1. Other Civil Rights Movements

2. The Women’s Movement Feminism
Friedan (February 4, 1921 – February 4, 2006) was an American writer, activist, and feminist.
A leading figure in the women's movement in the United States, her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique is often credited with sparking the "second wave" of American feminism in the 20th century. In 1966, Friedan founded and was elected the first president of the National Organization for Women, which aimed to bring women "into the mainstream of American society now [in] fully equal partnership with men".
In 1970, after stepping down as NOW's first president, Friedan organized the nation-wide Women's Strike for Equality on August 26, the 50th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution granting women the right to vote. The national strike was successful beyond expectations in broadening the feminist movement; the march led by Friedan in New York City alone attracted over 50,000 women and men. In 1971, Friedan joined other leading feminists to establish the National Women's Political Caucus. Friedan was also a strong supporter of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution that passed the United States House of Representatives (by a vote of 354–24) and Senate (84–8) following intense pressure by women's groups led by NOW in the early 1970s. Following Congressional passage of the amendment Friedan advocated for ratification of the amendment in the states and supported other women's rights reforms. Friedan founded the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws but was later critical of the abortion-centered positions of many liberal feminists.
Regarded as an influential author and intellectual in the United States, Friedan remained active in politics and advocacy for the rest of her life, authoring six books. As early as the 1960s Friedan was critical of polarized and extreme factions of feminism that attacked groups such as men and homemakers. One of her later books, The Second Stage (1981), critiqued what Friedan saw as the extremist excesses of some feminists who could be broadly classified as gender feminists.

3. --The Feminine Mystique --National Organization for Women (NOW)
The Feminine Mystique is a nonfiction book by Betty Friedan, first published in 1963, which is widely credited with sparking the beginning of second-wave feminism in the United States.
In 1957, Friedan was asked to conduct a survey of her former Smith College classmates for their 15th anniversary reunion; the results, in which she found that many of them were unhappy with their lives as housewives, prompted her to begin research for The Feminine Mystique, conducting interviews with other suburban housewives, as well as researching psychology, media, and advertising. She originally intended to publish an article on the topic, not a book, but no magazine would publish her article.
The Feminine Mystique begins with an introduction describing what Friedan called "the problem that has no name"—the widespread unhappiness of women in the 1950s and early 1960s. It discusses the lives of several housewives from around the United States who were unhappy despite living in material comfort and being married with children.
Chapter 1: Friedan points out that the average age of marriage was dropping and the birthrate was increasing for women throughout the 1950s, yet the widespread unhappiness of women persisted, although American culture insisted that fulfillment for women could be found in marriage and housewifery; this chapter concludes by declaring "We can no longer ignore that voice within women that says: 'I want something more than my husband and my children and my home.'"
Chapter 2: Friedan shows that the editorial decisions concerning women's magazines were being made mostly by men, who insisted on stories and articles that showed women as either happy housewives or unhappy, neurotic careerists, thus creating the "feminine mystique"—the idea that women were naturally fulfilled by devoting their lives to being housewives and mothers. Friedan notes that this is in contrast to the 1930s, at which time women's magazines often featured confident and independent heroines, many of whom were involved in careers.
Chapter 3: Friedan recalls her own decision to conform to society's expectations by giving up her promising career in psychology to raise children, and shows that other young women still struggled with the same kind of decision. Many women dropped out of school early to marry, afraid that if they waited too long or became too educated, they would not be able to attract a husband.[8]
Chapter 4: Friedan discusses early American feminists and how they fought against the assumption that the proper role of a woman was to be solely a wife and mother. She notes that they secured important rights for women, including education, the right to pursue a career, and the right to vote.
The editorials became more political under her leadership, taking a strong anti-war stance and occasionally causing controversy.[ She graduated summa cum laude in 1942, majoring in psychology
In 1943, she spent a year at the University of California, Berkeley having won a fellowship to undertake graduate work in psychology with Erik Erikson. She became more politically active, continuing to mix with Marxists (many of her friends were investigated by the FBI Friedan claims in her memoirs that her boyfriend at the time pressured her into turning down a Ph.D fellowship for further study and abandoning her academic career.
After leaving Berkeley, Friedan became a journalist for leftist and labor union publications. Between 1943 and 1946 she wrote for The Federated Press and between 1946 and 1952 she worked for the United Electrical Workers UE News. One of her assignments was to report on the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Friedan was dismissed from the union newspaper UE News in 1952, because she was pregnant with her second child. After leaving UE News, she became a freelance writer, and wrote for various magazines, including Cosmopolitan.
According to Daniel Horowitz, Friedan's time as a labor journalist was when she first became aware of women's oppression and exclusion, although Friedan herself disputed this interpretation of her work.
For her 15th college reunion in 1957, Friedan conducted a survey of college graduates, focusing on their education, their subsequent experiences and satisfaction with their current lives. She started publishing articles about what she called "the problem that has no name," and got passionate responses from many housewives grateful that they were not alone in experiencing this problem.[
"The shores are strewn with the casualties of the feminine mystique. They did give up their own education to put their husbands through college, and then, maybe against their own wishes, ten or fifteen years later, they were left in the lurch by divorce. The strongest were able to cope more or less well, but it wasn’t that easy for a woman of forty-five or fifty to move ahead in a profession and make a new life for herself and her children or herself alone."]
Friedan then decided to rework and expand this topic into a book, The Feminine Mystique Published in 1963, it depicted the roles of women in industrial societies , especially the full-time homemaker role, which Friedan deemed stifling. Friedan speaks of her own 'terror' at being alone, and observes in her life never once seeing a positive female role-model who worked and also kept a family. She provides numerous accounts of housewives who feel similarly trapped. With her psychology background, Friedan offers a critique of Freuds penis envy theory, noting a lot of paradoxes in his work. And she attempts to offer some answers to women who wish to pursue an education.
Betty Friedan
--The Feminine Mystique
--National Organization for Women (NOW)

