The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative
Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other
shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org.
May 5, 2020

José Soler, Puerto Rican Independence Activist and Labor Journalist, Dies at 75
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Labor scholar and Puerto Rican independence activist José Soler has
died. For over 20 years, Soler was director of the UMass Dartmouth Labor
Education Center, and most recently co-head of the New Bedford Coalition
to Save Our Schools, which fought charter school expansion. Soler
emerged in the social justice world as a leader in the Chicano rights
organization the Brown Berets. He advocated for human rights and the
independence of Puerto Rico since the 1970s. Throughout his life, Soler
continued to work in the labor rights movement. He was a union organizer
with UAW District 65 and a labor journalist. José Soler was 75 years
old.


.