• Mickey Melendez: "We put the revolution aside... and we start cleaning up the garbage." [06:58]

Their strategic act of dumping and burning garbage in the streets forced the city's hand, resulting in a 24-hour garbage pickup and temporarily transforming El Barrio into a cleaner environment. This bold move garnered widespread attention and galvanized the community's support.

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Expanding the Movement: Addressing Lead Poisoning

Timestamp: [11:11–17:43]

Building on their initial success, the Young Lords shifted focus to another critical issue: lead poisoning. With evidence showing that 30% of local children suffered from lead poisoning due to hazardous paint, the group undertook door-to-door campaigns to educate families and advocate for testing.

Notable Quotes:

• Cleo Silvers: "Children were dying from having access to lead." [12:34]
• Sid Davidoff: "The Young Lords' work got a ton of attention." [13:17]

Their efforts led to significant policy changes, including mandatory lead poisoning tests for children and increased awareness nationwide. The Young Lords also established community programs like free breakfasts for kids and medical clinics, further solidifying their role as public health crusaders.

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The Lincoln Hospital Takeover: Confronting the Healthcare Crisis

Timestamp: [17:43–33:19]

Despite their successes, the Young Lords faced ongoing challenges, particularly with Lincoln Hospital—a facility notorious for inadequate care, long wait times, and deteriorating infrastructure. Determined to rectify these systemic failures, the group orchestrated a dramatic takeover of the hospital on July 14, 1970.

Notable Quotes:

• Cleo Silvers: "We have 360,000 people in the South Bronx and Lincoln Hospital cannot service those people." [23:37]
• Sid Davidoff: "This group were there to make a difference, and I respected that." [32:34]

The takeover involved around 100 members who took control of the hospital's administrative offices, replacing signage with "Welcome to the People's Hospital." Negotiations with city officials led to immediate improvements, such as the introduction of a new administration and plans for a new hospital. Within weeks, the city began land clearance for a replacement facility, marking a significant victory for the Young Lords.

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Internal Struggles and the Decline of the Movement

Timestamp: [33:19–38:40]

Despite their accomplishments, internal tensions and external pressures began to erode the Young Lords' cohesion. The highly publicized attempt to take over the Puerto Rican Day Parade in 1971 ended in conflict with the police, leading to arrests and a loss of community support.

Notable Quotes:

• Cleo Silvers: "The people did not demand that they stop beating us." [35:53]
• Mickey Melendez: "This is huge, you know, this is big." [36:21]

The backlash from these actions highlighted fissures within the movement and the community's waning support. As the Young Lords refocused on their original goal of Puerto Rican independence, their community-driven initiatives dwindled, culminating in the group's dissolution by the mid-1970s, just as a new Lincoln Hospital was set to open.

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Legacy: Enduring Impact on Public Health and Activism

Timestamp: [38:40-End]

Although the Young Lords disbanded, their legacy endures. Their advocacy for lead poisoning tests prompted nationwide policy changes, and their efforts to highlight healthcare disparities continue to inspire modern movements addressing systemic inequality.

Notable Quotes:

• Cleo Silvers: "We thought we could whip their ass and that is a wonderful thing to have that kind of courage and determination..." [37:47]
• Sid Davidoff: "In a lot of ways, the Young Lords pushed the envelope to get a new Lincoln Hospital." [33:13]

The episode concludes by acknowledging the profound influence of the Young Lords, reinforcing the notion that grassroots activism can lead to meaningful and lasting change, even against overwhelming odds.

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Conclusion: Lessons from the Young Lords' Struggle

Science Vs's episode "The Time the Protesters Won" offers an in-depth exploration of how the Young Lords navigated systemic neglect and achieved tangible improvements in their community. Through strategic activism and unwavering determination, they demonstrated the power of collective action in driving social and political reform. Their story remains a testament to the enduring struggle for equity and justice in healthcare and beyond.

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Production Credits: Produced by Wendy Zuckerman with contributions from Rose Rimler, Meryl Horn, Michelle Dang, and Lexi Krupp. Edited by Caitlin Kenney, with fact-checking by Diane Kelly. Sound design and music by Peter Leonard, Emma Munger, Bobby Lord, and Blue Dot Sessions. Archival materials sourced from the Pacifica Radio Archive and documentaries El Pueblo Selevanta and Palante Siempre Palante. Special thanks to Denise Oliver Velez, Dr. Darryl Wanza Serrano, Iris Morales, and others for their invaluable insights.

