www.us-puertoricans.org

Known as "El Maestro," Pedro Albizu Campos is the most prominent Puerto Rican political figure of the 20th century -- a national hero who sacrificed his life for the freedom of his country. Under his leadership, the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico takes an anti-imperialist position and outlines an economic platform that includes organizing workers, revoking U.S. limitations on Puerto Rican trade, and organizing all aspects of the Island’s commerce, banking, and agriculture in Puerto Rican hands. The Party declares resistance to the U.S. regime and proclaims the need for armed struggle to achieve independence.

A powerful speaker, thousands would gather to listen to Albizu Campos's passionate discourses of freedom. He urged the Puerto Rican people to reclaim their cultural history and national symbols such as the flag and the national anthem, and was instrumental in winning an island wide sugar cane strike and exposing secret medical experiments sponsored by the Rockefeller Institute.  The US government arrested and charged him with seditious conspiracy. From the mid-thirties to the early sixties, Pedro Albizu Campos was in and out of U.S. prisons (25 years). During his incarceration, he was a target of human radiation experiments.  

To learn more: go to "History Matters" section of the website and click on "1920s-1950s: Nationalist Party."