Transcripts For CSPAN2 Blue Texas 20170129

A, im going to come around with a microphone so that it can be picked up because cspan is here today so hold your questions until you get the microphone. That way the camera will pick up what you are saying. And bookpeople hosts over 300 invents a year. Its free and open to the public and its made possible by our bookpeople patrons so thank you for purchasing their books here. So without further ado, this is true max krochmal. And this is, he is currently an assistant professor at tcu and contributing to the development of their programs in comparative race and ethnic studies and African Americans and African Studies so lets give him a warm welcome. [applause] thank you for having me. Get this where it needs to be. Its great to be here with all of you and be in austin and at bookpeople in particular, the greatest mecca of independent books in texas. Thanks to all of you for being here today, thank you especially to the aflcio for cosponsoring and spreading the word about this project and to all my friends and family here with me today, its great to have. So im going to talk for maybe 30, 40 minutes. Ill do some mixture of reading and summarizing and then will have time for a q and a at the end so please wait fora microphone. After that i will be able to find , youhave to go downstairs and bring it back up. So i suppose will begin with this election. The results rolled in last week. We were learned rather quickly that despite all the early polls and prognostication, texas remains a as red estate as ever. Hillary clinton trailed donald trump by some 10 percent in the final polling. 800,000 votes so that means the idea of a blue texas remains more than aboriginal. Theres quite a bit of work to be done. Strange as it may seem, that wasnt always the case and in my book i show the beginning in the 1930s, africanamericans, mexicanamericans and white labor and Community Activists gradually came together in a broad circle for democracy in texas. Separate local organizing efforts in the barrios and ghettos, the storefront Campaign Offices of the states major cities gradually gave way to local experiments in multiracial collaborations. By the late 1960s the activists created a formal, involuntary and statewide alliance in support of politicians in a multiracial civil rights agenda. They created a vast network of black, brown and white activists and all the urban areas and many of the country crossroads in texas. They demanded not just immigration for black but an end to him discrimination against mexicanamericans. They called for labor rights, Economic Justice and real political power for all. Theyre called their partnership the Democratic Coalition. At this moment, i think its good to pause and look back at this history, the what we might learn from it. Some analysts in the wake of the election are saying the Democratic Party needs to focus its efforts on tempering its message to appeal to white suburbanites, white workingclass voters and taught not only of about class but about race. Many point to the rise of the female vote in texas and the inevitable demographic change and suggests the tide will turn on its own. History really pushes us in this other direction, to think about how activists subconsciously build coalitions that can tackle both class and abridge those divides and that can bring people together across some of the greater both in our culture. This coalition im writing about in the 1960s and that i explore in the book had some characteristics that i think offer lessons for today and the future and ill lay out a few of those and get into some of the meat of the history. The constituent part of the coalition worked separately. The first organizing in their own communities to meet their own needs. But gradually a process of trial and error, the organizers of each group approached activists across the color line. They did sell out of desperation and selfinterest. With each of them needing help to outrank the more conservative members of their own ethnic groups. Over time, the occasional forays to an interracial meeting across town led to more gatherings and marching on each others picket lines and a concerted access in the speech on the ballot box. Coming to ground together across racial lines did not make different or did it assume one persons agenda over anothers. The coalition consisted of independent parts that Work Together for a common cause despite disagreement in intention, the alliances built sometimes fell apart and had to be rewrote reorganized. Coalition building or as some parts college, coalition and remained contested and interested process. The process does not mean mexicanamericans and natural americans were allies nor did it mean many were antagonist, they were simply different. The can structure of jim crow necessitated that, they had different leaders, different priorities. Different cultures. Spoke different languages thomas practice differently religions so when they Work Together they first had to vote many of those differences and find out where to even hold a meeting. They had to make a series of disagreements and compromises that would hold them together for a time and often come apart. When it did occur, multiracial collaboration took place because of the human relationships forged experientially among the activists. Their Work Together produced bonds of friendship and trust. It was not rhetoric or vaguely similar histories of oppression that brought the groups together but years of struggling side by side in the trenches. Or as another activists put some years later, working unity is better than talking unity. More generally the coalition succeeded because it recognized and