Transcript

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman, and you're listening to Science Versus from Gimlet. A question that's going around right now is how do you change things when it feels like the deck is stacked? So today on the show, it's David versus Goliath. And I just want to get straight into it. It's a Tuesday, July 14, 1970. The sun is coming up over New York City, and word is out that a militant group has taken over a hospital.

[Sid Davidoff]

This is not a candy store that took over. It took over a hospital. We didn't know how bad it was.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

This is Sid Davidoff. He worked for the mayor's office at the time.

[Sid Davidoff]

They're still putting their reports together. It's very sketchy. A bunch of people taking over a floor. They claim to have hostages, and they have a list of demands and they want to talk to somebody.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Sid is the guy that the mayor's office would call in to deal with crises across the city. He'd negotiated with gangs in Manhattan, coordinated responses to race riots in Brooklyn. And so when he heard that some radicals were taking over a hospital, Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, he rushed over. Police were already there surrounding the place, and it was chaos.

[Sid Davidoff]

Ambulances are pulling up. People are sick, People are dying. Maybe I got 50 cops ready to come in and do what have to be done. Who knows what's gonna happen?

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Inside are the radicals, about 100 women and men. Some are in fatigues, big army boots, and everyone is wearing purple berets.

[Sid Davidoff]

They're standing by the door. They're being very militant. You know, they're using their force, their anger. We had to get them out of the hospital.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

So who were these people in their purple berets and why were they trying to take over a hospital? Well, they were the Young Lords, and we're about to hear their story. It's a fight to save thousands of lives. A fight that is still at the forefront of American politics today.

[Sid Davidoff]

The Young Lords party began an occupation.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Of part of the Lincoln hospital complex.

[Sid Davidoff]

That building was condemned 25 years ago. The Young Lords opened up. Pandora's box is what they did.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

You're not going to get anything from this country.

[Mickey Melendez]

You're not going to change.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

By praying lovings and all other kinds.

[Sid Davidoff]

Of beings, you're going to get it through armed struggle. It's the only way.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

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[Sid Davidoff]

We can't call this housing, we just call them dumps.

[Cleo Silvers]

Roaches live with you.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

They don't pay no rent, but you do. Your children eat lead, poison paint. Mickey Melendez grew up here. To him, the roaches and crappy houses, they were just part of everyday normal life. But when he got into college, he started looking at it differently. Mickey and some new friends were reading all about inequality and socialism.

[Mickey Melendez]

We were so excited and we had been reading all this stuff about revolution and we were going to bring the revolution to our community. You know, it wasn't a light going off. It was like hundreds of lights going off at the same time.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

They also started sharing books about the history of Puerto Rico. They realized that it was basically a colony under the US government. And they read about independence protests on the island and people getting killed.

[Mickey Melendez]

We were, you know, we were angry. We were very angry and wanted to figure out how to fight back.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

So they formed a group and started going around the neighborhood talking to people about getting Puerto Rican independence.

[Mickey Melendez]

So in our little broken ass Spanish, we would just like, you know, talk to try to talk to people. And these guys were playing dominoes and they were almost like, you know, what are these young people bothering us for?

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Even though Mickey and his mates were well intentioned, they were college kids talking about the system and politics to real grownups. Nice try.

[Mickey Melendez]

You know, we got frustrated and said, okay, well, what are your issues? What do you want to Talk about, you know, they kind of just blew us away by just saying, why don't you turn around and look behind you? You know, there's garbage there.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

The men said, okay, you want to help out? Go pick up the trash. Mickey looked around, trash was everywhere.

[Mickey Melendez]

A disgusting sight. I can't. I can't even imagine it. I mean, I close my eyes and I look at, you know, liquid brown liquid coming down the side of the sidew, stuff that had been laying there, decomposing for five days on 90 degree heat. And it was. I mean, dead rats, you know, there were dead rats in the community and the stench stayed in your nose. And it was really that bad.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

The trash was so bad because New York City was actually in the middle of a literal garbage crisis. Garbage trucks weren't picking up trash across the city and it was piling up, but it was particularly bad in poor neighbourhoods like El Barrio. So these college kids decided to do what the old men wanted.

