Pedro Albizu Campos

Pedro Albizu Campos in the US Army

Pedro Albizu Campos (born September 12, 1891 in Tenerife Village , Ponce , Puerto Rico , † April 21, 1965 ) was the president of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and an important representative of the independence movement. Thanks to his qualities as a speaker, he was nicknamed El Maestro (The Teacher).

Life

Early years

The son of Alejandro Albizu Campos and Juana and nephew of Danza composer Juan Morel Campos studied in 1912 with a grant from Engineering with specialization in chemistry at the University of Vermont . In 1913 he moved to Harvard University .

First World War

When the First World War broke out , he volunteered in the US infantry . He trained in the French military and served under General Frank McIntyre , who assigned him to an African-American unit, which he left as the first lieutenant . During this time he was exposed to racism , which influenced his views on the relationship between Puerto Ricans and the United States.

Political activities

In 1919 Albizu Campos returned to Harvard University and was elected President of its Cosmopolitan Club. He met with foreign students and lecturers such as Subhash Chandra Bose and the poet Rabindranath Tagore . He was interested in the causes of the Indian independence movement and helped set up several centers in Boston for the Irish independence movement . He met Eamon de Valera and was later involved as an advisor on the constitution of the Irish Free State . He graduated from Harvard with degrees in law , literature , philosophy , chemical engineering, and military science . He was fluent in English , Spanish , French , German , Portuguese , Italian , Latin and Greek . He turned down offers as the Spanish representative of the Protestant Church, as legal advisor to the US Supreme Court and as a diplomat at the US State Department in Mexico and returned to Puerto Rico.

In 1919, José Coll y Cuchí left the Union Party out of disappointment at the lack of commitment to Puerto Rico and founded the Nationalist Association of Puerto Rico in San Juan with some supporters . On September 17, 1922, the nationalists, together with the Nationalist Youth and the Independence Association, formed the new Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and elected Coll y Cuchí as its president.

In 1922 Albizu Campos married the Peruvian Dr. Laura Meneses , whom he had met at Harvard. Two years later he joined the newly formed party and became vice president. In 1927 he traveled to Santo Domingo , Haiti , Cuba , Mexico, Panama , Peru and Venezuela to gain solidarity for the Puerto Rican independence movement.

In 1930 Coll y Cuchí left the party in a dispute with Albizu Campos, whereupon some of his supporters returned to the unionists. On May 11, 1930 Albizu Campos took over the chairmanship of the nationalist party and formed the first women's committee in the municipality of Vieques .

In 1932 he published a manuscript in which Dr. Cornelius P. Rhoads confesses to killing Puerto Rican patients and injecting cancer cells into many of them for Rockefeller University as part of a medical experiment at the Presbyterian Hospital in San Juan . This letter revealed the racist vision of some Americans. Dr. Rhoades led two chemical weapons projects in the 1940s , served on the Atomic Energy Commission, and was awarded the US Legion of Merit .

The Nationalist Party did poorly in the 1932 election, but continued its campaign to unite the people of a free Puerto Rico. At the same time, US repression was met with armed resistance.

In 1934 Albizu Campos represented workers from the sugar cane industry against the monopolies of the USA as a lawyer .

Imprisonment and death

After the Rio Piedras massacre in 1935 and an assassination attempt the following year, he declared the nationalists involved to be heroes. The San Juan Court moved to arrest Albizu Campos and several other nationalists on charges of "seditious conspiracy to overthrow the US government in Puerto Rico." A jury of seven Puerto Ricans and five Americans decided not guilty with 7-5 votes. Judge Cooper then appointed a new jury of ten Americans and two Puerto Ricans and was found guilty. In 1937 a group of lawyers, including the young Gilberto Concepción de Gracia , tried unsuccessfully to defend the nationalists, but the Boston Court of Appeals for Puerto Rico upheld the verdict. Albizu Campos and his colleagues were sent to the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta , Georgia . A protest march took place in Ponce on March 21 , during which the police opened fire on the crowd. 21 unarmed participants and spectators as well as two police officers died in the so-called Ponce massacre and 200 other people were injured.

In 1947 Albizu Campos returned to Puerto Rico and began preparations for armed struggle against plans to convert Puerto Rico into a Commonwealth of the United States. As a result of the Jayuya uprising in 1950, he was arrested after a brief exchange of fire with the police and sentenced to eight years in prison in 1951. In 1953, Governor Luis Muñoz Marín pardoned him, but the following year the pardon was granted after an attack on the US House of Representatives that opened fire from four Puerto Rican nationalists from the Capitol Gallery . The attackers said they wanted to draw the world's attention to the US military occupation in Puerto Rico, and they were arrested without resistance. Albizu refused police access to his home in San Juan but was detained again in La Princesa after an exchange of fire .

His health deteriorated during his detention. In 1956 he suffered a stroke and was admitted to the Presbyterian Hospital in San Juan under police supervision. He claimed to have been used in prison for human radiation experiments. Officials called him crazy, but others cited the burns on his skin as evidence that he had been exposed to radiation. In November, Albizu Campos was pardoned again by Luis Muñoz Marín. He died a few months later.

heritage

In 1994, under the Bill Clinton administration , the US Department of Energy revealed that radiation experiments were conducted without the consent of prisoners in the 1950s through 1970s. However, it is still unclear whether Albizu Campos was affected.

Albizu Campos' legacy is the subject of sometimes passionate discussions between followers and critics. His supporters say his political and military activities sparked positive change in Puerto Rico. These include an improvement in working conditions for farmers and workers, a belated but still more accurate assessment of the colonial relationship between Puerto Rico and the US by those in charge in Washington, DC, and some social and political improvements (other politicians like Luis Muñoz Marín, however, reaped the political merits of these changes while essentially burying the Puerto Rican independence movement).

What is undisputed, however, is its importance for nationalism and national symbols at a time when they were taboo. Formal recognition of the flag of Puerto Rico as a national emblem by the Puerto Rican government can be attributed to him (although he denounced this recognition as a dilution of a sacred symbol to a colonial flag). The regained public attention of the Grito de Lares is due to his mandate as leader of the nationalist party. He was the most powerfully voiced and presentable Puerto Rican of African descent of his generation. Afro-Puerto Rican leaders of other political origins, such as Ernesto Ramos Antonini or José Celso Barbosa , only achieved such status after being subjected to considerable racist attacks. Albizu Campos was also not spared, but acted aggressively and with public denunciation.

He went to jail for his diagnosis of the colonial relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States, but modern scholars are amazed at how accurate his diagnosis is years after his death. His political philosophy is preserved to this day in quotations and verbal images.

An alternative high school in Chicago that Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos Puerto Rican High School , located in the Puerto Rican Cultural Center. There the students learn about Puerto Rican history and culture in the context of local development. The archives contain original letters, sculptures and other works of art and other material connected to Albizu Campos' life.

Five public schools and several streets in Puerto Rico are named after him. The Public School 161 in Harlem has also been named after him since 1976 .

literature

• Frauke Gewecke: Puerto Rico between the two Americas. Volume I. On politics, economy, society and culture of a nation in a territorial no man's land (1898-1998) . Vervuert, Frankfurt am Main 1998. ISBN 3-89354-102-0 , especially pp. 58-62.

Volume II. Conflicting Reality as Reflected in Puerto Rican Literature (1898–1998). An anthology in German translation Vervuert, Frankfurt am Main 1998 ISBN 3-89354-103-9

Web links

• Information on radiation experiments (English)