transcended racial difference. It prioritize the needs of its most vulnerable partners. It did not trio treat all members as analyzed individuals nor did it employee colorblindness to avoid issues of racial inequality as some people are proposing we do now. Rather it developed an internal structure that allowed for discord and disagreement while still burying team to each of its constituents andequal voice and fair representation. The more liberal , the more explicitly integrationist, the more militant the tactics, the more effective the coalition became. I showed throughout the book that in many cases we tend to collapse different groups into one. We think of a socalled black community or a Mexican American community of those communities had to be constructed and were often right with internal conflict much as communities are. We wouldnt expect automatic unit unity among all white people. And often the driver of the story was that there was intraracial conflict among different communities. Most militant, the most liberal, often the working class mexicanamericans and africanamericans clashed with their social betters and it was this intraracial conflict that force them to build interracial coalitions all across the color line. They learn this experientially after countless flareups. They separated themselves from their conservative counterparts, their socalled race leaders and in distinctions of class, ideology, tactics all matter as much as the ties of race and ethnicity. Over time as they came together, the causes of civil rights broadly defined in political liberalism grew inseparable. Africanamerican, Mexican American and can immunity activists all rallied around the Democratic Coalition as a small democracy. They demanded freedom now but they also aimed to overthrow the oligarchy that had oppressed the states black, brown and white working people. They fought for all these goals by working together. And they forever transformed politics in texas in the process. The coalition carried out an unprecedented Voter Registration and mobilization drive and face direct action demonstrations that brought some semblance of democracy to the state. Decades from the reign of the border bosses that had restricted black and brown votes, africanamericans and Mexican Americans and their white allies and large their electorate and broke down the doors of the Democratic Party. These organizers finally overturned jim crow and one pro and to a degree of Economic Justice and power in the state they it was scarcely imaginable a few years ago. At the same time, the activists had a feeling how much power they can wield. The work that remains to be done today. And a blueprint for how to do it. When i talk about the different pieces of this coalition and how they evolved a little bit and to get the whole story, you need the whole book. It bears quite a lot of detail. It was a challenge to write in the sense that i had to do these for interwoven narratives happening in different places following what they ended up calling the legs of the coalition by the late 1960s so its africanamericans, mexicanamericans, white labor, the organized labor which was predominantly white and white political activists who do work in the precinct and the liberal leaning Democratic Party and each of these groups were internally divided. They didnt agree on tactics. It took a while for each of them to figure out they needed each other and in their own self interest once again to Start Building these alliances that were fragile and fraught with tension. So the book begins in san antonio, primarily in the 1930s in the Labor Movement and among Mexican American workers who joined in the great uprising of 1938. Historians documented this moment pretty well but it was in the public space, if you drive around san antonio you will see murals in the great brand shall uprising. Theres statues. What i do in exploring this chapter is to zoom out and think about its broader political implications. So rather than being a flash in the pan, a pure victory in which the union one for a moment and got crushed by automation, we see that it permanently cracked the political edifice of the city and state. Mexican American Workers allied with the cio, the industrial organizations, they formed of our powerful political alliance. They helped elect morey maverick senior to mayor in the city and they did so in coalition with African Americans. The very First Movement in which African Americans in that city broke away from san antonios political machine, organized independently and did so in coalition mexicanamericans and whites. The man reading that was a guy named jj sutton who was a young member of the National Negro congress, elected alliance of civil rights activists and he ends up being a key figure in the story for the next several decades and someone who helps build the bridges on the ground between these different groups. The story starts there and from that moment i follow each of the actors forward in san antonio and each of the hotspots in the state. I turned to houston where during world war ii africanAmerican Workers built what we call a civil rights unionist movement, an early phase of the civil rights struggle in which as one scholar put it, neither race nor class trumped the other and both were understood so black working people in houston flooded into the naacp. They belted in the second largest branch in the country only behind detroit which was another site of an Industrial Union movement and they interviewed the Civil Rights Era with a broad vision, and expansive set of goals that included Racial Justice but also economic issues, access to good jobs, promotions, access to quality housing and access