4. --“After Black Power, Women’s Liberation” 1969 --Founded Ms. Magazine
Gloria Marie Steinem (born March 25, 1934) is an American feminist, journalist, and social and political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader of, and media spokeswoman for, the women's liberation movement in the late 1960s and 1970s. A prominent writer and political figure, Steinem has founded many organizations and projects and has been the recipient of many awards and honors. She was a columnist for New York magazine and co-founded Ms. magazine. In 1969, she published an article, "After Black Power, Women's Liberation"[2] which, along with her early support of abortion rights, catapulted her to national fame as a feminist leader.
In 2005, Steinem worked alongside Jane Fonda and Robin Morgan to co-found the Women's Media Center, an organization that works to amplify the voices of women in the media through advocacy, media and leadership training, and the creation of original content. Steinem currently serves on the board of the organization. She continues to involve herself in politics and media affairs as a commentator, writer, lecturer, and organizer, campaigning for candidates and reforms and publishing books and articles.
Gloria Steinem
--“After Black Power, Women’s Liberation” 1969
--Founded Ms. Magazine

5. Important Events: Equal Pay Act 1963 Civil Rights Act 1964
CT v. Griswold 1965
Title IX
Roe v. Wade 1973
Equal Rights Amendment
Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965),[1] is a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Constitution protected a right to privacy. The case involved a Connecticut law that prohibited the use of contraceptives. By a vote of 7–2, the Supreme Court invalidated the law on the grounds that it violated the "right to marital privacy".
Although the Bill of Rights does not explicitly mention "privacy", Justice William O. Douglas wrote for the majority that the right was to be found in the "penumbras" and "emanations" of other constitutional protections. Justice Arthur Goldberg wrote a concurring opinion in which he used the Ninth Amendment to defend the Supreme Court's ruling. Justice Arthur Goldberg and Justice John Marshall Harlan II wrote concurring opinions in which they argued that privacy is protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Byron White also wrote a concurrence based on the due process clause.
Two Justices, Hugo Black and Potter Stewart, filed dissents. Justice Black argued that the right to privacy is to be found nowhere in the Constitution. Furthermore, he criticized the interpretations of the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments to which his fellow Justices adhered. Justice Stewart called the Connecticut statute "an uncommonly silly law" but argued that it was nevertheless constitutional.
Since Griswold, the Supreme Court has cited the right to privacy in several rulings, most notably in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), where the Court ruled that a woman's choice to have an abortion was protected as a private decision between her and her doctor. For the most part, the Court has made these later rulings on the basis of Justice Harlan's substantive due process rationale.
Estelle Griswold (Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut) and Dr. C. Lee Buxton (a physician and professor at the Yale School of Medicine) opened a birth control clinic in New Haven, Connecticut, in order to test the contraception law once again. Shortly after the clinic was opened, Griswold and Buxton were arrested, tried, found guilty, and fined $100 each. The conviction was upheld by the Appellate Division of the Circuit Court, and by the Connecticut Supreme Court. Griswold then appealed her conviction to the Supreme Court of the United States. Griswold argued that the Connecticut statute against the use of contraceptives was contrary to the 14th Amendment, which states, "no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law...nor deny any person the equal protection of the laws," (Amendment 14 Section 1). The U.S. Supreme Court concluded that the Connecticut Statute was unconstitutional.

6. Latino Civil Rights Movement
Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475 (1954),[1] was a landmark United States Supreme Court case that decided that Mexican Americans and all other racial groups in the United States had equal protection under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
