The Young Lords, with Felipe Luciano and others were formed around the same time as the Black Panthers. In 1971, the Lords together with the Puerto Rican Student Union (PRSU) mobilized 1000 students for a conference held at Columbia University. The purpose was to set up a 'Free Puerto Rico Now Committee.' Subsequently a mass demonstration of over 10,000 people marched from East Harlem's 'Barrio' to the United Nations. The attempts to bring the Black Panthers and the Young Lords into the wider Civil Rights movement never quite came together. To some degree, this was due to archaic, but still present color lines within the Latin American community and a reluctance among Latin Americans to be considered 'black.'
