Pedro Albizu Campos

Pedro Albizu Campos
Pedro Albizu Campos
Born	June 29, 1893(1893-06-29) or September 12, 1891(1891-09-12) Ponce, Puerto Rico
Died	April 21, 1965 (1965-04-22) (aged 71 or 73) San Juan, Puerto Rico
Nationality	Puerto Rican
Alma mater	Harvard University
Organization	Puerto Rican Nationalist Party
Religion	Roman Catholic (after Harvard)
Spouse	Laura Meneses

Part of a series on the
Puerto Rican Nationalist Party
Flag of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party
Events and Revolts Ponce massacre Río Piedras massacre Puerto Rico's Gag Law (Ley de la Mordaza) Puerto Rican Nationalist Party Revolts of the 1950s Jayuya Uprising San Juan Nationalist revolt Utuado Uprising Truman assassination attempt U.S. Capitol shooting incident (1954)
Nationalist Leaders Pedro Albizu Campos José S. Alegría Casimiro Berenguer Blanca Canales Rafael Cancel Miranda José Coll y Cuchí Oscar Collazo Juan Antonio Corretjer Lolita Lebrón Hugo Margenat Francisco Matos Paoli Isolina Rondón Clemente Soto Vélez Griselio Torresola Antonio Vélez Alvarado Carlos Vélez Rieckehoff Olga Viscal Garriga
Notable Nationalists Margot Arce de Vázquez Julia de Burgos Nemesio Canales Carmelo Delgado Delgado Isabel Freire de Matos Isabel Rosado José Ferrer Canales René Marqués Germán Rieckehoff Helen Rodriguez-Trias Daniel Santos Vidal Santiago Díaz Teófilo Villavicencio Marxuach

Don Pedro Albizu Campos (June 29, 1893 (real date) or September 12, 1891 – April 21, 1965) was the first Puerto Rican to graduate from Harvard Law School, a Puerto Rican patriot, and the leading figure in the Puerto Rican independence movement.

Albizu Campos was the president and spokesperson of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party from 1930 until his death. He was imprisoned for many years, on multiple occasions, in both the United States and Puerto Rico, on charges that included seditious conspiracy.

He died shortly after his release from federal prison, from medical conditions created by the imprisonment itself. Because of his profound patriotism and oratorical skill, he was hailed as El Maestro (The Teacher).

Early years

Albizu Campos was born in the Tenerías sector of Barrio Machuelo Abajo in Ponce, Puerto Rico to Alejandro Albizu and Juana Campos. He was the nephew of danza composer Juan Morel Campos, and cousin of Puerto Rican educator Dr. Carlos Albizu Miranda.

Education

Albizu Campos graduated from Ponce High School. In 1912, Albizu was awarded a scholarship to study Engineering, specializing in Chemistry at the University of Vermont. In 1913 he continued his studies at Harvard University.

At the outbreak of World War I, he volunteered in the United States Infantry. Albizu was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Army Reserves and sent to the City of Ponce where he organized the town's Home Guard. He was called to serve in the regular Army and sent to Camp Las Casas for further training. Upon completing the training, he was assigned to the 375th Infantry Regiment. Puerto Ricans of African descent were assigned to the all black units such as the 375th Regiment, in accordance with U.S. military segregation policies.

Lieutenant Pedro Albizu Campos (U.S. Army)

Albizu was honorably discharged from the Army in 1919, with the rank of First Lieutenant. During his military service he was exposed to the racism of the day. This deepened his perspective on U.S.- Puerto Rican relations, and led him toward becoming the leading advocate for Puerto Rican independence.

In 1919, Albizu returned to Harvard University and was elected president of the Harvard Cosmopolitan Club. He met with foreign students and world leaders, such as Subhas Chandra Bose (Indian Nationalist leader with Mahatma Gandhi) and the Hindu poet Rabindranath Tagore. He became interested in the cause of Indian independence, and also helped to establish several centers in Boston for Irish independence. Through this work, Albizu met Éamon de Valera and later became a consultant in the drafting of the constitution of the Irish Free State.