to real political power and this vision was born out of the wartime struggle that really became the foundation for the black freedom struggle in texas for decades moving forward. Not just access or immigration or civil rights in the narrow terms we often think about those things but also time that with Economic Justice and with political power, independent political power. The same thing jj sutton and black activists in san antonio are struggling for. I organized the book around key characters and theirlives. In the opening chapters you see george lambert, a pair of Union Organizers wore white from other sources in the south and migrate to join the piquant shell struggle. In the houston chapters, you see herbal roy, moses is a black Railroad Worker who assumes a position of leadership in his segregated union and uses it to break down the doors of discrimination at work and in the Larger Community in which he lives area along with his wife irma who runs for office as one of the first black women in texas to do so as an independent in 1949. On a progressive, both coming out of the progressive party. I next turned to the ways in which the cold war changed the struggle. It meant that some of the more outspoken radicals had to go underground but they didnt disappear is the argument that i take in the book. They redirect their activism into new channels in this broad vision of civil rights and trade unionism and independent political power gets carried forward even in the conservative 1950s and a similar story occurs to a lesser extent among the states mexicanamericans. In houston by the 1950s, white liberal political activists are getting organized, they build an Organization Called the derek county democrats, they build level alliances, to ultimately elect Ralph Yarborough to the United States senate and eventually spawn a statewide body of predominantly white liberals known as the dot. I followed the origins of that story and i focus on a man named chris dixie was a plaintiff lawyer who, a labor lawyer who did a lot of the grassroots work building an organization along with Frankie Carter landau, a figurehead of the white liberals in this period. So all those pieces are coming together and in the 40s, in the 1950s in san antonio, the Mexican American struggle really jumps to a new level. There was an alliance with gj, an africanamerican man and activists. In 1948 they come togetherin a tactical electoral partnership. They managed to both get elected through various local offices, sutton is the first africanamerican from the region elected to construction. And for garcia, the Mexican American counterpart, and allows him to get on the school board and fight for equal access to schools among Mexican Americans in the city. But out of those early efforts comes a reconfiguration of local politics and san antonios been written about a lot, the government, but more importantly a new activist tradition and a key player in this is a man named albert. Albert becomes active in the early 1950s area he forms another local Democratic Political club that aimed at organizing among Mexican Americans in san antonio and he uses that to build a massive get out the Vote Organization and political machine on san antonios southwest side which brings Adlai Stevenson as a president ial candidate to san antonio to speak at a major victory and moving forward for this organization and a year later in 1953 they elect Henry Gonzalez to the city council, the first Mexican American in that capacity in some decades. Gets elected to the county commission as a commissioner and from that post, build a Civil Rights Movement of his own. Its a Movement Working to desegregate schools, of movement fighting for labor rights among Mexican Americans and the political struggle in which he has made his home. So those are the wings, africanamerican, naacp with a broad vision of civil rights. The naacp is destroyed by the cold war but they come up with a new organization in this place which eventually is called the Texas Council of voters. Theres Mexican Americans led and other key activists that ill tell you why pain is so important in a minute. And then theres liberals forming the democrats of texas to support Ralph Yarborough. The last pieces labor and since labor is our cosponsor i will talk about that. But in san antonio, labor had been active throughout this period, it remained a predominantly white movement. Many local movements practiced forms of discrimination and africanamerican and Mexican American workers did their best to break that discrimination down. Sometimes with white allies. But by the 1950s, labor across the United States was eventually, had settled in at least as the story goes, and settled in to a more scrutinized labor relation. A along with big business as the story goes. Case in texas pushes us in a different direction. What we see instead is a Labor Movement getting increasingly liberal through the 1950s. Increasingly militant in terms of engaging other social movements and increasingly committed to civil rights and the main reason for that shift is the leadership of a guy named hs james brown, a plumber from san antonio who marries into the plumbers trade. Hes originally from outofstate. He comes in as an officer and his union goes to work for the state, texas aflcio in terms of doing education work around a different Labor Council in texas and the lobbying the legislature. And eventually goes back to san antonio and takes the building trade workers out on a long strike and at this precise moment that Mexican American women workers are on strike at the textile and garment factory in san antonio beginning in 1959 and they form a coalition in the streets. And its a