Screening & Discussion Honoring the Legacy and Struggle of El Grito de Lares: FILIBERTO by Freddie Marrero Alfonso (2017)

Join us in honoring the 158th anniversary of El Grito de Lares with a screening of the documentary FILIRBERTO by Freddie Marrero Alfonso. Followed by a discussion with Adolfina BK, Diaspora Pa’lante Collective NYC/NJ, and JUPI BK moderated by Christian Mártir.   

Amid multiple rebellions and insurgencies against Spanish colonization, El Grito de Lares makes an indelible mark on Puerto Rican history. In the late 19th century, the Revolutionary Committee of Puerto Rico—led in exile by figures like Ramón Emeterio Betances and Segundo Ruiz Belvís—builds abolitionist, pro-independence networks that link Puerto Rican resistance to earlier and ongoing Latin American and Caribbean liberation movements. Their organizing carries forward a long tradition of anti-colonial struggle, even as Spanish counterinsurgency efforts force resistance to adapt.

On September 23 2005, the anniversary of El Grito de Lares, the FBI assassinates co founder of  Ejército Popular Boricua (Los Macheteros) Filiberto Ojeda Ríos. Filiberto organized with multiple armed clandestine groups understanding the need for confrontation with the US to achieve freedom.

This cyclical imperial violence is a main tenet of our current show, ¡AN UNBREAKABLE HUMAN THREAD! Movements & People for a Sovereign Borikén, up at Interference Archive which has been EXTENDED to September 30th!