Albizu Campos graduated from Harvard Law School while simultaneously studying Literature, Philosophy, Chemical Engineering and Military Science at Harvard College. He was fluent in six modern and two classical languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Latin and Greek.

Upon graduation from law school, Albizu was heavily recruited - with a law clerkship to the U.S. Supreme Court, a diplomatic post with the U.S. State Department, the regional vice-presidency (Caribbean region) of a U.S. agricultural syndicate, and a tenured faculty appointment to the University of Puerto Rico. He rejected all these offers and returned to his hometown of Ponce, where he opened a one-man law office. It was located in a particularly underprivileged neighborhood called La Cantera, and he accepted payment in-kind (food, water, clothing) if the client did not have any money.

Harvard valedictorian

On June 23, 1921, after graduating from Harvard Law School, Albizu returned to Puerto Rico - but without his law diploma. He had been the victim of racial discrimination by one of his professors, who delayed his third-year final exams for courses in Evidence and Corporations. The reason for this "delay" was openly racist. Albizu was about to graduate with the highest grade-point average in his entire law school class. As such, he was scheduled to give the Valedictory speech during the graduation ceremonies. This was deemed to be an "embarrassment," and so his exams were delayed.

Albizu left the U.S., took and passed the two exams in Puerto Rico, and in June 1922, his law degree was mailed to him. 'Meanwhile, also in 1922, Albizu married Dr. Laura Meneses, a Peruvian whom he had met at Harvard University. Albizu presented his credentials before the U.S. Federal Court in Puerto Rico for admission to the bar, and was approved to practice law in Puerto Rico on February 11, 1924.

Puerto Rican Nationalist Party leadership

Don Pedro Albizu Campos, 1936

In 1924, Albizu Campos joined the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and was elected vice president. In 1927, Albizu traveled to Santo Domingo, Haiti, Cuba, Mexico, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela, seeking solidarity for the Puerto Rican Independence movement.

In 1930, there were some disagreements between Albizu and José Coll y Cuchí, president of the Party, as to how it should be run. As a result Coll y Cuchí abandoned the party and some of his followers returned to the Union Party. On May 11, 1930, Albizu Campos was elected president of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and formed the first Women's Nationalist Committee, in the island municipality of Vieques, Puerto Rico.

The election of Pedro Albizu Campos as president of the Nationalist Party radically changed the organization and tactics of the party. After being elected party president he declared: "I never believed in numbers. Independence will instead be achieved by the intensity of those that devote themselves totally to the Nationalist ideal." Under the slogan "la patria es valor y sacrificio" (the motherland is valor and sacrifice) a new campaign of national affirmation was carried out. This idea of self-sacrifice co-existed with Albizu's Catholic faith.

Cancer research manuscript

In 1932, Albizu published a manuscript accusing Dr. Cornelius P. Rhoads of killing Puerto Rican patients in San Juan's Presbyterian Hospital, as part of his medical experiments for the Rockefeller Institute. Albizu quoted as his source a letter, received from a third party, in which Dr. Rhoads admitted to injecting Puerto Rican patients with live cancer cells:

"The Porto Ricans (sic) are the dirtiest, laziest, most degenerate and
thievish race of men ever to inhabit this sphere...I have done my best
to further the process of extermination by killing off eight and transplanting
cancer into several more...All physicians take delight in the abuse and
torture of the unfortunate subjects."

The letter contained profoundly racist statements. It dehumanized Puerto Ricans completely, boasted of
"killing off eight" of them, and "transplanting cancer into several more."

An investigation into this letter was conducted, which found "no evidence of malicious activity" by Dr. Rhoads, and discredited Albizu Campos for "misinterpreting" letter. Apparently the investigators found some ambiguity in the words "extermination, killing off eight,"
and "transplanting cancer into several more."

With his reputation intact, Dr. Rhoads went on to head two large chemical warfare projects in the 1940s, assisted the United States Atomic Energy Commission, and was awarded the U.S. Legion of Merit. He was lionized in the U.S. press as a trail-blazing "cancer fighter," and even placed on the cover of Time Magazine.