[Mickey Melendez]

Okay, so we put the revolution aside, we put socialism aside and we start cleaning up the garbage.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Had you ever cleaned anything before in your life?

[Mickey Melendez]

Probably my nails. My nails. Maybe not anything like that. No, absolutely not.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

They started sweeping the streets, cleaning it themselves. But then Mickey said something really cool happened.

[Mickey Melendez]

People started to come out with their own brooms. You know, these little old ladies with their little buns in their heads. We called them donas. So the donas would come out with their bathrobes and help us, you know, clean up. They used to call us muchachitos, you know, those little kids, you know, Los ninos.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

That's what they called you?

[Mickey Melendez]

Yeah, that's what they called us. Yeah, right, 500 years ago. And so it was that kind of connection, you know, it became. It was the beginning of a love affair between the organization and the community.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Mickey and his friends kept cleaning the streets for a few Sundays in a row, but the sanitation trucks still didn't come. The neatly placed trash just sat there until the rats ripped it open and the trash littered the streets again. Soon McGee and his mates were fed.

[Mickey Melendez]

Up and we were so angry, really pissed off, said, okay, they're not picking up the garbage. They denied us. This Sunday afternoon, we decided to take a more militant action.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

One Sunday in August, they took the trash they had collected and instead of leaving it on the sidewalk waiting for sanitation to collect it, they dumped the trash bags in the middle of the street, all across Third Avenue, which is a large street in New York City. And then they didn't stop there. People in the neighborhood joined in and Started throwing mattresses, abandoned cars, rusted fridges, all on the street until the entire intersection was filled. Traffic couldn't go through. To top it all off, someone doused this trash in lighter fluid. And one by one, the Young Lords threw matches onto the pile. What did that feel like to throw the match?

[Mickey Melendez]

That felt great. That felt like we were doing this for our community.

[Cleo Silvers]

In the middle of the street, not only did they burn the garbage, but they burned a pile mountain of garbage in the middle of the street. It was amazing.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Cleo Silvers lived nearby and she remembers seeing this burning heap.

[Cleo Silvers]

I'm like, oh God, this is their kids. I call them kids. Them young kids is crazy. They nuts. What did they do?

[Wendy Zuckerman]

You remember what the scene was like?

[Cleo Silvers]

Like when people in the community, yeah, they was happy, people was sharing and stuff. It was good, yeah. Oh, and old men, they were like, yeah. These young people, they got it going on for weeks.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

These kids would put the trash in the middle of the street and burn it. And it totally worked. A New York Times article wrote, quote, the mayor's office got the message and a 24 hour pickup of garbage was begun. For a while, El barrio was cleaner than anyone remembered. Here's Cleo again.

[Cleo Silvers]

Garbage people started coming more frequently to pick up the garbage because they know them crazy ass kids might burn up some more garbage in the street if you don't.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

This protest became known as the Garbage Offensive, a play on the name the Tet Offensive, which were a series of surprise attacks by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. And the group behind the offensive were now infamous in New York City. And they were calling themselves the Young Lords, a name they got from a Puerto Rican gang in Chicago who wore purple berets. That was a nod to the Black Panthers who wore black berets. And it was purple because in west side Story, you know that dodgy musical with the Puerto Rican gang called the Sharks? Well, the Sharks wore purple. Seriously. As word spread of what the Young Lords had done, hundreds of kids, even some people who weren't Puerto Rican, would join them. They were ready to take on whatever the Young Lords asked of them. And eventually Cleo Silvers joined too.

[Cleo Silvers]

Now let's go out next. What's next? What do we need to do next?

[Mickey Melendez]

The only problem was we really had no idea. We didn't know what the next step was because it was evolving, you know, so it wasn't like we had a plan.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

The group had seized on something that people really cared about, the trash, and now they had to figure out how to keep it going. It didn't take long to find their next cause. They read in the paper that a two year old kid from the neighbourhood had almost died from lead poisoning. And so they had a new target. Lead paint. Lead paint had been banned for almost a decade in New York, but layers of it still coated some apartments in the neighborhood. Here's Cleo.

