Daniel Urbina Sanchez grew up between Lubbock, Texas and Garden City, Kansas. Starting in 1968, Sanchez’s family moved permanently to Lubbock. He graduated from Lubbock High School and Texas Tech University. In the 2000, Sanchez began participating in such organizations as Las Fiestas Del Llano, which is an organization focused on celebrating Mexican national holidays. He is currently an oral historian for Texas Tech University’s Southwest Collection. At Texas Tech University, Sanchez became a leader of the Latino faculty and staff. Sanchez also founded Citizens United in Discourse Against Discrimination, CUIDAD, which led rallies within Lubbock and participated in protests in the Texas State Capitol as the legislature considered racists-anti immigration bills.

Gilbert A. Flores grew up in Slaton, Texas where he attended a segregated “Mexican School” and then a integrated school where he faced abuse and discrimination alongside other Mexican American children. Upon graduating from high school, he moved to Lubbock and began to work in various jobs until he opened up his own successful auto-parts store during the early 1970s. In 1993 he became the second Mexican American to be elected into the Lubbock County Commissioner’s Court.

Jon Holmes was born in Lubbock and grew up in a farm near the city while being educated in Lubbock’s school system. He graduated from Lubbock High School and later attended Texas Tech University. At Texas Tech, Holmes participated in the campus anti-Vietnam War Movement and in the underground student newspaper named The Catalyst. Because of his work, especially in pointing out racial discrimination in Lubbock within the The Catalyst, Holmes and his fellow student advocates faced police harassment and violence. Facing such oppression, he moved to New York where he began a successful writing career. He has published articles in numerous publications like the New York Times and has published two cultural history books.

Mr. Barrios was born and raised in Victoria, Texas. He started working for the local newspaper at the age of 16, writing book reviews. He was drafted into the military, trained as a medic and stationed in Austin, where he attended UT. He later became politicized and joined SDS, involved in anti-war activism. After graduating from college, he taught high school level English in San Antonio and later moved to Crystal City to support the 1969 walkout, eventually staying as a teacher. He wrote several plays that touched upon to Chicano/a identity and politics. Throughout the interview, Mr. Barrios discussed sexism in the Chicano movement, and the exclusion of LGBT Chicanos/as.

This is a wide-ranging interview by Mario Salas from his time as a child to his aspirations in the political arena

Evaristo and Benita Albarado talked about the events surrounding the massacre at El Porvenir Ranch (Presidio County) in 1918, when a group of soldiers and Texas Rangers rounded up and shot Mexican American men who lived and worked at Porvenir. The father of Ms. Benita Albarado was a witness of the events, but did not talk about them until late in his life; his testimony motivated the Albarados to research and document the events surrounding the massacre. In addition to sharing the fruits of their efforts to show what really happened at Porvenir, the Albarados talked about growing up in segregated towns in west Texas (Benita Albarado is from Big Spring, while Evaristo Albarado was born and raised in Uvalde). They also talked about the importance of preserving the history of violence along the border, and discussed their collaboration with scholars in the production of an exhibit at the Bullock museum in Austin.

Gene Collins was born and raised in Odessa, Texas. He attended Abilene Christian University, where he was a campus and community civil rights organizer. He completed his college education at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Collins is now a local businessman and minister in Odessa, Texas. He has been president of the Odessa NAACP for over 15 years, and co-chair for environmental justice for the statewide NAACP. He helped lead several efforts toward environmental justice in and outside Odessa.

Mr. Carl White was born in Conroe and Mrs. Gloria White was born in Willis, Texas in 1957 respectively. After attending segregated schools, both Whites ultimately graduated from desegregated schools. Both Whites experienced workplace discrimination in their careers in a local factory and at the postal office. Mr. White also served as a reserve police officer in Conroe while his father served as one of the first Black police officers in Conroe. Mr. White described being targeted by police in Conroe and other issues with the local criminal justice system. Both Whites were also involved in the efforts to free Clarence Brandley which included marches and other demonstrations. Also, the Whites discussed issues with discrimination in the school system.

Gethrel Williams was from Beaumont, Texas. She was a long time civil rights and labor activist. During her time working for the U.S. Postal Service, she became a leader in in the American Postal Workers Union, both locally and nationally. In 2007, she was elected to the Beaumont City Council as Council-member-at-Large. In her interview, she discussed her efforts to desegregate public accommodations, her participation in the labor movement, and her work as a public, elected official. She died February 18, 2018.

Frank Gutierrez grew up in Lubbock, Texas and graduated from Lubbock High School. He then joined the military and served in Vietnam. Upon returning, he enrolled in Texas Tech University. He has served in various non-profits and a charter school. He has ran for various local political offices.

