DON PEDRO ALBIZU CAMPOS

His real name: Pedro Albizu Campos. The people call him Don Pedro. His followers called him El Maestro. (1893–1965)

WHO HE WAS

Pedro Albizu Campos was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico — by his own account on June 29, 1893 (some records say 1891). His mother was Juliana Campos, a domestic worker of African ancestry. His father was Alejandro Albizu Romero, called "El Vizcaíno," a Basque merchant who refused to recognize the boy as his son. Pedro grew up in poverty. His mother drowned herself in the Portugués River, and he was raised by his aunt Rosa Campos. He was the nephew of the great danza composer Juan Morel Campos. Nothing was handed to him — everything he became, he earned.

THE MAKING OF EL MAESTRO

In 1912 a scholarship took him to the University of Vermont to study chemical engineering. In 1913 he transferred to Harvard. When World War I broke out he volunteered for the U.S. Infantry and was made a First Lieutenant in the 375th Infantry Regiment, a segregated Black unit. The racism he met in that uniform changed him — it turned his eyes against the empire he was serving. He went back to Harvard and finished law school, took his bar exams, and was admitted to the Puerto Rico bar in 1924. He spoke eight languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Latin, and ancient Greek. He could have taken power and money from the Americans. He refused it all and went home to fight for his people.

THE FIGHT

He returned to Puerto Rico in 1921 and joined the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party in 1924, becoming its president in 1930. His slogan was "La Patria es valor y sacrificio" — the homeland is valor and sacrifice. In 1932 he exposed a letter written by Rockefeller pathologist Dr. Cornelius Rhoads that spoke of killing Puerto Ricans and exterminating the island's people — and sent copies to the world. In 1936, after the killing of police chief Riggs, the U.S. government charged him with seditious conspiracy. He was convicted and sent to the federal penitentiary in Atlanta. In October 1950 he led nationalist uprisings in cities across Puerto Rico, including Jayuya, where the Republic of Puerto Rico was proclaimed. Nationalists attacked the governor's mansion in San Juan and Blair House in Washington, D.C. He was imprisoned again. In 1954 nationalists attacked the U.S. House of Representatives, and his pardon was revoked — he was sentenced to life. He spent 26 years of his life in prison. He said they were torturing him in his cell with radiation. A stroke broke his body in 1956. Pardoned in 1964, he died on April 21, 1965.

WHAT HE DID FOR THE PEOPLE

He taught Puerto Ricans they were a nation, not a colony and not a possession. He gave the independence movement a teacher's voice — El Maestro — and a martyr's example. He organized the poor, the workers, the forgotten, and told them their homeland was worth valor and sacrifice. He paid for it with a quarter century behind bars. Governments fall and empires lie, but Don Pedro's name is still spoken in every corner of Puerto Rico. He is the symbol of the island's fight for freedom.

El Maestro taught that the homeland is valor and sacrifice.

SOURCES

Britannica — Pedro Albizu Campos: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pedro-Albizu-Campos

Wikipedia — Pedro Albizu Campos: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Albizu_Campos