James Aaron was born and raised in Pleasantville, a predominately African American neighborhood in Houston, TX. After highschool, he would join the People's Party II. He discusses growing up with Carl Hampton, segregation in Houston, the community activities of the People's Party II, and how he would become the leader of the party after the Dowling Shootout. He also talks in depth about the goal and purpose of the Rainbow Coalition, which comprised of the People's Party II, the John Brown Revolutionary League and the Mexican American Youth Organization.

Fred Aguilar was born in 1950 in a small barrio located in the affluent Alamo Heights neighborhood of San Antonio. His father's determination along with his his mother's dedication to volunterism provided him the fortitude to not only survive the discrimintation he witnessed in his youth, but to also become an community activist in both Houston and Baytown. After the Jose Campos Torres case sparked Aguilar's participation in the Houston Chicana/o Movement, he would move to Baytown where he became involved in the West Baytown Civic Assocation, the United Concerned Citizens of Baytown, gang prevention, and the co-founding of the Promise Center. He talks about how the Jose Campos Torres case outraged the Houston Chicana/o community, how he tackled gang graffiti and worked with youth on mural projects through the West Baytown Civic Association, how African Americans and Mexican Americans in Baytown came together to address police brutality after the brutal death of Luis Alfonso Torres, and how the Promise Center is committed to serving the community through child, youth, and adult programming. Aguilar also speaks about the importance of gang prevention endeavors, particularly in the area of art and culture.

Michelle Barnes grew up in Third Ward, a historic African American neighborhood in Houston, TX. She talks about the social, cultural, and economic vibrancy of Third Ward and how the drowing of a child in Sunnyside sparked her involvement in the Committee for Better Race Relations and the fight for African American Studies. While at the University of Houston, she played an active role in creating social organizations for Black students, particularly the creation of a Delta Sigma Theta chapter. Once she graduated from UH, Barnes participated in youth art programs at the SHAPE Community Center and eventually co-founded the Community Artists' Collective, which originally focused on providing a cooperative space for female African American artists and continues to be a major hub for African American art. She ends the interview by talking about how gentrification has affected the Third Ward community.

Eva Benavides was born in 1952 in Baytown. She attended Lorenzo De Zavala Elementary, the Baytown Mexican School, and witnessed segregation in her youth. She experienced a culture shock when she attended the integrated Baytown Junior High. Inspired by her mother's and father's dedication to helping others, Benavides served as a Baytown City Councilwoman and became involved in the West Baytown Civic Association. The Luis Alfonso Torres police brutality case galvanized her and others to forge a cross-racial coalition (United Concerned Citizens of Baytown) to hold the police department accountable. Benavides talks about how Mexican Americans were situated in a segregated Baytown, the importance of Fiesta Patrias, her involvement in the PTO, her determination to become a city councilwoman and her experiences as an Mexican American female representative for a single member district, how she bodly held the Baytown Police Department accountable for the Luis Alfonso Torres case when other Mexican American representative refused to speak out, and cross-racial efforts to address police brutality. She also discusses gentrification and how her community lacks businesses and grocery stores, how she taught citizenship classes for many years, the role of Exxon in Baytown, and how city council representatives have to address race …

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 …

Carlos Calbillo was born in Magnolia in 1949 and grew up in Pasadena. He began his activism at San Jacinto Community College when he was kicked out for not shaving his beard. In his early college years, he is a part of SDS and the Worker's World Union. Mr. Calbillo became involved with PASSO after meeting Leonel Castillo at an MLK Solidarity March in the Third Ward in 1968. Soon, he is leading voter registration drives in Pasadena, working at the Chicano Training Center, and for VISTA. In the 70s, Mr. Calbillo gravitates to the more millitant Chicano Movement where he becomes involved in writing Papel Chicano and protesting HISD integration policies. He also joins the movement in other areas of the country including California and Colorado. In the latter half of the 70s, Mr. Calbillo began working at a TV station, prompting him to begin a show called "Reflejos del Barrio" and create local documentaries including one about Joe Campos Torres.

