FACT SHEET

by | Aug 3, 2022 | History

  • The Raza Unida Party (RUP) emerged as part of a new social movement during the late 1960s and the early 1970s that included Mexican-origin causes for workers, land, women, youth and voters.
  • The young leadership of the San Antonio-founded and based Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) that included Mario Compean, Juan Patlán, Ignacio Perez, José
  • Angel Gutiérrez, and Willie Velasquez flexed their civil rights muscles by helping to organize several school walkouts in South Texas, three in San Antonio alone.
  • The Crystal City walkout of 1969 led to the formation of the Raza Unida Party as a regional political party only to be outlawed by the State of Texas in 1970.
  • In 1969 and 1971 candidates in San Antonio under the banner of the Committee for Barrio Betterment carried every West Side precinct in the municipal elections. Mario Compean came within 200 votes of forcing then Mayor Walter McAllister into a run-off.
  • By 1972 the MAYO leadership successfully developed a statewide campaign to obtain thousands of notarized signatures from registered voters to establish the RUP.
  • The RUP filed candidates for numerous statewide offices in 1972, including Governor, Lt. Governor, U.S. Senator, Texas State Board of Education, State Representatives and Senators and dozens of local elected positions.
  • Ramiro “Ramsey” Muñiz, an attorney originally from Corpus Christi, added to the enthusiasm in the Party, with electrifying speeches throughout the state as a candidate for Texas governor in 1972 and 1974.
  • In San Antonio, Mario Compean became the founding Party State Chair and Rosie Castro became the Bexar County Chair while Maria Elena Martinez of Austin was elected the State Chair in 1976, the first woman to ever lead a political party in the State.
  • During the Labor Day weekend of 1972, 1,300 delegates—about one-half of whom were women-from 17 states and the District of Columbia gathered in El Paso, Texas to form the national Raza Unida Party. They elected Jose Angel Gutierrez as the National Chairman.
  • The 1972 Convention included Raza Unida Party activists from other parts of the country, especially California and Colorado. In Colorado, Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales, the founder of the Crusade For Justice, led Party activities in Denver. In California, the RUP established an important stronghold in the County of Los Angeles where activists maintained as many as 20 different chapters.
  • The Raza Unida Party recorded its strongest presence in Texas from 1972 to 1980. The Party ran successful elections especially in several rural like Uvalde, Zavala, La Salle, Frio, Dimmit, Hidalgo, and El Paso. The votes cast for the RUP candidates weakened the Democratic Party which led Democrats—with help from Republicans in the Texas Legislature—to outlaw the Raza Unida Party from ballot status by 1981.
  • The Raza Unida Party made important contributions to history. It affirmed Chicano claims for equal rights and helped convince American institutions, including the Democratic Party, that they could not continue to dismiss or disregard them.
  • The RUP contributed in other ways, by training election clerks, voter registrars, poll watchers, candidates, precinct chairs, and organizers that continue to be active and successful in electoral politics to this day.
  • The Party also internationalized the Chicano Movement with official diplomatic trips to many countries. Relations with the Mexican government led to the Becas Para Aztlán which trained dozens of Chicano students to become medical doctors and PhDs.
  • The RUP also addressed patriarchal views and practices in society and within the Party, and helped give voice to women’s issues, especially after the formation of Mujeres por La Raza in 1973.
  • The legacy of the Chicano Movement and the RUP lives on in existing academic programs, especially Chicano Studies, countless publications, movies, documentaries, encyclopedias, exhibits and elected officials, mostly in the Democratic Party.
  • The Conference is passing on a Legacy of political empowerment for Chicano Self-Determination and the Torch of Struggle with Strategic Visioning and Analysis to the current generation of youth. We gather where it all started—in San Antonio—to kick off the 2022 Hispanic Heritage Month celebration.

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