Biography
Chicago Puerto Rican Cultural Center co-founder and director, MLN organizer, and brother of Oscar López Rivera. Contemporary reporting and the 1977 appellate decision document his civil-contempt imprisonment beginning August 17, 1977 for refusing grand-jury identification procedures. The previously stored June 30, 1983 arrest was unsupported: contemporary coverage dates a raid on his school and cultural center, not his arrest. Exact release remains unresolved.
Grand-jury custody chronology corrected
The Seventh Circuit's original 1977 decision identifies Oscar López as the brother of appellant José López. It confirms civil-contempt commitment to U.S. Marshal custody after refusal of the oath and requested identification procedures, and denial of bail. Contemporary September 16, 1977 reporting individually names López as jailed August 17 and still imprisoned. August 17 is entered as actual incarceration, not a separately documented criminal arrest. Original appellate opinion, 565 F.2d 407; Contemporary Militant, September 16, 1977, page 2.
The old June 30, 1983 arrest date is removed. Contemporary July 15 reporting dates the school and cultural-center raid to June 30 and quotes López as director; its four arrested people are Alberto Rodríguez, José Luis Rodríguez, Edwin Cortés and Alejandrina Torres, not López. The stored civil-contempt row is corrected to his documented 1977 imprisonment rather than treated as a proven separate 1983 arrest. The previously assigned Chicago MCC institution is not independently established by these records and is left unknown. Militant, July 15, 1983, page 2. A 1984 campaign roster likewise labels López a 1977–78 grand-jury resister. Contemporary campaign roster.
His first-person biography recalls seven months jailed and mentions June 1978 release, but its surrounding chronology is internally inconsistent. No exact release, day count, or back-calculated admission is entered from that recollection. The low-resolution photograph accompanying that identified autobiography is reproduced unaltered with source credit; photographer and capture date are unknown, and it is not labeled a prison-intake or 1980s photograph. José López, Making the Impossible Happen, in his own words.
The Witness, March 1978, page 19, specifically reports José López and Roberto Caldero released when the Chicago grand jury expired at the end of January. It says they had been moved from the Chicago Metropolitan Correctional Center to unnamed county jails before release. This contemporaneous January 1978 outcome differs from the internally inconsistent later autobiographical recollection mentioning June 1978; no exact day or day count is adopted, and the source conflict remains explicit.
The Chicago report names JoseLopez with Myrna as RafaelCancelMirandaHighSchool teachers facing possible contempt imprisonment for refusing to testify. This March forecast precedes his independently documented August17,1977 confinement and is not entered as an earlier accomplished jail admission.