Bobby Caldwell was born in Dallas in 1934. He grew up in different areas of Dallas, and faced barriers with discrimination and health issues as he had polio at age 3. He moved to Houston to attend Texas Southern University, and in 1957, he earned his law degree. He began practicing law in the 1960s, and quickly became involved in defending student activists, beginning with SNCC. Mr. Caldwell also became involved in pressing HISD to include African American studies in their curriculum, a movement led by the NAACP. In the late 1960s and into the 1970s, he began defending more militant activists including the members of the Peoples Party II, the TSU Five, and other student movements across the country. In 2014, Caldwell received a Lifetime Award from the Black Panthers for his commitment to defend Houston's African American community.

Luis Cano was born in Corpus Christi, TX. After attending University of North Texas, he came to Houston and would become involved in the Mexican American Youth Organization and La Raza Unida Party. As a teacher at Austin High School, he would develop one of the first Mexican American courses. This experience along with his awareness of his family's political history would lead him to dedicate his life to education efforts. Cano talks the Huelga School Movement, a false pairing plan that placed Mexican American and African American youth together and called it integration. He also speaks about co-founding the Association for the Advancement of Mexican Americans and developing some of its cultural and youth-oriented initiatives, including teatro, a library, a school for at-risk students, and gang prevention. Cano describes his experiences as one of the first lecturers for the UH Center for Mexcian American Studies.

Guadalupe "Lupe" Casares was born in 1950 in Santa Rosa, Texas, which is located in the Rio Grande Valley. Growing-up as a migrant farmworker, he traveled throughout the United States for much of his youth. After Casaras' father passed away from Tuberculosis in 1965, his family would settle in the midwest and he would attend school for first time. He would eventually work for the University of Wisconsin to recruit Mexican American students from Mercedes, Texas. The Black Power Movement along with his families' own resistance to discrimination would propell him to become involved in the Texas Farm Workers Movement, the Mexican American Youth Organization, and the founding of the first Chicana/o college--Colegio Jacinto Treviño in Mercedes, Texas. Casares talks about segregation as it relates to the Mexican American community, the ideological differences in the farmworkers struggle, and how Colegio Jacinto Treviño played an influential role in liberating the minds of Chicanas/os. He also discusses the many struggles embedded in the broader fight for Chicana/o freedom--tackling police brutality, establishing educational self-determination, obtaining labor rights, pressuring for welfare rights, and utllizing teatro to raise awareness. Lastly, Casares talks about his dedication to filmmaking.

Discussed the "transition" generation (segregation).

Elvira Martinez was born in 1929 in Baytown, Texas. Her father lived in "El Campo," the Humble Oil and Refinery Company community for their predominately Mexican American male employees. Martinez remembers growing up in the company community and how families forged deep bonds. She attended the Lorenzo De Zavala Elementary School, the Baytown Mexican School that was originally funded by the Humble Oil and Refinery Company. Through the music program at the Baytown Mexican School, Martinez was able to travel the country as a player in the group La Tipica. She talks about the development of the Baytown Mexican School and how it served as the first ESL program. Martinez also discusses the role that Dr. Antonio Bañuelos played in the development of La Tipica, how La Tipica was portrayed as an "authentic" Mexican group from Jalisco, how she had to act like she did not know English while traveling throughout the nation, the Mexican musicians she encountered during her involvement in La Tipica, and how this female music group played for WWII bond drives at the behest of the Humble Oil and Refinery Company. Martinez addresses the role of Mexican celebrations, Baytown Mexican School's role in the creation of …