[edit] Background
Pedro Hernandez, a Mexican agricultural worker, was convicted for the murder of Joe Espinosa. Hernandez's legal team set out to demonstrate that the jury could not be impartial unless members of non-Caucasian races were allowed on the jury-selecting committees; no Mexican American had been on a jury for more than 25 years in Jackson County, the Texas county in which the case was tried. Hernandez and his lawyers appealed to the Texas Supreme court, and appealed again to the United States Supreme Court. The legal team included Gustavo C. Garcia, Carlos Cadena, James DeAnda, , and John J. Herrera.
[edit] Ruling
Chief Justice Earl Warren and the rest of the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of Hernandez, and required he be retried with a jury composed without regard to ethnicity. The Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment protects those beyond the racial classes of white or black, and extends to other racial groups
Mendez, et al v. Westminster School District was a 1946 federal court case that challenged racial segregation in Orange County, California schools. In its ruling, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in an en banc decision, held that the segregation of Mexican and Mexican American students into separate "Mexican schools" was unconstitutional.
Five Mexican-American fathers (Thomas Estrada, William Guzman, Gonzalo Mendez, Frank Palomino, and Lorenzo Ramirez) challenged the practice of school segregation in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. They claimed that their children, along with 5,000 other children of "Mexican" ancestry, were victims of unconstitutional discrimination by being forced to attend separate "schools for Mexicans" in the Westminster, Garden Grove, Santa Ana, and El Modena school districts of Orange County. The plaintiffs were represented by an established Jewish American civil rights attorney, David Marcus. Funding for the lawsuit was primarily paid for initially by the lead plaintiff Gonzalo Mendez who began the lawsuit when his three children were denied entrance to their local Westminster school.[1]
Senior District Judge Paul J. McCormick, sitting in Los Angeles, presided at the trial and ruled in favor of Mendez and his co-plaintiffs on February 18, 1946, finding segregated schools to be an unconstitutional denial of equal protection.[2] The school district appealed to the Ninth Federal District Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which upheld Judge McCormick's decision, finding that the segregation practices violated the Fourteenth Amendment. Governor Earl Warren, who would later become Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court and preside over Brown vs. Board of Education, signed into law the repeal of remaining segregationist provisions in the California statutes. Several organizations joined the appellate case as amicus curiae, including the NAACP, represented by Thurgood Marshall and Robert L. Carter.[3] More than a year later, on April 14, 1947, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's ruling, but not on equal protection grounds. It did not challenge the "separate but equal" interpretation of the 14th Amendment announced by the U.S. Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896.
The Ninth Circuit ruled only on the narrow grounds: although California law provided for segregation of students, it did so only for "children of Chinese, Japanese or Mongolian parentage." Because "California law does not include the segregation of school children because of their Mexican blood," the ruling held that it was unlawful to segregate the Mexican children.
Presumably, a similar lawsuit filed by "Chinese, Japanese or Mongolian" children in segregated schools would have had the opposite result. This was remedied in California later that same year, on June 14, 1947, when California Governor Earl Warren signed a law repealing the remaining school segregation statutes in the California Education Code.
Seven years later, in Brown v. Board of Education, Earl Warren, by then the Chief Justice of the United States, wrote the unanimous decision holding "separate but equal" schools to be unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.
Pedro Hernandez
Mendez v. Westminster (1946)
Hernandez v. Texas (1954)

