Puerto Rican Nationalist

On November 1, 1950, Puerto Rican nationalists, Gricel and Torres Solá and Oscar Collazo, shot the Bleacher house—the residence of President Truman in Washington. This attack was part of the revolution that the independence movement was developing on the island. On March 1, 1954, four Puerto Rican nationalists shot at the United States Congress to bring the fight for the liberation of the Puerto Rican people to an international level. The United States media reported the incidents as acts of fanatics or criminals. These two armed attacks constituted a nationalist’s actions of courage and supreme sacrifice by patriots.

The Nationalist Party was organized as a detachment from the Union of the Puerto Rico party when this party eliminated the independence of Puerto Rico from its political platform. Don Pedro Albizu Campos joined the Nationalist Party in 1924. In 1925 he was elected vice president, and on May 11, 1930, was elevated to the party’s presidency. The Nationalist Party drafted a Constitution for the Republic of Puerto Rico in 1932. In the years 1933 and 1934, Don Pedro Albizu Campos led the cane workers’ strike, obtaining a victory for the country’s working-class. Don Pedro Albizu Campos was arrested and charged with conspiring to overthrow the United States government in Puerto Rico by force. Don Pedro’s imprisonment contributed to the increase in nationalist sentiment on the island. On March 21, 1937, the nationalists intended to carry out a peaceful march but were confronted by police who began shooting everyone present. Twenty-one people were killed, and more than 150 were injured. These acts of repression became known in our history as the Ponce massacre. In 1943, Don Pedro Albizu Campos suffered a heart attack in Atlanta prison and was transferred to Columbia Hospital in New York City. On November 15, 1964, on the brink of death, Pedro Albizu Campos was pardoned by Governor Luis Muñoz Marín. He died on April 21, 1965. More than 75,000 Puerto Ricans were part of a procession that accompanied his body for burial in the Old San Juan Cemetary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Albizu_Campos