[Cleo Silvers]

They've been painted over and over and over again. The lead paint was so thick, I mean it was really, really thick in these apartments. So chips would be falling everywhere. Chips, Lead based paint would be everywhere.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

And lead paint tastes sweet. So kids would eat the flecks of paint. At the time, doctors knew that this was harmful. Lead poisoning can wreak havoc across the entire body, especially in children. It affects their gut hormones and nervous system. It can cause seizures, permanent brain damage and even death. Cleo worked in a hospital at the time and saw what was going on.

[Cleo Silvers]

Children were dying from having access to lead.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Do you remember a child that so many kids.

[Cleo Silvers]

Oh my goodness, a child. There's so many children. And that it was an epidemic.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

But lots of parents in the neighborhood didn't know how dangerous this paint was. The Young Lords wanted to change that. So they started going door to door talking to families about lead poisoning and testing kids.

[Sid Davidoff]

We began by asking some medical students to help us out.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Here's young Lord Felipe Luciano talking to a local radio station. From the time hospitals, we began an.

[Cleo Silvers]

Intensive block by block campaign and we.

[Sid Davidoff]

Found out very interesting things.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

30%, 30% of those children had lead poisoning. The Young Lord's work got a ton of attention. A headline from the Village Voice proclaimed, lead poisoning tests the Young Lords do the city's work. And pretty quickly the Young Lords plan to fight for the independence of Puerto Rico. They took a backseat to the health of their neighbours. Yeah, the Lords had become unexpected public health crusaders. I asked Cleo about this. Why would a group like the Young Lords whose number one goal was independence for Puerto Rico, why was healthcare so important to you?

[Cleo Silvers]

Because people from Puerto Rico was here dying. To be very honest, people were dying. You can't have life if you don't have access to quality healthcare. These people are people we know and love. And so people you know and love having access to quality health care is like that's just basic.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

In a newspaper they ran at the time, one young lord wrote, quote, bullets and bombs aren't the only ways to kill people. Bad hospitals kill our people. Rotten, forgotten buildings kill our people. Garbage and disease kill our people. And so the Lords took a page from the Black Panthers. They started a breakfast program for young kids, opened up a free medical clinic, and people in the community loved them. The kids from the breakfast program even put on a play about the young lords and their fight.

[Cleo Silvers]

Our people are poor and you know, damn real nobody wants to be poor. This play is going to show the people start to take community controlled and liberated back.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

But city officials and police, they weren't as bigger fans. The young lords got into fights with the police during their protests. But the community came to their defence. And with the community on side, the lords got bolder and bolder. So meet their tuberculosis offensive. The city was running this TB testing program and they had these trucks with portable X ray machines inside to help diagnose people with tuberculosis. Now, even though there were particularly high rates of TB in el barrio, the truck was barely around. And so the young lords thought, wouldn't.

[Cleo Silvers]

It be cool if we got that truck? If we got that truck, we could test a whole lot of people.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

The lords asked the city to use the truck in their neighbourhood, but officials flat out refused. And so they took matters into their own hands.

[Cleo Silvers]

Let's get it. That's it. That's the way it goes in the young lord. Let's go get it.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Young lords decided to steal the city's truck. So in broad daylight one June afternoon, Mickey and two other young lords put on lab coats, grabbed some nunchucks. Hey, it was the 70s. And approached the truck. They told the techs who were standing.

[Mickey Melendez]

Beside it, you know, get in the back, everything's going to be fine. Nobody's going to get hurt. We're going to take you to people that need this service.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

And what did the technicians do?

[Mickey Melendez]

Dave went into the back of the truck very quietly. I got the signal that everything was okay in the back. I started to drive off.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Mickey zoomed through the city in this massive truck. Meanwhile, other lords had told sick people in the neighbourhood to meet them at a particular spot so they could get tested. About 50 people were there waiting. A young lord had also called the press in advance. And so just as Mickey arrived, the.

[Mickey Melendez]

Newspapers were there, the cameras were there, the line was there, and the technicians came out and started to X ray people.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

But the police were there waiting too.

[Mickey Melendez]

And they had helicopters, there were police cars. But because the media was there, the police just walked away from this one.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Wow. And so right in front of the cops, the technicians tested people, and the young lords put a flag of Puerto Rico on the X ray truck. No one got arrested. And not only were the young Lords not in jail within a few days. Get this. The Department of Health said that the truck was now going to be parked in el barrio and opened for extended hours. The department even paid to have technicians staff the truck for the extra hours, win after win after win. But the young lords weren't done yet. Their biggest fight was still to come.

