Why Ocasio-Cortez Is Endorsing Sanders – The New York Times

[Fifty years ago, the Young Lords evolved from a street gang to a political force.]

“This place is filthy, man. It stinks. There’s garbage all over,” was the complaint Hiram Maristany, a founding member of the group, recalled.

So, a small contingent of Young Lords — Puerto Rican youth in Spanish Harlem — went to the local Department of Sanitation office to ask for better service. “They threw us out!” Mr. Maristany recalled.

The Lords returned to the office and took supplies in order to do the job themselves. “We thought Sanitation would come take the trash away once we’d bagged it all up for them,” he said. Sanitation officials refused.

So, the Young Lords and a handful of community members began dragging rusted refrigerators, old cars, mattresses and broken furniture off the corners and strewing them across Third Avenue near 110th Street. The Garbage Offensive had begun.

“Then we set it ablaze, man,” Mr. Maristany told me, still laughing. He had grabbed his camera and begun documenting the scene.

It’s Thursday — make history.

Metropolitan Diary: Nails