Iris Morales facts for kids
Iris Morales (born 1948) is an American activist, filmmaker, author, and lawyer from New York. She is famous for her work with the Young Lords, a Puerto Rican community action group. She also led movements to make sure women were treated as equals within the group.
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Early Life and School
Iris Morales was born in New York City in 1948. Her parents had moved there from Puerto Rico. Her father was a hotel elevator operator, and her mother worked with sewing machines. She attended Julia Richman High School. There, she went to meetings for groups fighting for civil rights, like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the NAACP.
In high school, Iris was inspired by leaders like Malcolm X and Don Pedro Albizu Campos. She felt that not enough was taught about Puerto Rican history. Big social movements, like the Black Panther Party, also motivated her to become an activist. As a teenager, she helped organize people in her East Harlem neighborhood to fight for better housing. She also protested the Vietnam War.
She went to City College to study political science. At college, she joined a Black student group and helped start Puerto Ricans Involved in Student Action (PRISA). This was the first Puerto Rican student group at the school.
The Young Lords
The Young Lords started in Chicago as a group of young Puerto Rican activists. They were inspired by the Black Panthers. In 1969, a new branch of the Young Lords opened in New York, and Iris Morales joined.
She became a leader in the Young Lords for five years. She was the deputy minister of education and helped start the group's Women's Caucus. For a time, she was also the minister of information. In 1975, Morales left the Young Lords. The group was dealing with internal disagreements and was being watched by the FBI's COINTELPRO program. The group broke up a year later.
Fighting for Women's Rights
Inside the Young Lords, Morales fought for women to be treated with respect and equality. At the time, some of the men in the group held machista views, which is the belief that men are more important than women.
Morales and other women in the group challenged these unfair ideas. They pointed out that the group's official 13-point program did not always support women. She worked to educate members and change the culture of the group. She pushed for women to have leadership roles. Her work helped create the Women's Union and its newspaper, La Luchadora. This effort also helped the group later create a caucus for its gay and lesbian members.
On November 11, 1970, The New York Times wrote an article about Iris Morales and other women in the group. It was the first time a major newspaper recognized the important role women played in the Young Lords.
The women's group also fought for better healthcare for women in their communities. They wanted women to have access to safe medical care and more control over their health choices. The Young Lords also started many community programs. They created a free breakfast program for kids, a program to prevent lead poisoning, and a daycare center so that mothers could work. They also fought for Puerto Rico's independence.
La Luchadora
La Luchadora was a newspaper co-founded by Iris Morales. The name means "The Woman Fighter" in Spanish. The paper was created to share the history of women and promote their rights within the Young Lords.
La Luchadora also spoke out against the mistreatment of women. The women in the group used the paper to show they could be leaders and activists, not just work in traditional roles. The Young Lords' leadership stopped the paper's publication in May 1971, not long after it started.
Later Education and Career
After the Young Lords ended, Morales continued to be an activist. She decided to become a lawyer and earned a law degree from New York University School of Law. At NYU, she was the first Puerto Rican to win the Root-Tilden-Kern Scholarship, a special scholarship for students dedicated to public service.
As a lawyer, she worked for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. She also co-founded and directed a media non-profit for young people of color. Later, she worked with the Manhattan Neighborhood Network's community media center in Spanish Harlem.
Morales later went back to school and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from Hunter College.
Writing Books
Morales continued her activism through writing. She started her own publishing company, Red Sugarcane Press, to publish books about the Latinx community.
In 2016, she wrote Through The Eyes Of Rebel Women, The Young Lords: 1969-1976. The book is about her experiences fighting for women's rights within the Young Lords. Morales hopes the book teaches people about the women of the Young Lords and provides lessons for today's activists.
She has also worked on other books, including Latinas: Struggles & Protests in 21st Century and Voices From Puerto Rico. She co-wrote a children's book called Vicki and A Summer of Change! ¡Vicki y un verano de cambio!. It tells the story of a young girl who joins the Young Lords to help her community.
Making Films
In 1996, Morales directed a documentary called Palante Siempre Palante. The film teaches new audiences about the Young Lords Party.
In 2021, she appeared in a New York Times documentary called Takeover: How We Occupied a Hospital and Changed Public Health Care. The film is about how the Young Lords took over Lincoln Hospital in 1970. They did this to demand better funding and services to fight health problems in their community.
Recognition
In 2019, Iris Morales was named one of North Star Fund's 40 for 40, an award for New York City activists.
In 2020, she was honored as a Latina Trailblazer by the organization LatinoJustice PRLDEF.