critical moment in , the leader of Mexican American political activism in the city and a predominantly white Labor Movement come together in a common struggle. Of those rights were unsuccessful. Those networks continue. The experiences of activists, the relationship they build in the trenches together persist. So over time, in san antonio especially theres a tie Coalition Built between Mexican Americans, labor, africanamericans led by dj sutton and they bring in white liberals from the north side as well. Over time, they work their way into the local Democratic Party to take over in san antonio. They mobilized at the National Level for their influence on lyndon b. Johnson, as his rise to power takes place. Becomes a state cochair for the visa kennedy campaign, the Mexican American wing of that effort. And then the sit in Movement Among African Americans helps to recalibrate the scene a little bit so after 1960, white liberals in the democrats of texas are sort of forced to handle their black and brown counterparts more as equals and less as a sort of recipients of their patronage. And thats the moment when Real Coalition building and more democratic movements begin to take place. I dont know how were doing on time here. I dont want to get into too much detail about that but ill just say for now and we can talk more in the q a, the first efforts to come together as a statewide coalition occur after brown becomes the president of the texas aflcio in 1961. And most of those early efforts and incomplete disaster. Theres all these various reasons for discussed among various groups. Theres a sense among Mexican American activists for example that more attention is being paid to the africanamerican freedom struggle than their own. Theres a persistent feeling among africanamerican activists with white liberals dont take their trouble seriously enough. They hold coalition and meetings periodically in segregated hotels and dont think about the impact it has on the activists they are trying to ally with area they develop organizing programs that prioritize white leadership and they often think that its they themselves as long time people who been involved in the Democratic Party who stand in a position to educate africanamerican and Mexican American voters instead of identifying and building the organic leadership with those communities and its a long slow process of figuring out these differences. One critical moment occurs in 1961. Theres an open senate piece filling Lyndon Johnsons position in the United States senate and two key liberal candidates emerge, morgan from san antonio, a white man and henry sellers, a Mexican American and a good run against each other for the senate seat. In the end, neither one gets the runoff and the voters in texas are presented with a republican and the newly emerging republican party. And a very conservative segregationist democrat. And the end result is the election of republican and he began beginning of that parties dissent in the state. Its a complete disaster for these Coalition Builders were trying to democratize the state and trying to bring Economic Justice, trying to redistribute political power in new ways and through these differences. Why didnt you back our guy . Which one jumped into the race first. All these debates. And so i show over several chapters how they sort out those differences, how they allowed each others issues, how they work through some of their problems. How they slowly learn from each other. And even their relationship as a result. Theres also a process in which each of the various groups have to further differentiate itself from within their ethnic groups so coming out of the evil kennedy campaign, Mexican Americans organized a group called Political Association of spanishspeaking organizations. And initially thats what it is, its an association of different spanishspeaking organizations. And its a Broad Coalition of Mexican Americans in the state. Is elected as first chairman, Hector Garcia is an american g. I. Forum is one of the officers in the early stage. But theres a wide variety of ideological viewpoints in the organization and some differences and disagreements about strategy and about tactics. Hector garcia in this. Didnt think it was advantageous for Mexican Americans to demonstrate industry. Or to engage in unruly forms of protest. In contrast was committed to that more militant political style. He was willing to go and demonstrate, willing to do it alongside africanamericans and later even to get arrested in the process. He understood the importance of labor politics in a way that Hector Garcia didnt. And this is just two examples of the broad debate going on in the organization seen as a liberal labor, Mexican American wing and a more conservative Mexican American wing that wants to receive patronage by working more closely with the state conservative Democratic Party. And so those debates are ongoing in the early 1960s. With the Mexican American organizations and it takes over years but theres a series of splits within that organization. And the end result of that is that the liberal labor wing and the firmly in control. A separate themselves from their more conservative and more elite social co. Ethnic social betters and they free them in a new way to build alliances across the color line with africanamericans engaged in civil rights struggles on the ground, who are demanding Economic Justice and political power in more militant ways and it frees them to build an organized labor which they do most notably in crystal city in 1963 and the Teamsters Union and the paschal form an alliance to take over the small south texas city. It was dominated population but wise by Mexican