Ponce Massacre

The Ponce Massacre was one of the most significant acts of state violence in Puerto Rican history. On March 21, 1937, members of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party organized a peaceful march in the city of Ponce to commemorate the abolition of slavery and to protest the imprisonment of Nationalist leader Pedro Albizu Campos.

Governor Blanton Winship had ordered the march's permit revoked at the last minute. When the marchers proceeded anyway, insular police surrounded them and opened fire without warning. The shooting lasted approximately 15 minutes. Nineteen people were killed, including two policemen caught in their own crossfire, and over 200 were wounded.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) conducted an independent investigation led by Arthur Garfield Hays, which concluded that the event was a "massacre" carried out by police acting under orders. The Hays Commission report stated: "The facts show that the weights of the evidence is that this was a massacre." Photographs taken by Carlos "El Flaco" Torres Morales documented the carnage and became powerful evidence of the atrocity.

The massacre galvanized the independence movement and radicalized a generation of Puerto Rican nationalists, including Lolita Lebrón, who later led the 1954 attack on the U.S. Capitol.