Vol. 74/No. 32      August 23, 2010

Lebrón, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Irving Flores, and Andrés Figueroa Cordero carried out an armed action from the gallery of the U.S. Congress on March 1, 1954. Lebrón shouted, “Viva Puerto Rico Libre” (Long live free Puerto Rico!) and unfurled a Puerto Rican flag. Five congressmen were struck by bullets.

The four, all members of the Nationalist Party headed by Pedro Albizu Campos, were living in New York City. Cancel Miranda was a press operator in a shoe factory; Figueroa Cordero, a worker in a butcher shop; Flores, a furniture factory worker; and Lebrón, a sewing machine operator in a garment shop.

In a 2004 interview with the Washington Post magazine, Lebrón described some of the conditions Puerto Rican workers faced in New York. She recounted seeing signs that said, “No blacks, no dogs, no Puerto Ricans.”

“They told me it was a paradise; this was no paradise,” she told the Post.

In 1950 U.S. troops crushed a Nationalist-led uprising in Puerto Rico. That same year Oscar Collazo was arrested for taking part in an attack on Blair House, the temporary residence of U.S. president Harry Truman. In 1952 Puerto Rico’s governor signed a commonwealth pact formalizing the island’s domination by Washington. Then, in 1953 at U.S. insistence, the United Nations removed Puerto Rico from its list of colonies.

“The Yankees won a victory and got Puerto Rico taken off the list of non-sovereign countries. They presented us to the world as satisfied slaves,” recalled Cancel Miranda in a 1998 interview. The four “decided to carry out a demonstration that would draw the world’s attention to the truth about Puerto Rico.”

The independence fighters were put on trial in Washington, D.C., The three men were each sentenced to 75 years and Lebrón to 50 years. They were tried a second time in New York for “conspiracy to overthrow the government” and six more years were added to their sentences.

For the first 15 years or so of their imprisonment there was almost no campaign for their release. But in the 1970s this changed. Committees demanding the release of the four were formed in Chicago and New York. The campaign spread to Puerto Rico and Latin America. The Cuban government played a prominent role in pushing for their release and for recognition of Puerto Rico as a U.S. colony.

Figueroa Cordero’s sentence was commuted in 1977 because of his deteriorating health. He died of cancer while the rest were still in prison.

In 1979 President James Carter granted clemency to the rest of the prisoners. “We didn’t do anything that we should regret,” Lebrón said on her release. “Everyone has the right to defend their freedom.”

Some 7,000 welcomed them at the airport on their return to Puerto Rico Sept. 12, 1979.

Soon after their release, Lebrón thanked the Cuban people and Fidel Castro for the support that helped win their freedom. She pointed out that Cuba’s solidarity had “paved the way for the successes and victories in the case of Puerto Rico.” A month later Lebrón, Cancel Miranda, and Flores traveled to New York to meet with Castro at the Cuban mission to the United Nations.

In the 2004 Post interview, Lebrón bristled at the U.S. government charge that she was a terrorist.

“Who calls me a terrorist?” she said. “The most terrorist country in the world! What other country dropped the atomic bomb? And they call me a terrorist.”

Lebrón stayed active in the movement for Puerto Rican independence. In 2001, when she was 81 years old, she was arrested for participating in civil disobedience against the U.S. bombing range on the island of Vieques.  
 
 
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