History.com: When the Young Lords Put Garbage on Display to Demand Change

In 1969, a group of Puerto Rican youth in East Harlem leveraged a garbage problem to demand reform. In 1969, a group of New York City youth known as the Young Lords demanded change in the way the largest city in the United States handled sanitation. The initiative, known as the Garbage Offensive, wasn't the group's original plan of action, but it proved highly effective in calling out the needs and rights of the city's Latinx community.