During the final days of his presidency, Barack Obama commuted the sentences of 64 people in prison. One of them was Oscar López Rivera. Depending on who you ask, the 74-year-old is either a freedom fighter, political prisoner, and activist or a terrorist. He was a member of Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña (FALN), a paramilitary organization that claimed responsibility for more than 120 bombings in Chicago, New York, and Washington, D.C., between 1974 and 1983, according to the Chicago Historical Society. FALN’s goal was a free and socialist Puerto Rico, and those bombings killed six people and injured many more.
“You have to imagine Division Street in the 1960s and ’70s—the recent migration of Puerto Ricans here from Lincoln Park because of gentrification and the type of racial attacks that were placed on the Puerto Rican people using different institutional barriers,” Fuentes says.
During this period Rivera helped to found La Escuelita Puertorriqueña, now known as the Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos High School, and the Juan Antonio Corretjer Puerto Rican Cultural Center, and worked with various community organizations advocating for Puerto Rican rights like El Rincon Family Services and the Spanish Coalition for Housing.
“I’m hearing he’s a freedom fighter, he’s done all these things, he’s not violent,” Connor told NPR ahead of Obama granting Rivera clemency. “But what did he do, if not be a terrorist? There’s no answer to it, because he was a terrorist.”
“It’s really a warm, welcoming celebration for him,” she says. “Many of the directors and leaders of institutions that Oscar has had influence on will be giving him thank-you speeches so he can really see what the institutions have become over the last 50 years, how much they have grown.”
Thursday, May 18, 3:30 PM. Begins at La Casita de Don Pedro, 2625 W. Division, 773-394-4935, Free.