Years later, in 2003, an independent investigation into Dr. Rhoads's "cancer research" in Puerto Rico was led by the eminent bioethicist Dr. Jay Katz of Yale University. Their findings confirmed Albizu Campos' original concerns, that Puerto Rican patients were being used as "cancer guinea pigs." The American Association for Cancer Research then removed Dr. Rhoads' name from their annual award intended for an "individual on the basis of meritorious achievement in cancer research."

Early Nationalist efforts

The Nationalist Party obtained poor results in the 1932 election, but continued its campaign to unite the island behind an independent Puerto Rico platform. At the same time, continued repression from the United States against Puerto Rican independence was now being met with armed resistance.

In 1933, Albizu led a strike against the Puerto Rico Railway and Light and Power Company for alleged monopoly on the island. The following year, he represented sugar cane workers as a lawyer against the U.S. sugar industry.

First arrest

In 1935, four Nationalists were killed by the police under the command of Colonel E. Francis Riggs. The incident became known as the Rio Piedras massacre. The following year in 1936, Nationalists Hiram Rosado and Elias Beauchamp assassinated Colonel Riggs. They were arrested and executed, without a trial, at police headquarters in San Juan.

After these events, the U.S Federal Court in San Juan ordered the arrest of Albizu Campos and several other Nationalists for "seditious conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. Government in Puerto Rico." A jury of seven Puerto Ricans and five Americans voted 7-to-5 not guilty. However, Judge Cooper called for a new jury, this time composed of ten Americans and two Puerto Ricans, and a guilty verdict was achieved.

In 1937 a group of lawyers, including a young Gilberto Concepción de Gracia, tried in vain to defend the Nationalists, but the Boston Court of Appeals, which held appellate jurisdiction over federal matters in Puerto Rico, upheld the verdict. Albizu Campos and the other Nationalist leaders were sent to the Federal penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia.

In his 1939 speech Five Years of Tyranny, U.S. Congressman Vito Marcantonio called the trial a "frame-up," and "one of the blackest pages in the history of American jurisprudence." Congressman Marcantonio provided evidence that Albizu Campos' jury had been profoundly prejudiced, since it had been hand-picked by the prosecuting attorney Mr. Cecil Snyder. The jury, as picked by Snyder, consisted of people "who had expressed publicly bias and hatred for the defendants." In addition, Snyder had been assured via a dispatch from Washington that "the Department of Justice would back him until he did get a conviction." Marcantonio added:

"The continuance of this [Albizu Campos] incarceration is repugnant to our democratic form of government; it is repugnant to our Bill of Rights and out of harmony with our good neighbor policy. There is no place in America for political prisoners. As long as Puerto Rico remains part of the United States, Puerto Rico must have the same freedom, the same civil liberties, and the same justice which our forefathers laid down for us. Only a complete and immediate unconditional pardon will, in a very small measure, right this historical wrong."

Congressman Marcantonio then concluded, "When we ask ourselves, 'Can it happen here?' the Puerto Rican people can answer, 'It has happened in Puerto Rico.'"

In 1943, Albizu became seriously ill and had to be interned at the Columbus Hospital of New York. He stayed there until nearly the end of his sentence.

In 1947, after ten years of imprisonment, Albizu returned to Puerto Rico. Within a short period of time, he began preparing for an armed struggle against the United States' plan to turn Puerto Rico into a "commonwealth" of the U.S.

Passage of Law 53

In 1948, a bill was introduced before the Puerto Rican Senate which authorized the repeated arrest of Albizu Campos, and a round-the-clock surveillance of every Nationalist in Puerto Rico. The Senate at the time was controlled by the PPD and presided by Luis Muñoz Marín.

The 1947 House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearings in session. A number of Hollywood filmmakers were summoned, blacklisted, and their careers were destroyed as a consequence of the Smith Act.

The bill, known as Law 53 and the Ley de la Mordaza (Gag Law), passed the legislature on May 21, 1948 and was signed into law on June 10, 1948, by the U.S.-appointed governor of Puerto Rico Jesús T. Piñero. It closely resembled the anti-communist Smith Law passed in the United States - and it created as much chaos on the island, as Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee did, on the mainland U.S.