[Cleo Silvers]

You know, like we were like a flea going up against an elephant. But we're gonna bite this elephant on its toe until. Until it just flips over and that's it. We could whip this mother ass.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Coming up after the break, the elephant fights back. This episode is brought to you by Ford. I'm here with our editor and electric vehicle owner, Blythe. Yes, I'm recording inside my Ford F150 Lightning truck to chat about the Ford Power Promise. What's that? It is Ford's commitment to getting electric vehicle drivers started with confidence. When you buy or lease one of their electric vehicles, you get a complimentary home charger and standard installation. Wow, that's pretty impressive. Which models are included? The Ford Mustang Mach E, F150 Lightning and E transit cargo van. You can visit FordPowerpromise.com to learn more. Must purchase or lease a new Ford F150 Lightning Mustang Mach E or E Transit cargo van vehicle from a participating ford dealer between October 1, 2024 and January 2, 2025 to be eligible to receive a one complimentary Ford charge Station Pro. Ford Charger model may vary based on availability with complementary home installation or B2000 bonus cash. No trade in required offer. Not available to fleet or commercial customers. Complementary home installation must be performed through qmerit Electrification LLC at a residential location with a dedicated electrical meter. Restrictions may apply based on structural and electrical limitations. Installation must be completed by June 30, 2025 for all offers. Must take retail delivery from an authorized Ford dealer's stock by January 2, 2025. See your Ford dealer for details and terms. So what's it like to buy your first cryptocurrency on Kraken? Well, let's say I'm at a food truck I've never tried before. Am I going to go all in on the loaded taco? No, sir. I'm keeping it simple. Starting small. That's trading on Kraken. Pick from over 190 assets and start with the 10 bucks in your pocket. Easy. Go to Kraken.com and see what crypto can be. Not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. Cryptocurrency services are provided to U.S. and U.S. territory customers by Payward Interactive Inc. PWI DBA Kraken View PWI's [e-mail] legal disclosures what do Mattel, Banana Republic, Butcherbox and Glossier all have in common? They power their businesses with Shopify. Shopify is the most innovative and scaled commerce platform on the planet that also happens to have the best converting checkout on the planet. And that's no industry secret. That's Shopify. Learn [e-mail] Enterprise Stop. Stop Stop. Had enough? Kick out Mucus and quiet the cough with Mucinex 12 hour DM for long lasting cough and chest congestion relief buy Mucinex 12 hour DM at your local retailer. Uses Directed welcome back. We've met the Young Lords, a ragtag group of kids who came together to fight for Puerto Rican independence and ended up fighting for the health of their community. As the Young Lords became more and more frustrated with the crappy conditions in their neighbourhood, they zoomed in on one big target.

[Cleo Silvers]

It was the butcher shop. It was known as the Butcher Shop. It was not and people were not kidding. You would go in there and you would hope that you came out of there with your life.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Cleo Silvers is talking about the place she worked, Lincoln Hospital, and it was truly awful. There were days when the water pressure in the hospital was so low that doctors couldn't wash their hands properly. Cleo told me there were rats and roaches running across bloodstained floors.

[Cleo Silvers]

Not only that, all of the equipment was old fashioned. The building was falling down.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

What was the wait time at the hospital?

[Cleo Silvers]

The wait time was between 10 and 72 hours.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

You could be waiting three days?

[Cleo Silvers]

That's correct. You could be waiting three days to be seen in the emergency room. Now you have to remember that that was the only healthcare facility in that neighborhood.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

The place had a reputation. Dr. Louis Frad was the chief of pediatrics at another New York City hospital and he was interviewed around this time about the problems at Lincoln. He described it like this.

[Sid Davidoff]

The problems are gigantic and what the city and what everybody puts in is minimal.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

If you take a situation like lead poisoning.

[Mickey Melendez]

We have seen children get lead poisoning.

[Sid Davidoff]

While hospitalized at Lincoln Hospital.

[Mickey Melendez]

Now this is disgraceful.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

In fact, the hospital had been condemned for years. The city was supposed to build a new hospital, but it had been delayed and delayed. The Lords felt like no new hospital was on the way and their crappy hospital wasn't getting fixed. Cleo and the Young Lords protested. That building which we send our people to. Cleo is standing outside the hospital and yelling to a crowd of about 40 people. It's a bit hard to hear, but she says that this hospital is supposed to serve 360,000 people.