8. Cesar Chavez Field worker until 1952
Co-founded the UFW with Dolores Huerta (1962)
Led grape pickers march from Delano to Sacramento (1965) ; encouraged Americans to boycott table grapes--strike lasted 5 years and ended with union recognition & better wages (1970)
Undertook many "spiritual fasts", regarding the act as “a personal spiritual transformation”; influenced by Catholic tradition of doing penance & by Gandhi’s fasts and emphasis of nonviolence.
Continued to organize strikes & boycotts—including the Salad Bowl strike, the largest farm worker strike in U.S. history—won higher wages for grape & lettuce workers ( )
Chavez worked in the fields until 1952, when he became an organizer for the Community Service Organization (CSO), a Latino civil rights group. He was hired and trained by Fred Ross as an organizer targeting police brutality. Chavez urged Mexican Americans to register & vote, and he traveled throughout CAand made speeches in support of workers' rights. He later became CSO's national director in 1958.
In 1962, Chavez left the CSO and co-founded the UFW with Dolores Huerta. When Filipino American farm workers initiated the Delano grape strike in1965, to protest for higher wages, Chavez eagerly supported them. Six months later, Chavez and the NFWA led a strike of California grape pickers on the historic farmworkers march from Delano to the California state capitol in Sacramento for similar goals. The UFW encouraged all Americans to boycott table grapes as a show of support. The strike lasted five years and attracted nat’l attention. March 1966, the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor & Public Welfare's Subcommittee on Migratory Labor held hearings in California on the strike. During the hearings, member Robert F. Kennedy expressed his support for the striking workers. These activities led to similar movements in Southern Texas & the Midwest.
In the early 1970s, the UFW organized strikes and boycotts—including the Salad Bowl strike, the largest farm worker strike in U.S. history—to protest for, and later win, higher wages for those farm workers who were working for grape and lettuce growers. The union also won passage of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act, which gave collective bargaining rights to farm workers. During the 1980s, Chavez led a boycott to protest the use of toxic pesticides on grapes. Bumper stickers reading "NO GRAPES" and "UVAS NO" (the translation in Spanish) were widespread.
Chavez undertook a number of "spiritual fasts", regarding the act as “a personal spiritual transformation”. In 1968, he fasted for 25 days, promoting the principle of nonviolence. In 1970, Chavez began a fast of "thanksgiving and hope" to prepare for pre-arranged civil disobedience by farm workers.[Also in 1972, he fasted in response to Arizona’s passage of legislation that prohibited boycotts and strikes by farm workers during the harvest seasons. These fasts were influenced by the Catholic tradition of doing penance and by Gandhi’s fasts and emphasis of nonviolence.
Chavez was a vegan because he believed in animal rights and also for his health.
The Delano Grape Strike was a strike, boycott, and secondary boycott led by the United Farm Workers (UFW) against growers of table grapes in California. The strike began on September 8, 1965, and lasted more than five years. The strike was significant victory for the UFW, leading to a first contract with these growers.
The strike began when the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, mostly Filipino farm workers in Delano, California, led by Philip Vera Cruz, Larry Itliong, Benjamin Gines and Pete Velasco, walked off the farms of area table-grape growers, demanding wages equal to the federal minimum wage. One week after the strike began, the predominantly Mexican-American National Farmworkers Association joined the strike, and eventually the two groups merged, forming the United Farm Workers of America in August Quickly, the strike spread to over 2,000 workers.
Through its grassroots efforts—utilizing consumer boycotts, marches, community organizing and nonviolent resistance—the movement gained national attention for the plight of some of the nation's lowest-paid workers. By 1970, the UFW had succeeded in reaching a collective bargaining agreement with the table-grape growers, affecting in excess of 10,000 farm workers.
As a result of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee’s decision to strike against Delano grape growers on September 8, 1965, Chavez held a conference in the Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, on September 16 which is the Mexican Independence Day, in order to allow the National Farm Workers Association to decide for themselves whether or not to join the struggle at Delano. An estimated crowd of more than twelve hundred supporters and members of Chavez’s organization repeatedly chanted, “Huelga!” the Spanish word for strike, in favor of supporting the Delano grape farmers.
On March 17, 1966 Cesar Chavez embarked on a three hundred mile pilgrimage from Delano, California to the state’s capital of Sacramento. This was an attempt to pressure the growers and the state government to answer the demands of the Mexican and Filipino farm workers which represented the Filipino-dominated Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee and the Mexican-dominated National Farm Workers Association, led by Cesar Chavez. The pilgrimage was also intended to bring public attention to the farm worker’s cause. Shortly after this, the National Farm Workers Association and the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee merged and became known as the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee.
After a record harvest in the fall of 1965 left activists and strikers with nothing to protest since the workers left the fields as the grape season drew to a close, Chavez turned to a different tactic of protest. His solution was to send two workers and a student activist to follow a grape shipment from one of the picketed growers to the end destination at the Oakland docks. Once there, the protestors were instructed to persuade the longshoremen not to load the shipment of grapes. The group was successful in its action, and this resulted in the spoilage of a thousand ten-ton cases of grapes which were left to rot on the docks. This event sparked the decision to use the protest tactic of boycotting as the means by which the labor movement would win the struggle against the Delano grape growers.[
This initial successful boycott was followed by a series of picket lines on Bay Area docks. The International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union, whose members were responsible for loading the shipments, cooperated with the protesters and refused to load nonunion grapes.[5]
Chavez’s successful boycotting campaigns in the docks inspired him to launch a formal boycott against the two largest corporations which were involved in the Delano grape industry, Schenley Industries and the DiGiorgio Corporation.
Starting in December 1965, Chavez’s organization protested in several consumer boycotts against the Schenley corporation. The increase pressure from supporters in the business sector led to the farm workers’ victory and acquisition of union contracts that immediately raised wages and established a hiring hall.
The DiGiorgio Corporation was finally pressured into holding an election amongst its workers allowing them to choose the union they wanted to represent them on August 30, This came as a result of the boycott tactic of blocking grape distribution centers. With their products not on the shelves of retailers as a result of the boycott, the DiGiorgio Corporation was pressured to answer to the demands of the farm workers. The result of the vote favored the union representation of the UFW, a 530 to 332 vote, against the representation of The Teamsters, which was the only union that was competing against the UFW in the election.[5]