Raphael Montgomery was born in 1973 in Baytown. He came of age in the African-American Cedar Bayou neighborhood where there was a vibrant African-American business community and residents created a village setting. His parents raised him with the idea that he had to work harder and smarter due to racial discrimination. After graduating from Ross S. Sterling High School, Montgomery attended Prairie View A&M briefly before enrolling at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. At Fisk University, he gained a deeper awareness of the Civil Rights Movement and African-American history that he did not receive in public school. The knowledge he gleaned from African-American texts and African-American Studies courses instilled a sense of pride and the ability to perservere. During these college years, Montgomery received the call to become a minister and to later return to Baytown to preach at his childhood church, Mount Calvary Missionary Baptist Church. He talks about racial profiling by the police, growing up in the church and his father's role as a preacher, the benefits of attending a HBCU, and his position as a special education teacher for Goose Creek Independent School District. He also describes his unity and inclusion work in Baytown through his church …

Mike Wilson was born in Dayton, Ohio, in the 1960s, where he witnessed white flight and urban decay. He grew up in all-Black spaces and was surrounded by a community of Black progressives. When he was in second grade, his parents divorced, subsequently moving him to Louisiana. Upon his arrival to the South, he faced a culture shock, as he believed African Americans were more “submissive” and “knew their place.” Two years later, his parents got back together and moved to Baytown. Wilson attended Robert E. Lee High School in the 1980s, where he still experienced the remnants of segregation. As a young adult, Wilson witnessed the lack of mentorship for African American men in Baytown, which drove him to get involved in efforts to create programing to prevent gang activity and juvenile delinquency amongst Blacks and Latinos. He became the executive director for a pilot project funded by the Texas General Attorney’s Office called Gang Activity Prevention (GAP). Most recently, Wilson founded and directs Upgrade 2 the Next Level, a self-funded program for the youth in Baytown that serves as an outlet for discipline and self-expression.

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 …

Edward Castillo was born in Houston in 1948. He grew up in the Fifth Ward and the Northside neighborhoods. Castillo talks about his activism in the University of Houston Mexican American Youth Organization and the organization's efforts to recruit and retain Chicana/o students, to establish the Center for Mexican American Studies, and to create the UH Marcha por La Humanidad mural. He also talks about co-founding Centro Aztlán, a cooperative that is dedicated to providing educational and social services to the Latina/o community in Houston.

John "Bunchy" Crear was born in 1952. He grew up in Pleasantville, a predominately African American neighborhood in Houston, TX. After spending a few years in Los Angeles, California, he returned to Houston and joined the People's Party II. He discusses People's Party II's community programing and the Dowling Shootout, the Rainbow Coalition, and his later involvement in the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California. Crear also talks about the differences in racial discrimination in California versus Texas and his efforts to honor the life of Carl Hampton as well as the legacy of the Black Panther Party.

Oscar del Toro was born in Coahuila, México in 1964. At age 4, he and his family moved to Monterrey, where he came of age and lived until he moved to the United States in 2000. He fully described 12 year waiting period to immigrate to Pasadena. A businessman, he joined the Chamber of Commerce, which propelled him to become interested in politics. In 2015, he unsuccessfully ran for one of the at-large districts following the redistricting of Pasadena in 2013. He described the redistricting and how it took power away from the Latino community in Pasadena, and the current lawsuit.

Michael "Mike" Espinoza was born in 1979 in the East End, a Mexican American enclave in Houston, TX. He grew up experiencing homelessness and having to join a gang in order to survive in his neighborhood. Having gained the assistance of the Ripley House on Navigation and the intervention of his parents, Espinosa would go on to attend Franklin Marshall College where he would develop a racial and political consciousness. He talked about how he would become involved in the Unviersity of Houston Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana/o de Aztlan and participate in efforts to address discrimination. His political involvement would reach a zenith when he became active in the fight for immigrant rights in the early 2000s. Espinoza spoke about how his community involvement lead him on a path to become an organizer for the SEIU Justice for Jaintors Campaign, a movement he is still involved in as a organizing consultant.

