On January 1968 I answered the call to join in the Civil Rights struggles of the era. I took leave of absence from Sandia Labs again where I had been a member of the technical staff since 1954 except for the two years I served with the Peace Corps in Peru. Vicente Ximenez, as Chairman of the President's Committee On Mexican American Affairs, had been trying to get the Bureau of the Census to plan a better job of counting the Hispanic population in the forthcoming 1970 census. He had on his staff a "guero" who just was not attuned to the problem. The bureau response to all suggestions was, "We would like do that but the computer programs do not allow it." Vicente was aware that I had a computer programming background and he asked me to come for a few months and "show the Bureau of the Census" how to program their computers so that they can do an adequate count of all people.

Within three weeks I had worked out a scheme with the Bureau of the Census which would provide an accurate count not only of Hispanics but of any identifiable group within the populace who spoke a language in the home other than English. The Bureau was pleased, Vicente was pleased and I was more than pleased with the way in which I had handled my first big assignment in behalf of La Raza. I walked into Vicente's office gave him my report and told him that I was ready to return to Albuquerque. "It was not my intention that you return." Vicente said. "I would like for you to take over as Assistant Director for Research and Development on the Committee." I called Isabel and we decided that I would make a career change. In early March David North resigned as Executive Director of the Committee and I was named in his place. In June I came home; we sold our house at 7105 Pickard Ave. NE in Albuquerque, and we purchased a home at 4321 San Marcos Dr. in Fairfax Villa, VA. My career as a civil rights activist now began in earnest.

The civil rights debate was on a Black-White nexus. There was nary a word about Native Americans, Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, or Asians. Gender concerns were still in the wilderness. There were meetings, conferences, and debates on the issue all over the nation, some friendly some not so friendly, some down right ugly and dangerous. One of these was in the lobby of the Washington Capital Hilton. John Lewis, of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, after I injected the Chicano element into the debate, came up to me and in no uncertain terms said, "The problem with you Chikanos is that you haven't paid your dues. Where are your leaders? Where did your Selma march take place?" His questions got me started on doing my home-work. I had heard about the signs in Roswell that read, "MEXICANS AND DOGS KEEP OF THE GRASS" and about the Catron Gang which had connived to steal the lands from Mexican-Americans in New Mexico and throughout the Southwest, as well as about the Gorras Blancas that had been organized to counter the infringement of the Anglos on the Hispanic community lands. I had vaguely heard of a massacre that had occurred in the early part of the twentieth century in Colorado in which Hispanic women and children were massacred. I did not know enough about any of them to make an argument. I swore I would come up with the information.

First, the Ludlow Massacres. The most tragic episode of all grew out of a strike in 1913 by United Mine Workers against the Rockefeller owned Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. In April 1914, militiamen killed eighteen people, including twelve Hispanic women and children at the town of Ludlow, Colorado. In the following weeks a total of seventy four died in sporadic warfare between management militia and labor before federal intervention finally brought an uneasy peace. The "Ludlow Massacres" caused even partisan businessmen to wince and prompted John D. Rockefeller, Jr. to re-think the way his family did business. Why to you think the Rockefeller Foundation was founded?

The Ludlow Massacres

Memorial                                Victims Names

[Another account of Ludlow follows - Ludlow Massacres, 1914

The mining camps in southern Colorado had been plagued with labor disputes between the mine owners and the laborers for many years. According to Colorado state law, miners should have been receiving benefits such as 8-hour days and safe working conditions. In reality, these laws were not being enforced. The miners and their families were forced to live in company-owned housing and to buy their food and clothing from the company-owned stores. Additionally, there were no schools for their children. The Miner's Union held a series of conferences to address these issues but the mine operators refused to attend.

On September 23, 1913 over 11,000 miners went on strike. The mine operators immediately evicted families of the striking miners from their homes. With winter just ahead, the Miner's Union set up camps to house nearly 1,000 people who had been evicted. In April of 1914 the Colorado National Guard arrived in Ludlow and the situation began to escalate out of control.

The National Guard wanted the Miner's Union to surrender two Italian men who were accused of a petty crime. The Union president refused to honor the request without an official warrant for the men's arrest. The National Guard sent a signal bomb into the crowd followed by a spray of bullets that killed five men. Later that evening, the National Guard, accustomed to looting local saloons for liquor, set fire to the tent colonies with oil soaked torches and burned them to the ground. In a dugout under the largest tent were found the bodies of eleven children and two women - one of whom was pregnant.

The state of Colorado was horrified and demanded action. Margaret "Molly" Brown arrived in Denver shortly after the massacres and firmly stated, "It makes no difference to me where I go; I am ready to go where I am needed." No matter how much the media pressured her, Margaret refused to take sides in the matter.

Margaret arranged for nurses to be sent to Ludlow, believing her strength was better put into fundraising. Margaret personally sent 200 pairs of shoes and other basic clothing for the miners and their families. She then organized a benefit to raise money for clothing and other supplies. She also organized a formal investigation committee to be sent to the scene to investigate the situation. In a series of public lectures she spoke out to bring awareness of the strike and the horrible working conditions of the miners.

Finally, she packed up her camping gear and went down to Ludlow herself. Because of her efforts, John D. Rockefeller, head of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, set plans in motion to ensure miner's safety, health, sanitation and education policies.]

Ludlow opened my eyes and I was never the same sunny dumb Mexican again. My militancy was now born. I could debate with the best of them, I could have taken on Jesse Jackson had I had the opportunity.

I do not know how I found the time but I was working full time at the Committee, going to school at night at George Washington University, and writing a Sunday column for the Houston Post entitled the "Minority No One Knows." As a result of my run-in with John Lewis, now Congressman John Lewis from Georgia, I started doing profiles of Hispanics who in my opinion had made a contribution to American life. Among the first I did was Octaviano Larrazolo, Dennis Chavez, Antonio Fernandez, and Lorenzo de Zavala. The Houston Post paid me $8.00 for each article but then the San Antonio News Express and the Kingsville Bishop Record News started the series and they paid $8.00 and $6.00 respectfully. There were other minor papers that ran the series but they did not pay me anything. (Eventually people started to suggest that I put all the articles in book form and so the book that I published in 1978, "Hispanic Notables In The United States of North America" came into being. I convinced Cliff Alexander, by then Secretary of the Army, to purchase 500 copies for all the military libraries and that paid for my publication costs. Hey, I could move mountains then.)

During the Presidential election of 1968, I was sent to the Western States and I campaigned in Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. The weekend before the election I was in Tucson in a Motel dying with pneumonia. On Tuesday we lost.

I returned to face reality in the Washington, DC bureaucracy. Somehow I found my way in the maze. Luckily I had made a smart choice. When I took over from Dave North the position he held was a Schedule C GS-17*. I took the job as a Career Conditional GS-15. Schedule C's are political appointments; Career Conditional positions are not. That decision came in handy later when I eventually transferred to the Atomic Energy Commission.

*In 1990 while en route to the Naval Air Station at Keflevik, Iceland my military flight was delayed out of New Jersey and we were put up in base quarters. I found out then that I ranked the equivalent of Lieutenant General as a former GS-17 and was assigned quarters as such. (GS-18 was the top Civil Service grade then - it was known as GS-God)

Read On!