9. Dolores Huerta Co-founded UFW with Chavez (1962)
Directed the UFW's national boycott during the Delano Grape Strike ( )
Negotiated contract w/ Schenley Wine Company; first time farm workers effectively bargained with an agricultural enterprise (1966)
In 1955, Huerta co-founded the Stockton chapter of the Community Service Organization, (CSO) and in 1960 co-founded the Agricultural Workers Association which set up voter registration drives and pressed local governments for barrio improvements.
Through her work with the CSO Dolores met Cesar Chavez the Executive Director of the CSO. The two soon both realize the need to organize farm workers. In 1962, after the CSO turned down Cesar's request, as their president, to organize farm workers, Cesar and Dolores resigned from the CSO. With Cesar Chavez she co-founded the National Farm Workers Association which would later merge with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to become the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee. Dolores' organizing skills were essential to the growth of this budding organization.
In 1965, Huerta directed the UFW's national boycott during the Delano grape strike, taking the plight of the farm workers to the consumers. The boycott resulted in the entire California table grape industry signing a three-year collective bargaining agreement with the United Farm Workers in In 1966, she negotiated a contract between the UFWOC and Schenley Wine Company, marking the first time that farm workers were able to effectively bargain with an agricultural enterprise.
In addition to organizing she has been highly politically active, lobbying in favor of (and against) numerous California and federal laws. The laws that she supported included the following:
1960 bill to permit people to take the California driver's examination in Spanish
1962 legislation repealing the Bracero Program
1963 legislation to extend Aid to Families with Dependent Children to California farmworkers
As an advocate for farmworkers' rights, Huerta has been arrested 22X for participating in non-violent civil disobedience activities and strikes. She remains active in progressive causes, and serves on the boards of People for the American Way, Consumer Federation of California, and Feminist Majority Foundation.
On June 5, 1968, Huerta stood beside Robert F. Kennedy on a speaker's platform at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles as he delivered a victory statement to his political supporters shortly after winning the California Democratic presidential primary election…. In September 1988, in front of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in Union Square, Huerta was severely beaten by San Francisco Police officers during a peaceful and lawful protest of the policies/platform of then-candidate for president George H.W. Bush. The baton-beating caused significant internal injuries to her torso, resulting in several broken ribs and necessitating the removal of her spleen in emergency surgery. The beating was caught on videotape and broadcast widely on local television news, including the clear ramming of the butt end of a baton into Huerta's torso by one of the helmeted officers. Later, Huerta won a large judgment against the SFPD and the City of San Francisco, the proceeds of which were used for the benefit of farm workers.