Under this law it became a crime to own or display a Puerto Rican flag anywhere, even in one's own home. It also became a crime to speak against the U.S. government; to speak in favor of Puerto Rican independence; to print, publish, sell or exhibit any material intended to paralyze or destroy the insular government; or to organize any society, group or assembly of people with a similar destructive intent.

Anyone accused and found guilty of disobeying the law could be sentenced to ten years imprisonment, a fine of $10,000 dollars (US), or both.

According to Dr. Leopoldo Figueroa, member of the Partido Estadista Puertorriqueño (Puerto Rican Statehood Party) and the only member of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives who did not belong to the PPD, the law was repressive and in direct violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees Freedom of Speech.

Figueroa pointed out that every living Puerto Rican had been "granted" irrevocable U.S. citizenship, so that they could fight in World War I and other American armed conflicts. As such, from 1917 onward, every Puerto Rican was born with full citizenship, and full U.S. constitutional protections. Therefore Law 53 was unconstitutional, since it violated the First Amendment rights of every Puerto Rican.

Second arrest

Pedro Albizu Campos was jailed again after the October 30 Nationalist revolts in various Puerto Rican cities and towns against United States rule in 1950. Among the more notable of the revolts was the Jayuya Uprising, when a group of Puerto Rican Nationalists, under the leadership of Blanca Canales, held the town of Jayuya for three days, the Utuado Uprising which culminated in what is known as the "Utuado Massacre," and the attack on La Fortaleza (the Puerto Rican governor's mansion).

On October 31, police officers and National Guardsmen surrounded Salón Boricua, a barbershop in Santurce. Believing that a group of Nationalists were inside the shop, they opened fire. The only person in the shop was Albizu Campos' personal barber, Vidal Santiago Díaz. Santiago Díaz fought alone against the attackers for three hours and received five bullet wounds, including one in the head. The entire gunfight was transmitted "live" via the radio airwaves, and was heard all over the island.

Overnight Santiago Díaz, the courageous barber who survived an armed attack by forty police and National Guardsmen, became a legend throughout Puerto Rico.

On November 1, 1950, Nationalists Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola attacked the Blair House in Washington, D.C. where president Harry S. Truman was staying while the White House was being renovated. During the attack on the president, Torresola and a policeman, Private Leslie Coffelt, were killed.

Because of this assassination attempt, Albizu Campos was immediately attacked at his home. After a shootout with the police, Campos was arrested and sentenced to 80 years in prison. Over the next few days, 3,000 independence supporters were arrested, all over the island.

Albizu was pardoned in 1953 by then governor Luis Muñoz Marín but the pardon was revoked the following year after the 1954 nationalist attack of the United States House of Representatives, when four Puerto Rican Nationalists, led by Lolita Lebrón opened fire from the gallery of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C..

Later years and death

Image of Albizu Campos in prison some time between 1951 and 1953.

The FBI files show that during his imprisonment, Albizu Campos' health deteriorated severely. In 1956, he suffered a stroke in prison and was transferred to San Juan's Presbyterian Hospital under police guard. He alleged that he was the subject of human radiation experiments in prison and stated that he could see colored rays bombarding him. When he wrapped wet towels around his head in order to shield himself from the radiation, the prison guards ridiculed him as El Rey de las Toallas (The King of the Towels).

Officials suggested that Albizu was insane - but many doctors were able to examine Albizu, and test him for signs of radiation. The President of the Cuban Cancer Association, Dr. Orlando Damuy, traveled to Puerto Rico to examine him. Dr. Damuy concluded, from his direct physical examination of Albizu, that the burns on Albizu's body were caused by intense radiation. It is said when they placed a metal paper clip with a film on Albizu's skin, the clip was radiated into the film. It is also said he did not receive any medical attention for five days and instead suffered.

On November 15, 1964, on the brink of death, Albizu was finally pardoned by Governor Muñoz Marin. He died on April 21, 1965. More than 75,000 Puerto Ricans carried the remains of his body to the Old San Juan Cemetery.

In 1994, under the administration of President Bill Clinton, the United States Department of Energy disclosed that human radiation "experiments" had in fact been conducted without consent on prisoners during the 1950s and 1970s. It has been alleged that Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos was among the subjects of such experimentation.

