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THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY
OF NEW YORK
OFFICE OF COUNCIL MEMBER
YDANIS RODRIGUEZ
CITY HALL
NEW YORK, NY 10007
(212) 788-7053
Sunday, February 10, 2019
Contact:
Maria Henderson | (646) 574 -7950 |
MHenderson@council.nyc.gov
STREET CO-NAMING CEREMONY TO HONOR SOCIAL & POLITICAL JUSTICE ADVOCATES THE MIRABAL SISTERS
New York, NY-- TODAY, Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez will be joined by Assembly Member Carmen De La Rosa, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, and
Mirabal Sisters Cultural & Community Center Executive Director
Luis Tejada, for a street co-naming ceremony to honor the legacy of the Mirabal sisters.
The Mirabal Sisters stand as inspirational and visionary activists for social and political justice and role models to generations of women the world over since their untimely death in 1960 at the hands of the Dominican tyrant Trujillo. The southeast corner of 168th St. and Amsterdam Avenue will be co-named Mirabal Sisters Way.
Patria
(born in 1924), Minerva (b. 1926) and Maria Teresa (b. 1935) Mirabal were sisters and members of the anti-Trujillo underground movement that helped distribute information about Trujillo's abuses and who organized an armed rebellion against the despot. They helped form the pivotal resistance group "Movement of the Fourteenth of June" in an attempt to overthrow Trujillo.
At the time, the Dominican Republic was under the cruel dictatorship of Trujillo, who ruled during the 1950's. He used his secret police to subjugate the nation and keep the people under his rule. He directly controlled the country's vital communication network, including radio, mail, press, airlines and the passport offices. Those who spoke out against him were often, killed.
The sisters called themselves Las Mariposas (The Butterflies), as their underground name to wage resistance against the dictator. After a failed assassination attempt against Trujillo was exposed in 1960, he ordered the sisters killed. Their deaths served as a catalyst to Trujillo's assassination by military leaders six months later.
Since their deaths, the Mirabal sisters have been commemorated in songs, books, poems, documentaries, and on the big screen. Throughout Latin America, the Mirabal sisters are regarded as feminist and freedom fighter icons, and the anniversary of their death is commemorated each year as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. There is a Mirabal Sisters Cultural and Community Center at 142nd Street in Manhattan.
WHO
: Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez, Assembly Member Carmen De La Rosa, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, Mirabal Sisters Cultural & Community Center Executive Director Luis Tejada, Family of the Mirabal Sisters
WHAT
: Street Co-Naming Ceremony to Honor the Mirabal Sisters
WHEN
: TODAY; February 10, 2019; 2:00PM
WHERE
:
The southeast corner of 168th St. and Amsterdam Avenue, Manhattan
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