Courtesy forward…
What: Celebrating the Life of Pablo Yoruba Guzmán
When: Saturday January 20th, 2024
Where: “People’s Church”: First Spanish United Methodist Church
Location: 163 E. 111th Street, also known as Young Lord Way
Time: 3 – 5 p.m.
The legendary activist and journalist Pablo Yoruba Guzmán, died from a heart attack Sunday, November 26, 2023, at age 73. Guzmán was the former minister of information of the Young Lords Party, the revolutionary social justice group led by Puerto Ricans in the 1960s and ’70s.
Guzmán was the “first great public relations expert of the Latino community,” according to Democracy Now! co-host Juan González, also a former Young Lord. “He was one of the first Afro-Latino people in the media,” adds Johanna Fernández, associate professor of history at the City University of New York’s Baruch College and author of The Young Lords: A Radical History.
She says Guzmán “brought to the Young Lords a theorization of race ideology in Latin America” and built “common cause with Black Americans.” He later became a beloved radio, print, and television journalist, known for his unconventionally charming and witty reporting.
Bottom left: Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton, Pablo Yoruba Guzman, and Young Lords founder Jose Cha Cha Jimenez at a “Rainbow Coalition” gathering in Chicago.
Guzmán covered NYC neighborhoods, law enforcement, national security, politics, and pop culture and won two Emmys as a local media celebrity admired even by mob boss John Gotti. Over the course of his professional life, Guzmán worked for WBAI, WLIB, the Village Voice, WNEW-TV (an affiliate of Fox), WNBC-TV, and WCBS-TV, where he finished his career as a senior correspondent from 1996 to 2013.
The January 20 public memorial celebrating Yoruba’s was co-organized by life-long friend and YLP co-founder, Mickey Melendez and Gil Colon, with Dr. Johanna Fernandez in consultation with many others, to celebrate his life and lasting legacy.
Confirmed participation includes an array of family, friends, colleagues and comrades from various facets of Yoruba’s life, such as former members of the YLP: Denise Oliver-Velez, David Perez, Felipe Luciano, Cleo Silvers, Juan Gonzalez; journalist, author and professor, Ed Morales; members of the CBS family: Tony Aiello, Cindy Hsu, and Kristine Johnson; former NBC close colleague: P Ti-Hua Chang; musicologist, Rene Lopez; Black Panther, Jamal Joseph; Kyle Little representative of the Malik Fraternity Inc., members of the Guzman Family, Sally Guzman, Pablo’s mother and Gilbert Sabu Colon, a former Young Lord and Yoruba’s first cousin.
The service will include poetry by La Bruja (Caridad De La Luz) and Mariposa (Maria Teresa Fernandez), with spiritual invocations by Reverend Sam Cruz and Babalowo Baba Ifa Ade Awo.
ARTICLES
Caribbean Matters: Honoring Pablo ‘Yoruba’ Guzman
Remembering Pablo Yoruba Guzmán, Young Lords Co-Founder, Afro-Latino Leader, Legendary Journalist