10. by Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales
I Am Joaquin (1967)
by Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales  
Yo soy Joaquín, I am Joaquín, lost in a world of confusion, caught up in the whirl of a gringo society, confused by the rules, scorned by attitudes, suppressed by manipulation, and destroyed by modern society. My fathers have lost the economic battle and won the struggle of cultural survival. And now! I must choose between the paradox of victory of the spirit, despite physical hunger, or to exist in the grasp of American social neurosis, sterilization of the soul and a full stomach. Yes, I have come a long way to nowhere, unwillingly dragged by that monstrous, technical, industrial giant called Progress and Anglo success.... I look at myself. I watch my brothers. I shed tears of sorrow. I sow seeds of hate. I withdraw to the safety within the circle of life -- MY OWN PEOPLE
I Am Joaquin (also known as Yo Soy Joaquin), by Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales, is a famous epic poem associated with the Chicano movement of the 1960s in the United States. In I am Joaquin, Joaquin (the narrative voice of the poem) speaks of the struggles that the Chicano people have faced in trying to achieve economic justice and equal rights in the U.S, as well as to find an identity of being part of a hybrid mestizo society. He promises that his culture will survive if all Chicano people stand proud and demand acceptance.
The Chicano movement inspired much new poetry. I Am Joaquin is one of the earliest and most widely read works associated with the movement. In its entirety, the poem describes the then modern dilemma of Chicanos in the 1960s trying to assimilate with American culture while trying to keep some semblance of their culture intact for future generations, then proceeds to outline 2000 years of Mexican and Mexican-American history, highlighting the different, often opposing strains that make up the Chicano heritage.
In 1969, it was adapted into a short film by director Luis Valdez, a leading figure in Chicano theater.