Arturo Eureste was born in Waelder, TX in 1954. He comes from a family that has been politically active as his father was involved in groups like PASSO and LULAC while his brother was a member of more radical movements such as MAYO. He discusses how his family involvement encouraged him to become active in efforts like the UFW Boycott, and through MAYO and LRUP in Houston. Mr. Eureste also shares his work with the Association for the Advancement of Mexican Americans (AMMA) and his current involvement in the community.

Richard Farias was born in Brownsville in 1948 and moved to La Porte in 1962 when he was about to begin his Freshman year in High School. At La Porte High School, he was the only Latino and received no mentoring and no guidance during. Soon after graduating from High School, Farias joined the Air Force, spending a year (1968-1969) in Vietnam. While he met people from all over the United States, the war was a scary time for him as he survived an attack on the Air Force base. Farias' time in Vietnam, however, encouraged him to work with underrepresented youths through various capacities. Upon his return from the war, Farias worked with the Texas Juvenile Justice System as a Juvenile Probation Officer for 16 years. In the late 1970s, he served as the Executive Director for the Association for the Advancement of Mexican Americans (AAMA) where he oversaw the George I. Sanchez School, the AAMA House (a home for drug abusers), and an AIDS/HIV Prevention Program. In 1992, Farias founded the Tejano Center for Community Concerns, a holistic way to address all needs of Latino families in Houston. Through this organization, he founded the Raúl Yzaguirre School For …

Felix Fraga was born in Houston in 1929. His parents settled in Houston's East End. At a young age, he began working in the Rusk Settlement House, where his bosses supported him and his education. He attended the University of Houston on a baseball scholarship. His work in the Rusk Settlement House and the growth of the Mexican American population in the area led him to work at the Ripley House in 1954. In 1970, he became the director of the Ripley House until he stepped down in 1990. During his tenure as director, he instituted several programs to help the community including English and citizenship classes, youth mentoring, early childcare, and became a polling place. In the last few years, the Ripley House has expanded by creating several charter schools to help the community of East End. Fraga served in the Houston Independent School District from 1990-1994 and in Houston City Council from 1994-1999. Towards the conclusion of his interview, Fraga discusses his legacy and and community leader Lionel Castillo.

Claude Frost was born in Houston and lived in Clinton Park, a neighborhood near Houston's Ship Channel. He recall's his experiences growing up in the area, and how an instance of police brutality (the killing of his neighbor) sparked his activism. Furthermore, he discusses the role of the Peoples Party II in the community, the Dowling Street Shootout in detail, and the aftermath of Carl Hampton's death. Mr. Frost also discusses how the Black Panther Party was established in Houston and how his work through the BPP influenced his adult life.

Patricia "Pat" Gonzales was born in 1967 in Houston in the Gulfgate area. She moved to the toxic Manchester neighborhood, a predominately Latina/o area of town next to the oil refineries, after she graduated from high school. Gonzales became active in the environmental justice movement due to the health issues she acquired while living next to the refineries. She later worked for the Texas Organizing Project to address the lack of infrastructure in the Northern Pasadena area. Gonzales discusses the risk of explosions in Pasadena, attending EPA conferences and addressing environmental racism, how the Anglo power structure functions in Pasadena, and how both African Americans and Latinas/os are neglected. She also talks about the recent voting rights violations in Pasadena and how the city capitulates to the interests of the oil industry.

Priscilla Graham was born in Georgia in 1968. During her childhood, schools were integrated in Georgia, where she experiences protection from both Black and White teachers. Ms. Graham joined the military where she experiences sexism. She attends TSU where she received her degree in accounting. In Houston, Ms. Graham becomes involved at the YMCA across Harris County, working at several branches. She became the executive director of the Houston Texans YMCA in Sunnyside. Ms. Graham has also been involved in the preservation of African American history in Houston, in particularly Freedman's Town. She discusses the different efforts, past and present, to preserve one of the most historic African American neighborhoods in the city.