Via Wikimedia Commons

Lolita Lebrón

Liberation

1919–2010

Nationalist who led the 1954 attack on the U.S. Capitol, served 25 years in prison, never renounced her beliefs

Lolita Lebrón was a Puerto Rican nationalist, political activist, and poet. Radicalized by the 1937 Ponce Massacre, she joined the Nationalist Party in 1946. On March 1, 1954, she led an armed attack on the U.S. House of Representatives alongside Rafael Cancel Miranda, shouting "Viva Puerto Rico Libre!" and unfurling a Puerto Rican flag; five congressmen were wounded. She served 25 years in prison until President Jimmy Carter commuted her sentence in 1979.

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