Jew Don Boney, Jr. was born in 1951 in Temple. His first experience with segregation was when his mother was initally denied entry into Scott and White Hospital when she went into labor with Boney. His parents were educators and his father wrote a dissertation on the racial biases in standarized testing while pursuing a doctorate in Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Boney relocated to Austin in 1966 and attended the University of Texas at Austin in the Fall of 1969. He became involved in Black-Brown student activism at this time. After spending a few years in radio and TV, Boney worked for the Urban League and became the Chairman of the National Black United Front Chapter in Houston. He later served as a city councilman for District D and a Mayor Pro Tem. Boney dedicated three years to the Free Clarence Bradley Campaign in order to exonerate a man falsely accused of the rape and murder of a white woman in Conroe, spent time bridging African and U.S. relations, advanced economic initiatives in Africa, and secured grants to process the Mickey Leland Papers at Texas Southern University while he served as the Associate Director for …

Discussed growing up during Jim Crow in Louisiana, and her career as a teacher and local historian.

Billie Caviel was raised in East Texas, attending all African American Schools. She attended university and pharmacy school at Texas Southern University in Houston. Once graduating, Caviel and her husband, who was also a pharmacist, moved to Lubbock, Texas to work for a Jewish pharmacist because no one else would give them jobs in the state because they were African American. Caviel and her husband later founded their own pharmacy, which they kept open for forty-nine years. Caviel also served as a Lubbock ISD school board member for a number of years during the early 1990s.

Christy Martinez-Garcia was born and raised in Lubbock. She attended Lubbock High School, Lamar University, and completed her degree at Texas Tech University. After college, Martinez-Garcia worked for the Lubbock city government and then for the National Council of La Raza in Washington D.C. Upon her return to Lubbock, Martinez-Garcia sought to counter the local media narrative that mostly only depicted Hispanics as criminals or only immigrants. Thus, she founded the magazine, Latino Lubbock. She also ran for a position in the Lubbock ISD Board of Trustees. Martinez-Garcia has participated in numerous community organizations and was responsible for the naming of Cesar Chavez street in Lubbock as well as having a historical marker for a what once a migrant labor camp.

Interview with Richard Gonzales, a journalist from Arlington, Texas. In his interview, Gonzales discusses his early life, his education, student activism, founding the Association of Mexican American Students at UT Arlington, and his political activism and advocacy for Mexican-Americans.

Interview with Carlos Moore, from Fort Worth, Texas. In his interview, he discusses his early life and family history, time in the military, race relations in Fort Worth, labor unions and Democratic party activities.

Ms. Toran was raised in Nigton, a small community in East Texas, by her highly-educated father and step-mother, who were also educators. Ms. Toran attended segregated schools in Lufkin and then went on to become a school-teacher and counselor in Lufkin schools. She was the first black school counselor in Lufkin schools. In the interview, she discussed growing up in Nigton, the accomplishments of her father, schools in Lufkin, changes over time in the black community. Ms. Toran described the responses to integration, including demonstrations by the KKK in the 1970s.

Gonzalo Barrientos discusses his life growing up in Bastrop, Texas and later serving as a Democratic State Senator representing the 14th District from 1985-2007. He was also a member of the Texas House of Representatives from Austin from 1975-1985.

Wide ranging interview with TC Calvert. He talks about growing up in San Antonio; his membership in SNCC;

Daniel Bustamante was born in Corpus Christi in 1948 and was raised in both Mathis and Corpus Christi. He grew up in a farm worker family and attended the "Mexican" School in Mathis. His activist consciousness began in 1965, when he left to California to work in the fields--the discrimination he faced changed him. In addition, he became a conscious objector during the Vietnam War. He attended Del Mar College from 1967-1969, where he became involved in the Anti-War Movement, the Young Democrats, and supported the UFW Grape Boycott. He moved to Houston in 1969 to attend the University of Houston. At UH, he became involved in MAYO efforts. In 1975, he hosted a party that ended in an incident of police brutality. Bustamante, along with 2 other activists (Eddie Canales and Elliot ?) sued HPD in Federal Court and won in 1979. In 1977-1978, in the aftermath of the Joe Campos Torres death and the Moody Park Rebellion, Bustamante led several marches and pickets to demonstrate against police brutality in Houston. In the late 1970s, he worked at Casa de Amigos in the Northside, an institution geared to address health care isses and drug abuse in the community. In …

Interview with Antonio Marin, from El Paso, Texas. In his interview, he discusses his childhood, education, civil rights activism, community involvemen, and experiences with racism in south Texas.

Robert and Paul discussed the history of the Noyola family, the different paths taken by various family members, and the political diversity within the family.

Mr. Van Os grew up in segregated Kilgore, in East Texas; the first part of the interview is spent in his recollections of the era, including the eventual integration of the schools in the mid-to-late 1960s. He attended UT Austin, where he became involved in SDS and joined several activities that involved African American and Mexican American activists. While studying law, he did an internship with the law firm of David Richards, who had been working on voting rights litigation earlier that decade. After graduating, he worked as a union-side labor lawyer and represented the Austin chapter of the NAACP in a lawsuit to do away with at-large place system for city council elections. In addition to his early activism and work in civil rights litigation, Mr. Van Os talks about the relationship of racial and economic justice and the role of labor unions in ensuring both.

Interview with Leroy Sterling, an Army veteran and educator from Bryan, Texas. In his interview, Sterling discusses his family background, living under Jim Crow segregation, segregated neighborhoods and housing, agricultural work, military service and his experience being one of the first African-American students to attend Texas A&M University.