Iris Morales

Iris Morales (born 1948) is an American activist for Latino/a civil rights, filmmaker, author, and lawyer based in New York. She is best known for her work with the Young Lords, a Puerto Rican community activist group in the United States and her feminist movements within the organization.

Early life and education Iris Morales was born in New York in 1948 to Puerto Rican migrant parents. Her father worked as a hotel elevator operator, and her mother worked as a sewing machine operator. She went to Julia Richman High School, where she attended meetings of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the NAACP.

In high school, Morales was highly inspired by Malcolm X and Don Pedro Albizu Campos, because there was little understood about Puerto Rican history. This, along social movements such as the Black Panther Party, inspired Morales to become an activist.

The Young Lords The Young Lords logo.The Chicago-based Young Lords, a leftist group of Puerto Rican youth activists inspired by the Black Panthers, established a branch in New York in 1969. Morales joined the group that year, after meeting Young Lords founder José Cha Cha Jiménez at a conference in Denver. Morales served as minister of information for a period. Morales resigned from the Young Lords, which was struggling with infighting and targeted by the FBI's COINTELPRO program, in 1975. The party effectively disbanded the following year.

She along with other women of the Young Lords party disputed the machista values outlined in the 13-point program written and published by the Young Lords male members that ultimately supported machista views, pointing out the duality of their statements to that of the initiatives of The Young Lords Party. On November 11, 1970, Iris Morales along with Denise Oliver, Nydia Mercado, and Lulu Carreras, were highlighted an article in The New York Times. This feature was the first documentation and acknowledgment of women's involvement in the movement in the mainstream media. The women's caucus continued to advocate for safer abortions for women of underrepresented backgrounds.

Further education and career After the dissolution of the Young Lords, Morales continued her Latina feminist activism and pursued a Juris Doctor degree from New York University School of Law. At NYU, she became the first Puerto Rican to receive the highly competitive Root-Tilden-Kern Scholarship, a full-tuition public service scholarship. and served as director of the Union Square Awards, a city government project recognizing grassroots activists.

Morales wrote Through The Eyes Of Rebel Women, The Young Lords: 1969-1976, a book that focuses on her experiences in the feminist movement within the Young Lords Party. The book was published through Red Sugarcane Press, Morales' personal small publishing house, in 2016. This project allowed Morales reflect on the experiences of being a part of the party, both the pleasant and unpleasant ones alike. Morales' intentions for her book are that many are not only able to learn about the history of The Young Lords women but continue to learn lessons that continue to be applicable to the modern activist movements. She also published a children's book, Vicki and A Summer of Change! ¡Vicki y un verano de cambio!, with co-author Raquel M. Ortiz. The story focuses on the main character, Vicki, who is determined to make a change in her community by joining the Young Lord's Party and serving her community.

Morales has contributed to recent scholarship on the history of the Young Lords, writing forwards for The Young Lords: A Reader in 2010 and Palante: Young Lords Party in 2011.

Morales appeared in the 2021 New York Times documentary Takeover: How We Occupied a Hospital and Changed Public Health Care, about the 1970 Lincoln Hospital takeover through which the Young Lords requested proper funding and infrastructure to respond to overwhelming health care needs, a local tuberculosis epidemic, and other issues.

Recognition

In 2019 Iris Morales was named one of North Star Fund's 40 for 40.

In 2020, she was honored as a Latina Trailblazer by LatinoJustice PRLDEF.