Remembering the Chicano Moratorium - Poster of the Week
  An Urgent Appeal! Peace Action Council Graphic: Taller de Gráfica Popular (TGP) Offset, 1970 Los Angeles, CA 1679 |
This Saturday is the 56th anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium: a movement of Chicano anti-war activists that built a broad-based coalition of Mexican American groups to organize opposition to the Viet Nam War and the disproportionate amount of Mexican-American casualties (20% of all casualties were Mexican American despite being only 10% of the American population at the time). The August 29th Chicano Moratorium in 1970 was led by activists from local colleges and members of the Brown Berets. Although the majority of attendees were Mexican American Angelinos, there were also Chicanos and Puerto Ricans from New York, Chicago, Denver, and many small towns in Texas, Arizona and New Mexico, as well as Black, Native American, and white allies. At least 30,000 marched. A police riot broke up the rally following the peaceful march, resulting in dozens of injuries, more than 200 arrests, and the deaths of Lyn Ward, José Diaz, and Rubén Salazar. Ward was a 15-year-old high school student and volunteer medic for the Brown Berets. Diaz was a young Chicano activist and member of the Brown Berets from Pico Rivera, California. Salazar was an award-winning journalist and news director of the local Spanish television station and columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Many continue to insist that Salazar was assassinated because of his ongoing investigations into rampant racism and police abuse within the LAPD and LA County Sheriff’s Department. CSPG’s Poster of the Week highlights an understudied aspect of the event: inter-movement solidarity. The poster is a letter that was sent from the Peace Action Council, one of the coalition partners organizing with the National Chicano Moratorium Committee. It requests donations to financially support the food, housing, and auto expenses of the attendees, and for the printing and issuing of promotional materials for the event. It also importantly explains the Peace Action Council’s stance of solidarity that remains a value of true solidarity today: “Because we believe the issues of poverty, racism and war to be inseperable–we have given all our support to the Chicano Moratorium.” |
About the Signatories: *Irving Sarnoff (1930-2016) was the founder and director of the Southern California Alliance for Survival, the Southern California Peace Action Council, the Mississippi Assistance Project, and the Inter-Faith Council for the United Nations. He also helped lead other peace organizations such as the Southern California World Federalists Association and Friends of the United Nations. Rosalio Muñoz (1938-) was the first Chicano student body president of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). In 1969, Muñoz refused induction and burned his draft card to protest Chicano casualties in Viet Nam. In 1970, he was co-chair of the Chicano Moratorium. During the 1980s-1990s, Muñoz was an educator in Marxist-Leninism for the Instituto del Pueblo in East L.A and he has served as the Coordinator for Latinos for Peace. *Donald Kalish (1919-2000) was an anti-war activist who helped organize a number of huge protests and served as vice-chairman of the Peace Action Council. In 1967 he helped organize the March on the Pentagon to protest the Viet Nam War and the infamous 1967 protest against President Lyndon Johnson and the Viet Nam War at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, which was attended by at least 10,000-20,000 people. He also served as a member of the University Committee on Viet Nam during his tenure as a professor of Philosophy at UCLA, and in 1969, he hired Angela Davis to teach at UCLA. During the 1980s, he also helped organize against U.S. military intervention in Nicaragua and Grenada. Sal Castro (1933-2013) was a Mexican-American educator and activist known best for his role in the 1968 East Los Angeles high school walkouts, also known as the “Chicano Blowouts.” Fifteen thousand high school students walked out to protest the poor conditions in Los Angeles Unified School District schools in East Los Angeles. Despite the peaceful nature of the protests, police attacked students on the second day, and Castro was charged with 15 counts of conspiracy to disrupt public schools and 15 counts of conspiracy to disturb the peace. The charges weren’t dropped until 1972, but Castro continued teaching and advocating for education reform. *Both Irv Sarnoff and Don Kalish were named in a 1969 FBI/COINTELPRO Memorandum, listing activists to be “neutralized” by spreading false information that they were police informants. This poster was donated last month as part of a collection of over 250 historic movement posters collected by Barbara Honig and Gary Silbiger. Thank you, Barbara and Gary! |
References:
Comments