[Cleo Silvers]

We have 360,000 people in the South Bronx and Lincoln Hospital cannot service those people.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

And Cleo didn't just yell outside the hospital. Inside, she was pushing for change, too. She and the Lords organised a group of doctors and healthcare workers who agreed with them. They wrote letters, tried to get meetings with administrators, but nothing changed. Here's Cleo.

[Cleo Silvers]

So many demonstrations, so many demands, so much hollerings, and they still didn't do it. So now's the time we're gonna take this sucker over.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

On July 14, 1970, just a month after they stole the TB truck, the young Lords would try to take over Lincoln Hospital. At the time, the Young Lords were heavily infiltrated by police. We have documents from the FBI showing that basically as soon as the Young Lords picked up their first bag of garbage, secret police were trying to get into the group. So because of this, the group's leaders had to keep the hospital plan to only a very tight circle. But they needed a lot of people to take over a hospital. So they threw a party to get around 100 young lords together in an apartment.

[Cleo Silvers]

Some of us knew that it was not a party. Some of us knew that it was going to be the takeover.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

But did you. Did you know?

[Cleo Silvers]

Yeah, I knew. Everybody's party. Party and dancing, having a good time. You know, just. And then. Brothers and sisters, turn the music off.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

One of the leaders of the Young Lords stood up and started talking.

[Cleo Silvers]

Everybody sit down. Have a seat. We're here because this is a serious business. It is now time for us to take over the hospital. So that's what we're here for.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

And did everyone cheer?

[Cleo Silvers]

What was.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Do you remember?

[Cleo Silvers]

It was cheering. I was cheering.

[Sid Davidoff]

Yay.

[Cleo Silvers]

We're ready to go. When are we leaving? Not now. This. It was electric when people found out what we were there for.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Everyone was assigned a buddy to keep an eye on them for the night to make absolutely sure that no one ratted them out.

[Cleo Silvers]

I mean, you don't know who's who and somebody might tell, so you're not. Once you're in, you can't leave and you can't. There's no phone calls and all that. You're. This is it.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Mickey Melendez was in charge of security.

[Cleo Silvers]

Mickey's on security. Don't worry, we got it.

[Mickey Melendez]

I mean, there was a tremendous amount of adrenaline. It was exciting. It's like you know, we're going to do this.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

The plan was for Mickey and a few others to sneak in first, barricade some doors and unlock others. The rest of the Lords would pile into a large truck, drive up to the open doors and stream in. Mickey told me that getting through security, it wasn't a problem.

[Mickey Melendez]

There were actually two guards that knew us and one of them had grown up with us and was very supportive of us. So to him, it didn't matter.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Back at the party, it's still dark outside. The truck arrived to take everyone to the hospital. It was go time.

[Cleo Silvers]

Once we get in the truck, you gotta have complete silence. Shh, be quiet. Because now it's getting serious and the closer you get to the hospital, the more serious things get.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

They got to the hospital and 100 or so lords crept in.

[Cleo Silvers]

It was. Daylight was coming up, just about to come up, and so it was still a little bit dark outside. And here we go. As we were going in, everybody's crouching very quietly, tipping to your spot where you were assigned. Everyone had an assignment of where they needed to be. I was responsible for going to the administrative offices and kicking out the administrators.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Cleo remembers seeing a few of them at their big wooden desks.

[Cleo Silvers]

And then I just walked in. Well, we've taken over the hospital. You are out. You're a bad administrator. You have to go. Get up and get out of here.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

What do you remember their reaction?

[Cleo Silvers]

Can we discuss. No, we cannot discuss this. Too late.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

The young lords wanted to kick out the hospital bosses so that they could run the hospital themselves. Some administrators refused to leave, and so the young lords told them to stay in their office. Meanwhile, other lords were tasked with stringing up a huge sign across the two towers in the hospital.

[Cleo Silvers]

It said, welcome to the People's Hospital. It was amazing. Welcome to the People's Hospital.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Within the hour, the police knew what was going on and had already started lining up outside the hospital, ready to barge in. And this takes us to the moment we heard at the beginning of the show. It's 7:30am and Sid Davidoff, the crisis guy from the mayor's office, he steps through the lines of armed police.

