Chicano Activism In The 1950's And 1960s

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During the 1950’s and 60’s, protests were occurring all throughout the United States. Ordinary citizens and civil rights leaders alike joined each other to voice their opposition and frustrations with the everyday injustices and discrimination that they were faced with. Although there are many figures associated with the successes that came from the time period, grassroot activism immensely propelled the movements because without them, the marches and demonstrations would not have been possible. Student activism especially was essential to many of the movements because of their connections to other adolescents and the fact that they were the upcoming generation made their voice interesting to the media. The largest and most covered movement, …show more content…

Due to both militant movements having similar beginnings and ideas, the Chicano youth following the Black Power tactics came as no surprise. However, the actual support for the Chicano ideologies was too small for the movement to have ever have had a following or group of support as large as the black civil rights movement, which is why it was so concentrated in small areas of states, like East Los Angeles or Southern Texas. Many of the older Mexican Americans disapproved of the more militant methods that were being implemented by the youth, or were too concerned with being able to survive their daily struggles to support the younger organizations. (CITE Escobar …show more content…

Many of the African American organizations and leaders were tracked by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which tried to destroy the movement. The LAPD mirrored their tactics such as disruption of movement organization. The Los Angeles Police Department were largely immune from prosecution, so they even sent infiltrators into the Chicano group meetings to convince members to commit crimes so they could then arrest them. Because the tactics were inspired from the FBI, they were too extreme for how small the Chicano movement, which meant the police involvement completely oppressed the movement from growing any bigger until militant groups were created to recruit some of the more radical thinkers that wanted to fight back. (CITE Escobar