The FBI files on Albizu Campos

In the 2000s, it was revealed that the San Juan FBI office had coordinated with FBI offices in New York, Chicago and other cities, in a decades-long surveillance of Albizu Campos and any Puerto Rican who had contact or communication with him. Through the Freedom of Information Act, these documents were released to the public and they are now viewable online, including documents as recent as 1965.

Legacy

The Pedro Albizu Campos statue and monument at the Pedro Albizu Campos Park in his birthplace of Ponce, Puerto Rico.

External audio
	You may listen to one of the speeches made in Spanish by Albizu Campos here
	and view a portion of the Albizu Documentary Trailer made in English here.

Albizu's legacy is the subject of passionate discussion by both followers and detractors. His followers state that Albizu's political and military actions served (even unintentionally) as a primer for positive change in Puerto Rico, these being:

• the improvement of labor conditions for peasants and workers
• a belated yet more accurate assessment of the colonial relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States
• an awareness of this colonial relationship, by the political establishment in Washington, D.C.

Albizu can definitely be credited with preserving and promoting Puerto Rican Nationalism and national symbols, at a time where they were virtually a taboo in the country - and even actively outlawed by Law 53, known as La Ley de la Mordaza (the Gag Law). The formal adoption of the Puerto Rican flag as a national emblem by the Puerto Rican government can be traced to Albizu (even while he denounced this adoption as the "watering-down" of an otherwise sacred symbol into a "colonial flag"); the revival of public observance of the Grito de Lares and its significant icons was a direct mandate from him as leader of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party.

Albizu was the most vocal and visible Puerto Rican of African descent of his generation. Afro-Puerto Rican leaders of other political extractions (such as Ernesto Ramos Antonini and Jose Celso Barbosa) attained similar status only after facing (and enduring) considerable bouts with racism. Albizu, while not exempt from it, confronted it and denounced it publicly.

In Chicago, an alternative high school named the Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos Puerto Rican High School, is located in the city's Puerto Rican Cultural Center. There, students learn about Puerto Rican history and culture, in the context of local community development. Archives there include original letters, representations of Albizu Campos in sculpture and art, as well as other material related to his life.

In New York City, Public School 161 in Harlem, was named after him in 1976.

In Puerto Rico, five public schools are named after him, as well as numerous streets in most of Puerto Rico's municipalities.

In his birthplace of Ponce, there is a Pedro Albizu Campos park dedicated to his memory, which includes a full-body statue of the Nationalist leader.

See also

• Puerto Rican Independence Movement
• Puerto Ricans in World War I
• Puerto Rican Nationalist Party Revolts of the 1950s
• Puerto Rican Nationalist Party
• Ponce Massacre
• Río Piedras massacre
• Jayuya Uprising
• Utuado Uprising
• Truman assassination attempt
• Puerto Rican Independence Party
• History of Puerto Rico
• List of famous Puerto Ricans - Politicians
• Gilberto Concepción de Gracia
• Blanca Canales
• Lolita Lebrón
• Private Leslie Coffelt
• Latin American and Caribbean Congress in Solidarity with Puerto Rico's Independence

References

• Acosta, Ivonne, La Mordaza/Puerto Rico 1948-1957. Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, 1987
• Connerly, Charles, ed. Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos, Vieques Times, Puerto Rico, 1995
• Corretjer, Juan Antonio, El Lider De La Desesperación, Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, 1978
• Davila, Arlene M., Sponsored Identities, Cultural Politics in Puerto Rico, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1997
• Garcia, Marvin, Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos, National Louis University
• Torres Santiago, Jose M., 100 Years of Don Pedro Albizu Campos

External links

• Portraits of Notable Individuals in the Struggle for Puerto Rican Independence
• FBI Files on Puerto Rico
• DOE Openness: Human Radiation Experiments
• Profile of Don Pedro Albizu Campos High School
• Albizu Biography on Biografias y Vidas
• Habla Albizu Campus on Paredon Records
• Albizu Campos Documentary: "¿Quien Es Albizu Campos?
• AACR Cornelius P. Rhoads Memorial Award name change