Kutsche Office sponsors Latino Civil Rights bus tour to Chicago

A Grand Valley department is sponsoring a one-day bus trip to Chicago to join others in that city for a memorial service honoring Latino civil rights leaders.

The trip is sponsored by Grand Valley’s Kutsche Office of Local History. Details follow:

-- Leaving September 23, midday, from the Cook Library Center, 1100 Grandville Ave. SW in Grand Rapids; tickets are $50 per person, and available on a first-come, first-served basis. Events at the center will begin at 9 a.m.


The tour bus will arrive in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood, the birthplace of the Young Lords civil rights movement in 1968. September 23 marks the 45th anniversary of the Young Lords founding as a civil and human rights organization. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez founded the Young Lords movement and documented its history as a student at Grand Valley. He graduated but continues to be involved with Young Lords oral history project that is housed at the university.

A memorial service that evening will honor the Rev. Bruce and Eugenia Johnson, who were murdered in 1969 for their work in supporting Lincoln Park residents who were displaced from their homes in the ’60s.