Brown Berets

The Brown Berets were a Hispanic Nationalist Activist grouping of Chicano men and women during the Civil Rights Movement . Because of their programmatic and practical similarties, they are often considered to have been the Chicano equivalent of the Black Panthers .

In 1966 , as part of the Annual Chicano Student Conference in Los Angeles County , a group of High School students discussed different issues affecting Chicano-Mexicanos in their Barrio s and schools. Among the students at the conference were Vickie Castro, Jorge Licón, John Ortiz, David Sanchez, Rachel Ochoa, and Moctesuma Esparza . These high school students formed the Young Citizens for Community Action the same year, and worked together to support Dr. Julian Nava’s campaign as a Los Angeles school board member candidate in 1967. Sanchez and Esparza had trained with Father John B. Luce’s Social Action Training center at the Church of the Epiphany (Episcopal) in Lincoln Heights and the Community Service Organization. Other organizers were familiar with César Chávez and Reies Tijerina .

The organization’s name was then changed to Young Chicanos For Community Action or "YCCA". In 1967, the YCCA founded the Piranya Coffee House. In September 1967 , Sal Castro, a Korean War veteran and teacher at a local highschool, met with the YCCA at the Piranya Coffee House. The group decided to wear brown berets as a symbol of unity and resistance against oppression. As a result of this, the organization took on the name "Brown Berets." The agenda of the Brown Berets was to fight police harassment, inadequate public schools and education, the lack of political representation and the Vietnam War .

ACTIONS OF THE BROWN BERETS

On March 1 , 1968 , the Brown Berets planned and participated in the East Los Angeles Walkout s or “blowouts”, the largest and lengthiest in the history of California, in which thousands of students left their classrooms to join the protest for quality education. The Brown Berets were able to unite college and high school students and begin a new stage in the Chicano/a movement. Shortly after this event other Chicano students led walkouts all over the Southwest.

The Brown Berets also were involved in community issues like unemployment, housing, food, and education became important elements in their agenda. The publication of La Causa by Eleazar Risco and the Brown Berets helped to bring awareness of the problems faced every day in the barrios of East L.A.

In 1969, Brown Berets Gloria Arellanes and Andrea Sánchez produced and distributed a newspaper called "La Causa." They also started the first free medical clinics and free breakfast programs.

The Brown Berets also came to be known in the barrio for their “ Direct Action ” on police brutality. They protested the killings and abuses perpetuated by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s station in the barrio. They supported the United Farm Workers movement and the Land Grant Movement in New Mexico. In the summer of 1968, they participated in the first Rainbow Coalition in the Poor Peoples Campaign. In 1969, they were invited to be part of the first Chicano Youth Liberation Movement organized by Corky Gonzales in Denver, Colorado.

The Brown Berets organized the first Chicano Moratorium against the Vietnam War in 1970, and a few months later the National Chicano Moratorium in which close to 20,000 Chicanos marched and protested the high casuality rate of Chicanos in Vietnam and the draft. This peaceful protest became chaotic when the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department decided to end the event by attacking attendees. Three Chicano activists were killed (two of them Brown Berets), including journalist Ruben Salazar.

In 1972 , twenty-six Brown Berets occupied the Santa Catalina Island, but by this time, the organization had been weakened by internal conflicts and police infiltration. There were approximately thirty chapters throughout the Southwest when the organization was disbanded, although not all the members abandoned the organization.

INFLUENCES

The Brown Berets acknowledged the influence of revolutionary movements in Latin America, the organizing efforts of the Black Panthers , Puerto Rican Young Lords , and the American Indian Movement .

SEE ALSO

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Brown Berets