11. Latino Student protests in Los Angeles 1968
The East Los Angeles Walkouts or Chicano Blowouts were a series of 1968 protests against unequal conditions in
Los Angeles Unified School District high schools. The first protest took place on March 6. While the students who
organized and carried out the protests were primarily concerned with the quality of their education, they were also
motivated by the high minority death toll in the Vietnam War and the ongoing civil rightscampaigns of the Chicano Movement.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Mexican Americans took part in the national quest for civil rights, fighting important court
battles and building social and political movements. Mexican American youth in particular became politicized, having
taken advantage of the many opportunities their parents never had. In a radio interview, Moctesuma Esparza, one of
the original walkout organizers, talked about his experiences as a high school student fighting for Chicano rights.
Esparza first became involved in activism in 1965 after attending a youth leadership conference. He helped organize a
Group of Chicano teenagers, Young Citizens for Community Action. This group eventually evolved into Young Chicanos
For Community Action, then later the Brown Berets, but still fought for Mexican-American equality in California. Esparza
graduated 12th grade in 1967, then continued on to UCLA. There, he and his fellow Chicano students continued
organizing protests. He and eleven friends started a group called UMAS. UMAS traveled around to universities
recruiting Chicano students who wanted to help increase Chicano enrollment in college. UMAS members decided
to separate into smaller groups, and have each small group go and mentor kids at certain L.A. high schools. These
high schoolers soon became upset as they realized how unfairly they were being treated by the school board. Wanting
to do something to improve their school system, they decided to get organized. Esparza and a few other UMAS
members, along with teacher Sal Castro, helped organize hundreds of students in the 1968 walkouts. After only a few
days, walkout participation increased dramatically and the Chicano students were on their way to better and fairer
treatment.

12. Partido Nacional de La Raza Unida (National United Peoples Party)
American political party centered on Chicano nationalism
Campaigned for better housing, work, and educational opportunities for Mexican-Americans.
During the late 1970s the La Raza Unida Party decided to change tactic from a "get out the vote" organization to a more community based, grassroots, Revolutionary Nationalist formation seeking the unity of all Chicano, Latino and Native American peoples of the Southwestern United States which is commonly referred to as Aztlan by proponents of the views of the Party, but not by non-Chicano, Latino and Native American peoples.[ During the same time Xenaro Ayala was voted in as National Chairman. In 1978 Mario Compean ran for governor of Texas but received only 15,000 votes, or 0.6%. The party party held a second national convention in which Juan Jose Pena was elected chairman in However, the party was effectively eliminated from electoral politics after the 1978 showing.

13. Battle for Immigrants’ Rights

14. The American Indian Movement (AIM)
Occupation of
Alcatraz 1969
Early morning 11/20/69, 79 American Indians, including students, married couples and six children, set out to occupy Alcatraz Island. A partially successful Coast Guard blockade prevented most of them from landing, but fourteen protesters landed on the island to begin their occupation.
The protesters, predominately students, drew inspiration and tactics from contemporary civil rights demonstrations, some of which they had themselves organized.. The first landing party was joined later by many others in the following days, including Joe Morris (a key player later as a representative of the Longshoreman's Union, which threatened to close both ports if the Occupiers were removed), and the man who would soon become 'the Voice of Alcatraz,' John Trudell.
After a fire destroyed a San Francisco Indian center and Interior Secretary Walter J. Hickel offered to turn Alcatraz into a national park, the protesters mobilized.
The stated intention of the Occupation was to gain Indian control over the island for the purpose of building a center for Native American Studies, an American Indian spiritual center, an ecology center, and an American Indian Museum. The occupiers specifically cited their treatment under the Indian termination policy and they accused the U.S. government of breaking numerous Indian treaties.
By late May, the government had cut off all electrical power and all telephone service to the island. In June, a fire of disputed origin destroyed numerous buildings on the island.[Left without power, fresh water, and in the face of diminishing public support and sympathy, the number of occupiers began to dwindle. On June 11, 1971, a large force of government officers removed the remaining 15 people from the island.
Though fraught with controversy and forcibly ended, the Occupation is hailed by many as a success for having attained international attention for the situation of native peoples in the United States,] and for sparking more than 200 instances of civil disobedience among Native Americans.
The Occupation of Alcatraz had a direct effect on federal Indian policy and, with its visible results, established a precedent for Indian activism.
While the Nixon administration did not accede to the demands of the protesters, it was aware of the delicate nature of the situation, and so could not forcibly remove them. Spurred in part by Spiro Agnew’s support for Native American rights, federal policy began to progress away from termination and toward Indian autonomy. Nixon’s attitude toward Indian affairs soured with the November 2, 1972, occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Nixon reputedly felt betrayed, and claimed that “he was through doing things to help Indians.”
Much of the Indian rights activism of the period can be traced to the Occupation of Alcatraz. The Trail of Broken Treaties, the BIA occupation, the Wounded Knee incident, and the Longest Walk all have their roots in the occupation. The American Indian Movement noted from their visit to the occupation that the demonstration garnered national attention, while those involved faced no punitive action. When AIM members seized the Mayflower II on Thanksgiving, 1970, the Occupation of Alcatraz was noted as “the symbol of a newly awakened desire among Indians for unity and authority in a white world.”

