Power to the Poor by Gordon K. Mantler

Author:Gordon K. Mantler [Mantler, Gordon K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History
ISBN: 9781469608068
Google: BUsVHJuICYUC
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 16132394
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Published: 2013-02-25T00:00:00+00:00

Mexican Americans of different stripes returned to their own roots after the Poor People’s Campaign. Many recalled going home or seeing their friends come back from the campaign “a little more militant . . . a little more energetic,” not to mention mindful of why they became activists in the first place.29 José Angel Gutiérrez, who attended early planning meetings but did not make it to Washington because of work and family commitments, remembered the excitement of his fellow members of the Mexican American Youth Organization in Texas: “They came back euphoric. It was kind of like more medals from struggles. . . . Everybody had a story to tell, of how they got beat, or how they got Maced. . . . Everybody had war stories.”30 Such stories often became useful tools to recruit other Chicano youth, an appeal to male activists’ masculinity and to everyone’s outrage. Youth fresh from the campaign, such as Andres Valdez, attempted to emulate people and groups they encountered at the Hawthorne School or Resurrection City. For Valdez, the tough, nationalistic rhetoric of the San José-based Black Berets attracted him enough to found the organization’s first Colorado chapter.31

For other organizers, the Poor People’s Campaign both energized them and precipitated a new, more culturally and politically nationalist direction of activism. This was the experience of Miguel Barragan, a Roman Catholic priest hired as a field representative of the Bishop’s Committee on the Spanish-Speaking in San Antonio. “I had to make a choice,” he recalled. “I was given the choice of staying within the Catholic Church or (the) Poor People’s Campaign. I called the PPC a moral issue. We all had to get involved and do our thing.”32 Barragan, praised by SCLC officials for organizing a contingent from central Texas to come to Washington with private money, had worked for the committee for less than a year when the campaign came to his attention. He believed that he would have left the church eventually, because of what he saw as a lack of commitment to ecumenical efforts and genuine programming to empower individuals. “It wasn’t going anywhere, man. I’m not into services,” he recalled, referring to the church’s emphasis on paternalistic charity rather than more liberating empowerment. But the campaign was “my opportunity to grow, my opportunity to possible resources, my opportunity to make my voice heard as to the type of legislation we needed. . . . I had to grow. I’m not a social worker.”33 He resigned his church post, went to Washington, lived in the Hawthorne School, which he called “a blessing,” and wrote songs, some of which became quasi anthems for the Chicano movement, including “Mujeres Valientes” about striking Chicana farm workers. Indeed, Barragan’s most important cross-cultural exchanges were probably with a guitar in his hands. From sharing a stage with Guy Carawan and Pete Seeger in Resurrection City to smaller venues such as the Hawthorne School’s common room, Barragan found a way to promote solidarity while he pursued his new calling.34

Like his Chicano brethren, Barragan also met a variety of people as part of the campaign.

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