CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) - Visitation is planned this week for the long-time Chicago human rights activist José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez.
Jiménez spent much of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s fighting gentrification in Lincoln Park in an effort to uplift minority and low-income communities and rallying for an independent Puerto Rico.
During a 2017 interview on Feel Like You Belong, a YouTube show about immigration, Jiménez spoke about the troubles of gentrification.
“We’re displacing not only people, we’re displacing the problem and never really addressing the issues of gang violence and the issues of crime in the local neighborhoods, and, until we do that, as long as we continue to be in denial, we’ll never be able to really fix the problem,” Jiménez said.
Jiménez co-founded the Rainbow Coalition and served as chairperson of the Young Lords organization, a former street gang that organized several marches against police brutality.
Jiménez died Friday at the age of 76 and is survived by his three sisters, five children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Visitation is Thursday at Pietryka Funeral Home on West Diversey Avenue. Jiménez will be buried in Puerto Rico near his mother.
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