Americans but had always been ruled by anglos so for the first time in 1963, scholars look back at this as the first result, the beginning of the chicano movement. Its a coalition between the teamsters and the first round in which they take over the local government. Africanamericans likewise begin to differentiate themselves internally. In 1962, governor, not yet governor John Connolly, the first governor of texas makes a direct field of africanamerican voters even though hes a conservative. And its the first time mainstream candidates had ever done that. Its the first time the black vote was seen as organized and powerful enough that the politicians on all tribes needed to make direct appeal. His main opponent was a man named don yarborough. An integrationist who called for integration on the campaign trail and no one had ever done that in texas before. He worked along those lines and more generally when taking office, how do you interact with this new administration. A group of africanamericans formed a group called the United Political Organization designed to get past appointments from the connolly government and the more liberal radical militant africanamerican activists built up their organizations in the Texas Council of voters and i follow these individual people through the story as this evolution takes place. So finally by the summer of 1963, ill say one more thing. Organized labor also shifts. And has a longer history of not doing a whole lot in the civil rights field. By the summer of 1963 it has identified civil rights is an issue in its own selfinterest. Its come out in support of civil rights, called on the leaders of the f that aflcio to call on John Connolly to call a special session of the legislature to deal with civil rights issues. The texas aflcio sponsored demonstrations on Economic Justice across the border and the engage in this broad program. So by the summer of 1963 all the pieces finally come together and some 800 activists refound the Democratic Coalition at a Hotel Ballroom in dallas. Theyre very essential about how they do it. They build the Leadership Structure in which the forelegs of the coalition are equally represented. The organization has four cochairs, an evil number of members from each of the legs on the Steering Committee and the executive committee and the policy committee and the organization as a whole. They take it very seriously in terms of counting out deliberately how the representation will work and whos going to be there and how do they share power and what are the limits of their organization. They commit to civil rights. They say civil rights is our top priority and for labor, that might have been a headache. Many white workers are going to revolt against that the labor leadership recognized if they are going to get the votes they need to take on the conservative politicians, they need to commit themselves to the civil rights struggle. And they believed in it. They sincerely believed in it but it was also the point to their own selfinterest, they needed to build this alliance more deeply. So it culminates in august 28 of 1963. The same day as the march on washington, as the margin office. And some thousand demonstrators predominately africanamericans , in the east boston area which at the time was still all black and marched across the city in 102 degrees heat. A fifth of the marchers were white, quite a few Mexican Americans were here and Many Organizations represented including labor. They marched carrying signs that said freedom now. But they also carried homemade signs comparing governor connolly to George Wallace in alabama or arkansas. They linked labor and civil rights with their slogan. One sign said no more . 50 per hour, another said segregation is a new form of slavery. Another said kennedy c, connolly no. A sang songs attacking the government. They attempted to march on the capital but the Capital Police and turn on the sprinklers keep them off the line and the governor continue to work and refused to receive a delegation as kennedy had done earlier in the day in washington. Those marchers assembled at Woolridge Square park. And they relax under the live oak tree and listen to a range of speakers for the governor. It was open antipolitical, connolly political there in the demonstration for racial inequality at the Dallas Morning News reported. A partisan takeover. But the more sympathetic texans thought the rally late scenes of Racial Justice in opposition to connollys conservative politics so sympathizers and detractors agreed the march extended far beyond civil rights in the narrow concept which was often a broader push to bring the Washington State for multiple alliances. The speakers likewise left no doubt and ill read you a couple of those. The book has photographs from the march and some details on it. Ill just jump ahead. One of the speakers was a man named wj durham who was an attorney from dallas. And a founder of the texas state conference of the naacp. And later the Texas Council voters. She was one of the four cochairs of the coalition. And he got up on stage and gave a thunderous address. In which he pointed out the demographics, much as people try to do today. Saying how many at the time negro voters were in texas, how many latin american voters. A huge labor vote and a pack of a lot of white citizens. Held them on election day and each of us will remember our governor. He talked about how connolly and made the various Campaign Promises but then hadnt followed through on them. He had set behind ideas of gradual or voluntary integration and he played into each of his various arguments. Finally during concluded, the day is over when the governor can separate negroes except