Alicia Rodriguez speaking tour

Time

Monday, March 21 at 12:00pm - March 26 at 9:00pm

Location

Week of events throughout Philadelphia!

*March 21*
10:30 a.m.- 12 p.m.: Live interview, Radio 1680

*March 22*
11:30 a.m.: Talk with the Civil Rights Committee of the Bar Association, 1101 Market
Street, 11th Floor
...(Co-sponsored by the Women's Rights Committee, Criminal Justice Section, National
Lawyers Guild and the Hispanic Bar Association of Pennsylvania)

*March 23*
11 a.m.: Women’s Studies Lounge (Room 821), Anderson Hall at Temple University, 1114
W Berks Street

7 p.m.: “I am a Revolutionary: Three Generations of Puerto Rican Women’s Resistance”
at Wooden Shoe Books, 704 South Street

*March 24*
Noon: Institute for Community Justice, 21 S. 12th Street, 7th Floor.

7 p.m.: University of Pennsylvania. Fireside Lounge, ARCH Building, 3601 Locust Walk.
Co-sponsored by Casa Latina and the Penn Women’s Center

*March 25*
4:30 p.m.: Youth United for Change, 1910 N. Front Street

*March 26*
7 p.m. Cristo y San Ambrosio church, 6th and Venango

Speaker Bio: Alicia Rodriguez was born on October 21, 1953, in Chicago, Illinois.
She grew up during the turbulent decades of the 1960s and 1970s, witnessing first
hand the atrocities committed against the civil rights and the anti-Vietnam war
movements. These and other life changing experiences deepened her awareness and
affinity with national liberation movements. They moved her to resist and
participate in Puerto Rico's anti-colonial struggle, which has been waged for more
than 500 years. On April 4, 1980 Alicia (along with her sister Lucy and other
comrades) was captured and charged with seditious conspiracy. Throughout her
capture, trial and incarceration, she maintained her position as an anti-colonial
political prisoner resisting the illegal U.S. occupation of her homeland. Alicia was
physically and verbally abused during her trial. In the first sixteen and a half
years in prison, she was housed in maximum security and never allowed outside of her
living unit without being escorted by a prison guard. Her mail was censored and she
was never allowed to phone anyone on the island of Puerto Rico. Still, she remained
an organizer in prison; she assisted in teaching a commercial arts and photography
class, participated in an Adult Literacy program, and was recruited by the medical
staff to be part of an AIDS educational mentor. She is one of eleven former Puerto
Rican political prisoners granted clemency by President Clinton in September 1999, a
move made possible by a victorious campaign which united the Puerto Rican people and
mobilized international solidarity. The campaign to release the Puerto Rican
political prisoners was so powerful that it served as a model and as a source of
inspiration for the successful struggle to force the US Navy out of Vieques in 2003.
It served as undeniable proof that when human beings exercise the right to struggle
for the freedom of mind and spirit victory is achieved. Since her release Alicia has
focused on establishing herself as a community potter. She designed and mobilized
community support which helped build her pottery workshop. This process goes hand in
hand with her participation in the campaign to release the remaining Puerto Rican
political prisoners, Oscar López Rivera and Avelino Claudio González.