Seminar

In November of 1970, the People’s Program was founded by members from the Young Lords along with members of the Black Panther Party and the Health Revolutionary Unity Movement. Through direct action, the activists collectively organized and occupied Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx, demanding the city officials and hospital administrators improve health services amidst a heroin epidemic and a moment when the city’s public health infrastructures were failing and neglecting poor, Black, and Latinx communities. After taking over the hospital, they created the People’s Program (also known as Lincoln Detox Program), an addiction treatment center to serve and care for the community that was housed within Lincoln Hospital and ran until 1978. The People’s Program was a collective effort in confronting and rectifying a dysfunctional public health system, while also serving as a pedagogical space for healthcare, political education, and grassroots organizing. 

One of the activists involved in the People’s Program was Walter Bosque, a member of the Young Lords, health worker, and radical acupuncturist. Bosque, along with Mutulu Shakur, formed the Acupuncture Collective after researching drug detox treatments and studying Chinese acupuncture practices used in China to treat opiate addiction. Eventually, they developed their own radical acupuncture treatment called “The People’s Protocol,” a treatment that continues to be used in treating addiction today. Join us for Correction* Seminar 3, as Bosque reflects on public health interventions and shares the history of radical acupuncture, the People’s Program, and the potential for political education and building public health infrastructure through collective care practices. Bosque’s presentation will be accompanied by a response and conversation with Monxo López, curator, cartographer, South Bronx-based environmental activist, and co-founder of South Bronx Unite.

As part of this program, we will also be screening excerpts from Jenna Bliss’s 2018 documentary, The People’s Detox, which explores and preserves the history of this revolutionary drug clinic and its impact on contemporary notions of care and recovery. To watch the full version of The People’s Detox, contact Jenna Bliss at jenna@jennabliss.com

Walter Bosque is a licensed acupuncturist and a certified NADA trainer after joining this field in the early 1970s. He entered this work as a member of the acupuncture collective at the Lincoln Hospital Detox program that developed the now widely practiced NADA protocol. He was one of the first American students to graduate from the Quebec Institute of Acupuncture in 1977, and the first Puerto Rican to be licensed to practice acupuncture in the state of California in 1979. This year marks 45 years that Walter has been bringing acupuncture and Tai Chi Chuan to underserved populations in New York City.

Walter’s additional accolades of note include serving as Assistant Director of the Tri-State Acupuncture Institute from 1980-1985 and on the Board of the Tri-State College of Acupuncture from 2016-2018. In 1991 he returned to the Health and Hospital Corporation in New York City as a Detox Specialist at the Governor Hospital. Now retired, he continues to volunteer and participate in free community clinics and programs throughout Puerto Rico and New York City with SAPP collective (Salud y Acupuntura Para el Pueblo), New York Harm Reduction Educators (HYHRE), Friends of Brook Park, and Acupuncturists Without Borders (AWB). This important community work was prominently featured in the 2020 documentary film ‘Dope is Death.’ In 2021, he became the Treasurer of the reinvigorated Black Acupuncture Advisory Association of North America (BAAANA), an organization that originated in 1979 to continue the more revolutionary work begun at Lincoln Detox after the radical origins were suppressed. Walter remains an elder activist in his community.

Monxo López is a museum curator, urban thinker, educator, cartographer, and South Bronx-based environmental and urban justice activist. He is currently an associate curator at the Museum of the City of New York. Monxo holds a PhD in political science from CUNY’s Graduate Center and an MA from Université Laval in Québec, Canada. He taught Latinx Studies and political science in Hunter College, and was a Mapping Fellow at the Design Trust for Public Spaces.

Monxo is a founding member of South Bronx Unite, and a founding member and board member of the Mott Haven/Port Morris Community Land Stewards. He also serves on the board of the Cooper Square Community Land Trust on the Lower East Side. Monxo was born and grew up in Puerto Rico, and lives in Mott Haven in the South Bronx.