[Sid Davidoff]

I walked in, I said, look, there's a bunch of guys out there with guns who want to come in here. You cannot disturb a hospital because if I don't take you out of this, they're going to take you out of this. And that's not something you want.

[Cleo Silvers]

Until they were like, okay, you guys got to get out now. Get out. And we were like, we're not leaving. We're administering the hospital. We're not leaving.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Sid and the young lord started negotiating. They told him they wanted a new hospital. Lincoln was bad and they deserved better. His Sid, the thing is, you don't.

[Sid Davidoff]

Change a hospital overnight. You don't rebuild a new hospital. The young wards were impatient. They want it done quicker.

[Cleo Silvers]

And I'm thinking, how could you dare stand here and tell us that we can't get a new hospital right now? That's what I want to see. I want to see a new hospital. I want to see this one cleaned up. I want to see doctors treating patients with dignity and respect. I want this right now.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

They reached a standoff. The young lords weren't backing down and Sid wasn't going anywhere either. There were hundreds of patients in the hospital that day. And while the young lords were mainly gathered in an administrative floor of the hospital, Sid was worried that this would start affecting patient care. The clock kept ticking. 12 hours went by and the young lords got the sense that the police outside were ready to come in. In past scuffles, the police had beaten up the lords badly.

[Cleo Silvers]

And then we kind of got the feeling these people are getting ready to come in here and kill us. That was scary. When you're demonstrating and you know that it is possible that you can get beat up real bad, that's scary.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Cleo said there were some young teenagers in the crew. They wanted to protect them. So the young lords agreed to leave with the condition that Sid would meet with them later.

[Sid Davidoff]

I'm the guy representing the mayor and I'm not a low level guy. I'm not a clerk. I'm not coming in and say I have to talk to somebody who's going to talk to somebody. I'm talking to the mayor. They understood it, so we got them out of there.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

No one was beaten up or arrested at the scene. The young lords were on their way to getting what they wanted. They'd secured private meetings with the mayor's office, got a ton of press, which they thought would pressure the government to do something. But a few days after the takeover, a Puerto Rican woman died from complications in the obstetrics unit. A doctor was inexperienced and not supervised properly, and the young lords were furious. They barged into hospital meetings demanding to speak with administrators. They threatened the chief of obstetrics and forced him to leave. And some other doctors from his department walked out of the hospital because they said it wasn't safe to go to work. Because of this, some patients were discharged without warning or Transferred elsewhere. Here's the chief of paediatrics of Lincoln Hospital at the time, Dr. Arnold Einhorn. He was interviewed soon after this.

[Mickey Melendez]

Their methods. Their methods are terribly objectionable.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

They threaten. They threaten body harm. And the fact is that they have.

[Mickey Melendez]

Absolutely no expertise to judge what is needed. They would like to direct priorities and.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

And they haven't got the slightest idea. Cleo had a different version of events. Was there ever any violence towards any of the doctors?

[Cleo Silvers]

Never. Never any violence. That's the one thing that we did not do. And one of the things that we would tell all of our cadre never to do is never inside of the hospital to engage in any violent activities. A hospital is a place of healing. This is not a place where you engage in violent activities.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Sid from the mayor's office told me that while the Young Lords did scare administrators, they never brought in weapons to the hospital. And even though he was on the other side of the negotiation table, he says he had a lot of respect for what the Young Lords were doing.

[Sid Davidoff]

This group were there to make a difference, and I respected that. This was a situation where the real concerns were healthcare. All right, you know, they're right. I mean, we all knew that Lincoln Hospital was not a particularly great hospital if it stayed.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

And after the takeover, changes did happen. Sid told me that they brought in new administration to run the hospital and made some short term fixes to the water supply so that there was enough pressure that doctors could wash their hands properly. And the big thing. Within weeks of the takeover, the city started clearing land where a new Lincoln Hospital would be built.

[Sid Davidoff]

In a lot of ways, the Young Lords pushed the envelope to get a new Lincoln Hospital.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

You know, they claim that part of the reason that they weren't getting attention was because they were poor and it was a new immigrant community. Is that true?

