"Wake up! Wake yourselves up! Open your eyes to what's happening around you."
Wednesday afternoon, the bellowing voice of Vicente "Panama" Alba resonated through a Student Union room full of people who came to hear the activist and former member of the Young Lords, a radical 1960s activist group.
"The world is not going to change unless you change it," he said, looking intently into the eyes of students in the front row.
Invited to speak by the Educational Opportunity Program Student Association, Alba's purpose was to reach out to students and "wake them up" to the struggle of minorities in America for racial, religious and cultural acceptance.
Dennis Febo, a SUNY Student Association delegate and member of EOP Student Association, said the club invited Alba to bring students together to think about issues that are currently affecting them.
Since the 1960s, Alba has molded a career as a political rights activist. Today, he is also a member of the National Congress of Puerto Rican Rights, the South Bronx Clean Air Coalition the coordinator of the David Sanes Brigade for Peace and Justice in Vieques, Puerto Rico.
He is also in the process of writing a book about his life.
"Alba is still active today in New York City on issues about police brutality and raising awareness and culture," said Febo. "EOPSA wanted to bring a piece of history to UB and pinpoint the importance of coming together."
The Young Lords started out as a street gang in Chicago created solely for survival purposes. According to Alba, former gang leader "Cha-Cha" Jimenez met a member of the Black Panthers in Chicago's Cook County Jail and discussed the exploitation and oppression of Latinos and blacks in America.
Jimenez was inspired, Alba said, and when he got out of prison, he transformed the Young Lords into a revolutionary organization committed to human rights.
In 1969, Alba and other members of the Young Lords overtook the Lincoln Hospital in South Bronx. Alba said the hospital refused to serve patients because they were poor.
"The Young Lords were you in that generation," said Alba to his audience. "They were simply responding to the nation's call."
Young Lords also inspired revolutionary sentiment at Columbia University and demanded independence for Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans in the United States, Alba said.
"I don't like to be categorized as a Young Lord, because that is what I was at one time in my life," said Alba. "What I have tried to be to the best of my ability is the best revolutionary that I can, and the Young Lords was a piece of that."
Febo said Latinos still suffer from inequality of opportunity today. He said inner city schools offer a poor education and subject students to racism.
"We need to start addressing these issues because we have a lot of money, power and knowledge and can go into neighborhoods and start telling these people how to empower themselves and take control of their lives," said Febo. "It's not fair that we have all of this knowledge but aren't sharing it with others. They say knowledge is power, and power has responsibility. So, it is our responsibility to teach what we know."
Alba said he hoped to teach and motivate those who came to listen to him speak.
"The people that are being sent to war are you," Alba said, pointing at the crowd. "When planes are hijacked and attacks are made, who are the real terrorists? Stop buying the garbage the government is feeding you and try to prove me wrong."
Junior accounting major Richard Acosta asked Alba about the problem of apathy among Americans.
"The government has made this the 'me' generation, the consumer generation," said Alba. "For people to feel whole, they are more concerned with what sneakers they are wearing than what is going on in the government."
Hector Breton, a senior communications major and member of EOPSA, asked Alba what types of things scared him.
His reply: "I'm not scared of dying. What scares me is the thought of people not knowing how to live."
Photo: Courtesy of SUNY
