1. Photographs of LULAC Members
Just a generation removed from the US invasion of Mexico (1840s) and the end of chattel slavery in the United States (1860s), the economy of late 1800s and early 1900s Texas relied heavily upon the hard labor of poorly-paid Black and Latino workers, who drove cattle, cleared brush for agriculture, and harvested cotton, among other jobs.
The marginalization of these Texans was not just economic. Many Texas businesses and other public spaces segregated Mexican Americans and African Americans from their Anglo/white counterparts—or excluded them altogether, posting signs that read “No Dogs, No Negros, No Mexicans.” Texas cities, meanwhile, segregated their neighborhoods and schools through a combination of discriminatory laws, housing practices, and “English-only” education policies.
As in the Jim Crow South, white supremacy throughout the Southwestern US was also maintained through widespread violence and terror. In Texas alone, there are hundreds of documented lynchings and other murders of people of Mexican descent at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), the Texas Rangers, police, and vigilantes—much of it in the 1910s.
In the 1920s, the KKK became a mainstream, national organization. Its members paraded through the streets of Washington, DC, and of Austin—and burned crosses at Doddridge and Ocean in Corpus Christi. Then, when the Great Depression hit in 1929, local, state, and federal US government officials forcefully deported nearly 2 million people of Mexican descent—more than half of them US citizens.
It was in this context that three existing Mexican American organizations – the Order of the Sons of America, the Knights of America, and the League of Latin American Citizens – merged to form the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).
Founded in Corpus Christi in 1929, LULAC is now the largest and longest-standing Mexican American civil rights organization in the United States.
Below are photographs of LULAC members, ranging from 1929 to the present.
Photographs of LULAC Members
1929: LULAC founding members in Corpus Christi, Texas.
2005: LULAC student member Procora Villa at an immigrant rights march attended by hundreds of high school students in Arlington, Texas.
2006: LULAC national President Hector Flores, along with 100,000 other immigrant rights protestors in Dallas, Texas. Believed to be the largest civil rights protest in Dallas history, the “Mega March,” was just one of many across the US.
2019: LULAC CEO Sindy Benavides (in red) and other members protest with "babies in cages" outside of US Senator Ron Johnson's office in opposition to the US government's family separation policies, as part of LULAC's 90th anniversary conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
SOURCES:
Ben Garza Collection, League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) Archives Part 1: Presidential Papers, Benson Latin American Collection, LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections, The University of Texas at Austin
Castillo, José L. [Arlington protester shouting into microphone], photograph, April 1, 2005; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth23340/: accessed February 16, 2025), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.
Castillo, José L. [Protesters and Domingo Garcia with megaphone], photograph, April 9, 2006; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth23121/: accessed February 16, 2025), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.
Diaz de León, Stephanie, "LULAC CEO Sindy Benavides addresses protesters Friday morning in Milwaukee," July 12, 2019, Madison 365.