Lived Theologizing at the People’s Church: Latinx Religious Activism and the Young Lords

“In 1969 a group of radical [Afro]Puerto Rican/Latinx youth called the New York Young Lords occupied the First Spanish Methodist Church and renamed it “The People’s Church,” declaring that is had been liberated to fulfill the true mission of Christianity: to serve the people. ”

Team Members/Contributors

Jorge Juan Rodríguez V Union Theological Seminary Contact Me

About this dissertation fellowship

In December of 1969, after months of failed negotiation with church leadership, the New York Young Lords Organization—a radical group of [Afro]Puerto Ricans/Latinxs—occupied the First Spanish Methodist Church. Renaming it "The People's Church," for eleven-days the Lords held breakfast programs, clothing drives, political education classes, and treatment for tuberculosis and lead poisoning within the occupied East Harlem institution. Though by January 1970 the occupation ended with the arrest of over 100 Young Lords and community members, the ripple effects of this occupation continue to be felt today.

*Lived Theologizing at the People's Church* contextualizes this occupation—that became known as the First People's Church Offensive—in 1922 when the Caribbean, Spanish-speaking congregation that became the First Spanish Methodist Church formed in lower Manhattan. It follows their journey through New York City as they negotiated both the US diaspora and their white, English-dominant Methodist denomination. Such an analysis challenges extant literature that has largely read the occupation from the perspective of the Young Lords. Yet this analysis also opens space to centralize the religious dimensions of the 1969 occupation.

Using the lens of lived religion, the project argues that the First People's Church Offensive was an intra-Latinx and intra-communal struggle arbitrated through religious idiom and symbol. At stake for both the activists and the church members was how the Church should respond to the challenging realities of de-industrialized New York City. All this occurred while the Methodist denomination was restructuring and responding to bourgeoning liberation theologies, thus pressed on how to respond to this community struggle.

Fifty years later, in a world where minoritized communities continue to feel the brunt of empire, this story offers lessons for activists, ministers, and scholars seeking to respond to the pressing realities of the world today.