By: Trevor Loudon
New Zeal
Cross-posted from KeyWiki Blog.
The Chicano Moratorium brought together 30,000 people – mainly from the Mexican American communities in the Los Angeles area – to protest the Vietnam War and “racism towards people of Mexican heritage.”
In many ways this was the birth of the modern Chicano rights movement, now so prominent in the the illegal immigration debate.
The movement was guided by Communist Party USA members like Bert Corona and Alinsky-inspired socialist sympathizers like Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta.
The following is an interview of Chicano Moratorium leader Rosalio Munoz about the significance of the Aug. 29, 1970 protest, then and now. Munoz is now chair of the Communist Party’s Mexican-American Equality Commission, the Party body charged with organizing Latino protest movements, voter registration drives and delivering the Mexican-American vote to the Democratic party.
