Dominga Cruz Becerril
Dominga was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, She is well known as the “One Who Picked up the Flag” for her heroic act of “rescuing” the Puerto Rican flag that was left on the ground during the Ponce Massacre of 1937. She became a lecturer at a tobacco factory, where she was inspired by her reading of Latin American freedom movements to join the Nationalist Party in the 1930s. Cruz Becerril rebuilt the women’s sector of the movement into trained fighters. When she testified that she picked up the flag, in the midst of danger, she said “because Maestro [Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos] taught me that the flag of the homeland should never fall on the ground.” Due to government persecution, she lived the majority of her remaining years in Cuba.