15. Wounded Knee II 1973
The Wounded Knee incident began February 27, 1973 when about 200 Oglala Lakota and followers of the American Indian Movement (AIM) seized and occupied the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. They protested the United States government's failure to fulfill treaties with Indian peoples and demanded the reopening of treaty negotiations.
Oglala and AIM activists controlled the town for 73 days while the United States Marshals Service, Federal Bureau of Investigatio agents and other law enforcement agencies cordoned off the area. The activists chose the site of the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre for its symbolic value.
Both sides were armed and shooting was frequent. An FBI agent was paralyzed from a gunshot wound early during the occupation, and later died from complications; a Cherokee and an Oglala Lakota were killed by shootings in April Ray Robinson, a civil rights activist who joined the protesters, disappeared during the events and is believed to have been murdered. Due to damage to the houses, the small community was not reoccupied until the 1990s.
The occupation attracted wide media coverage, especially after the press accompanied two US Senators from South Dakota to Wounded Knee. The events electrified American Indians, who were inspired by the sight of their people standing in defiance of the government which had so often failed them. Many Indian supporters traveled to Wounded Knee to join the protest. At the time there was widespread public sympathy for the goals of the occupation, as Americans were becoming more aware of longstanding issues of injustice related to American Indians. Afterward AIM leaders Dennis Banks and Russell Means were indicted on charges related to the events, but their 1974 case was dismissed by the federal court for prosecutorial misconduct, a decision upheld on appeal.

16. The Gay Rights Movement

17. Stonewall
Riots

18. New Organizations Form
The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the gay community against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. They are widely considered to constitute the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for gay and lesbian rights in the United States.
American gays and lesbians in the 1950s and 1960s faced a legal system more anti-homosexual than those of some Warsaw Pact countries. Early homophile groups in the U.S. sought to prove that gay people could be assimilated into society, and they favored non-confrontational education for homosexuals and heterosexuals alike. The last years of the 1960s, however, were very contentious, as many social movements were active, including the African American Civil Rights Movement, the Counterculture of the 1960s, and antiwar demonstrations. These influences, along with the liberal environment of Greenwich Village, served as catalysts for the Stonewall riots.
Very few establishments welcomed openly gay people in the 1950s and 1960s. Those that did were often bars, although bar owners and managers were rarely gay. The Stonewall Inn, at the time, was owned by the Mafia. It catered to an assortment of patrons, but it was known to be popular with the poorest and most marginalized people in the gay community: drag queens, representatives of a newly self-aware transgender community, effeminate young men, male prostitutes, and homeless youth. Police raids on gay bars were routine in the 1960s, but officers quickly lost control of the situation at the Stonewall Inn, and attracted a crowd that was incited to riot. Tensions between New York City police and gay residents of Greenwich Village erupted into more protests the next evening, and again several nights later. Within weeks, Village residents quickly organized into activist groups to concentrate efforts on establishing places for gays and lesbians to be open about their sexual orientation without fear of being arrested.
After the Stonewall riots, gays and lesbians in New York City faced gender, class, and generational obstacles to becoming a cohesive community. Within six months, two gay activist organizations were formed in New York, concentrating on confrontational tactics, and three newspapers were established to promote rights for gays and lesbians. Within a few years, gay rights organizations were founded across the U.S. and the world. On June 28, 1970, the first Gay Pride marches took place in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York commemorating the anniversary of the riots. Similar marches were organized in other cities. Today, Gay Pride events are held annually throughout the world toward the end of June to mark the Stonewall riots.[7]

19. First Gay Pride Parade June 28, 1970
Day of Silence started 1996

20. Fight for
Gay Marriage