Forty years ago, the Humboldt Park neighborhood was a powder keg of frustration over bad housing, poor police relations and an overall sense that Puerto Ricans were regarded as second-class citizens in Chicago.
Those frustrations exploded into rioting along Division Street on June 12 and 13, 1966, after Chicago police pursuing a local teenager ended the chase by shooting him in the leg.
A new play captures those days, regarded as pivotal in local Puerto Rican civil rights. A free performance of "The Spark," written by Puerto Rican author Jesus "Tato" Laviera, will be held at 1 p.m. Sunday in the Puerto Rican Cultural Center at 2700 W. Haddon Ave.
Laviera, a co-founder of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York, who is best known for his 1979 collection of poems "La Carreta Made a U-Turn," has been in Chicago for a week preparing for the one-time production.
His narrative captures the riots in snapshots, highlighting the tension as stores were looted and police exchanged gunfire with residents shooting from apartment windows.
"The Spark" is the first of a four-part series of Humboldt Park-based plays being written by Laviera. The others will capture another set of neighborhood riots in 1977, the planting of two 50-ton steel sculptures of the Puerto Rican flag on Division Street during the mid-1990s and the community's current worries about rising neighborhood real estate prices, Laviera said.
"We hope to promote a dialogue and discussion about the fate of Puerto Ricans in this city," he said.