Pedro Albizu Campos - Legacy

Legacy

The person and figure of Albizu Campos in his quest for freedom has been compared Nelson Mandela, Nat Turner, David Walker, Frederick Douglass, Patrick Henry, Ida Barnett Wells, John Brown, W.E.B. Dubois, Chief Crazy Horse and Seminole Chief Osceola.

Albizu's legacy is the subject of passionate discussion by both followers and detractors. His followers state that Albizu's political and military actions served (even unintentionally) as a primer for positive change in Puerto Rico, these being:

• the improvement of labor conditions for peasants and workers
• a belated yet more accurate assessment of the colonial relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States
• an awareness of this colonial relationship, by the political establishment in Washington, D.C.

Albizu can definitely be credited with preserving and promoting Puerto Rican Nationalism and national symbols, at a time where they were virtually a taboo in the country - and even actively outlawed by Law 53, known as La Ley de la Mordaza (the Gag Law). The formal adoption of the Puerto Rican flag as a national emblem by the Puerto Rican government can be traced to Albizu (even while he denounced this adoption as the "watering-down" of an otherwise sacred symbol into a "colonial flag"); the revival of public observance of the Grito de Lares and its significant icons was a direct mandate from him as leader of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party.

Albizu was the most vocal and visible Puerto Rican of African descent of his generation. Afro-Puerto Rican leaders of other political extractions (such as Ernesto Ramos Antonini and Jose Celso Barbosa) attained similar status only after facing (and enduring) considerable bouts with racism. Albizu, while not exempt from it, confronted it and denounced it publicly.

In Chicago, an alternative high school named the Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos Puerto Rican High School, is located in the city's Puerto Rican Cultural Center. There, students learn about Puerto Rican history and culture, in the context of local community development. Archives there include original letters, representations of Albizu Campos in sculpture and art, as well as other material related to his life.

In New York City, Public School 161 in Harlem, was named after him in 1976.

In Puerto Rico, five public schools are named after him, as well as numerous streets in most of Puerto Rico's municipalities.

In his birthplace city of Ponce, there is a Pedro Albizu Campos park dedicated to his memory, which includes a full-body statue of the Nationalist leader.