How the Project Started
El Griot & Areito Project started as a group of folks trying to make sense of the pandemic, the uprisings for Black lives and the tensions between Chicago Black and Latinx street organizations during that time. We were shepherded in these discussions by our reading of what was then a newly released book, The Young Lords: A Radical History (February 17, 2020, University of North Carolina Press) by Dr. Johanna Fernández, Associate Professor of History at Baruch College of the City University of New York. After Dr. Fernandez agreed to facilitate a book discussion in July via Zoom, the group—eventually named El Griot (gree-ō) & Areito (a-rey-toe) Project—and Dr. Fernández started working together.
After weekly meetings discussing the YLO and planning five national virtual events about the story of the Young Lords, we were drawn to bring these stories to young people. In August of 2021, a year after the project started, several El Griot & Areito Project members organized an unforgettable Young Lords Liberation Summer Camp. At the end of the week, the campers’ testimonios affirmed what we believed: The story of the Young Lords needs to be shared with more young people.
focus on teacher solidarity
Since the summer camp in 2021, El Griot & Areito Project has been working with Chicago teachers who want to bring the story of the Chicago Young Lords to their students. Starting with a pilot of the YLO curriculum in 2022 by Chicago Public School educator, Tayler Showalter, and through ongoing conversations, learning, reflection and feedback, we’ve been co-creating the Young Lords curriculum alongside teachers, students, families and YLO members.
In fall of 2022, we kicked off our first workshop for teachers - Teaching the Story of the Chicago Young Lords - and have continued to support many of them with resources and collaboration.
The YLO curriculum is a free, open source curriculum for anyone to use! And for folks that want to learn in community with us, we gather each fall to explore the curriculum, learn from each other and engage with various liberatory learning approaches.
“If students are to heal from the historic traumas of colonization and racism and learn to work for justice, they need to be able to understand oppressive relationships in historical terms.”
— Rethinking Ethnic Studies (page 4)