[Sid Davidoff]

I think in part, yes. I think it's a, you know, we say the voice of the voiceless. We're in a political world, right? Sometimes you need to be more vocal. They were vocal to a community that wasn't very vocal.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

To us, the fight for Lincoln Hospital felt like a huge win for the Young Lords. They had the respect of people in high places. And from the outside, it looked like they were unstoppable. Their numbers were growing. But from the inside, cracks were starting to form. It was getting tiring. The fights with the police, the constant surveillance. Things were starting to break down and infighting began. And just as they were reaching the high point of their impact, it all came crashing down. About a year after The Lincoln takeover. Something happened that, for Mickey and Cleo, would signal the beginning of the end. For the Young Lords, it happened with a parade. For the Puerto Rican community in New York, the Puerto Rican Day parade is a big deal, a source of pride. And in 1971, the young lords found out that some cops were going to lead the parade. And they were like, nuh, here's Mickey.

[Mickey Melendez]

All right, so we're going to take over the parade. We're going to take over the front of the parade because we protect and serve our people, not the police. Not the police.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

They'd walk out in front of the parade, cutting off the police, and they would come prepared with mace and wooden sticks strapped to their forearm to ward off police batons.

[Mickey Melendez]

We were ready to just fight it.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Out with the cops, but the police knew they were coming. We found a handwritten note from a police infiltrator who knew about the whole plan, the mace, the sticks, everything. And so the cops came ready. Mickey had injured his shoulder, so he couldn't be involved in the takeover. He stood back and watched what was happening.

[Mickey Melendez]

The parade starts. The New York City Police Department Hispanic association starts marching from a side. Young Lords start coming out to take over the front of the parade. And the cops then move in and start beating the Young Lords.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Young Lords were arrested. Some had to be taken to hospital. And this sort of thing had happened before. But the community supported the Young Lords. This fight, though, it didn't feel like it was for the community. And so Cleo said the people didn't have their back.

[Cleo Silvers]

The people did not demand that they stop beating us. They didn't come out. They kind of just let us get our asses beat. And I think that they thought we had gone too far. The people in the community thought that the Young Lords had gone too far.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Mickey saw regular folks getting pulled in the scuffle between police and the group. And he knew things would never be the same.

[Mickey Melendez]

This is huge, you know, this is big.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

And it wasn't for anything. Like, it wasn't for health care taking.

[Mickey Melendez]

Over the front of the parade. And then what? We ended the love affair with our community. The community didn't end it with us.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

After the parade, the Donyas in the neighborhood, they stopped coming around. Mickey and Cleo both told me that this parade was the first of many missteps. Over the next few years, the Young Lords would step away from healthcare and go back to their original goal of bringing independence to Puerto Rico. Soon there was no more TB testing, no more breakfast programs. And by the mid-1970s, just as the new Lincoln Hospital was opening, the young lords had basically disbanded. They were over. But even though they didn't last long, the ripples of their work can still be felt today. Their lead offensive helped to get New York City to introduce mandatory lead poisoning tests for kids. And soon after, the CDC pushed states around the country to do this too. These programs are still going on today. Their TB testing and protests at Lincoln brought attention to how unequal healthcare was across the city. And it's a conversation that's still playing out across America today.

[Cleo Silvers]

We're demanding free, quality health care for all, or whatever it is, whatever that call is. We've been saying this since 1960 and it's just now getting to be a political issue. But we were naive and I have to admit there was a level of naivete that is still shocking to me as I am now a grown up person. We thought we could whip their ass and that is a wonderful thing to have that kind of courage and determination that yes, we're going to make this thing change. It is so naive.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

That's science verses. This episode was produced by me, Wendy Zuckerman, with help from Rose Rimler, Meryl Horn, Michelle Dang and Lexi Krupp. We're edited by Caitlin Kenney with help from Jorge Just Fact Checking by Diane Kelly. Mix and sound design by Peter Leonard. Music written by Peter Leonard, Emma Munger, Bobby Lord and Blue Dot Sessions. The archive for this story came from Pacifica Radio Archive and the documentaries El Pueblo Selevanta and Palante Siempre Palante. A big thanks to Denise Oliver Velez, Dr. Darryl Wanza Serrano, Iris Morales, Walter Bosco de Rio, Professor Jose Sanchez, Pedro J. Hernandez, Professor Lloyd Novick and others. And extra thanks to Blythe Terrell, Amanda Arozniak, the Zuckerman family and Joseph Lavelle Wilson. I'm Wendy Zuckerman. Back to you next time.