those few who are conservative and have gotten super rich. You see the conflicts at work. They will never separate the latin american and negroes again in politics. They will never separate the independent white man and negro again, never separate labor in the negro again, were going to march on the streets, walking the streets, were going to fight at the ballot box in the court and i believe thats the last message i got from my daughter. And somebody gets up and gives a speech from labor and it becomes this broad effort and from there it quickly transitions back to the work of precinct organizing which theyve been doing throughout so the coalition sponsors a unprecedented Voter Registration campaign and mobilization effort called voters in texas vote. They have reached deep down into the cities barrios and ghettos and into rural areas. They hire africanamerican and mexicanamerican staff to lead the charge. One project director in houston was an unknown immunity activist named barbara gordon. This is happening all over the state. Longtime veteran activists of the School Rights and labor struggles of the city become the leadership of the coalition on the ground and they engage in a massive effort for block workers to educate them and to spread the coalitions message of Economic Justice, political power and racial inequality on the ground. Theyre successful in doing it. They carry johnson and yarborough to victory in 1964. They exert that power, they fail to repeal the full tax which is one of their main goals but they do see in transforming state and especially local politics, remapping local politics so we have these deep dark central cities surrounded by red servers. It happened at this moment when the city got organized. I go into why it ultimately declined and we can talk about it later. I want to jump back a moment and rest up and get time for questions. The history of the Democratic Coalition in the 1960s offers a few insights into todays more immediate concerns. Presentday politicians and activists follow the formula laid out by the Democratic Coalition and the more liberal, more committed to the organization of civil rights, the more successful it will become. No democrat can win in texas unless they vote to the people who carried obama to victory and or the many latinos that carry clinton in that seniors primary election. They need the groundwork of liberal men and women of all races on reproductive efforts and gay, lesbian and transgender texans who come out of the shadows. They need to capture the growing number of liberals, libertarians and those who support gay rights, support the war on drugs and access to college and Affordable Housing and so on. They must take seriously the calls for organized labor, workplace safety, workplace treatment and collective bargaining. Their style has long been a finger in the dike. One organized force helped the legislature in dismantling all public services. They embraced labor as a movement for justice for all people instead of taking it for granted while privately dismissing it as a special interest group. More importantly, the party should never not organize its many grassroots bases. The coalition transformed the texan electorate in state politics not because of clashing but because it stated an army of dockworkers that reached deep into the cities and their hinterlands to prioritize a leadership agenda of nonwhite members and it did not shy away from embracing its most radical activists. Dj sutton, moses leroy and these other veterans of illegal demonstrations formed the core of the coalition alongside our opinion, another activist of the ruble. The protest didnt in no way appear unremarkable to presentday eyes but it was beyond the pale of respectable politics. Most militant black and brown activists employed tactics that drew opposition from race leaders as well as opposition opponents. It demanded justice and direct action to the bowel box, adding urgency to the ageold liberal quest of expanding the franchise. And it worked. Progressive democrats today might embrace the impatient and morally driven social movement of our own time. We need to get behind a black lives matter, not in front of it. They need to get behind the struggle for immigrant rights and the defense of doctor and for expansion of lgbt rights in the workplace and beyond. But they had done much of that. In many ways weve moved the other direction, the Democratic Party got rid of its present in this caucus in recent years and much of those Grassroots Efforts form the core of the party in the 1960s. And in this context, its nearly impossible to imagine a Current Party we will raise an army of dockworkers in the future, an army of volunteers capable of tying politics in the broader social movement and a message to running its message down to the city block. Its hard to conceive of a new version of the Democratic Coalition, an intermediate, Diverse Party organization towards of the grassroots. Its unthinkable the party will attach itself to the larger states and freedoms and citizenship being waged among africanamericans and immigrants, lgbt communities and other groups. I hope im wrong. History suggests this should be a coalition of progressive activists of all colors. They must reconnect elections to the ordinary lives of everyday people while linking to the uncompromising, urgent and morally driven insurgent Civil Rights Movement of the 21st century. Only then will the quest for a democratic exodus be complete. Then and only then will we turn texans blue. Thank you. [applause] now we reached the q and a portion of our evening. Speaker, wait until you get the microphone to ask your questions. Dont be shy. High. Striking to me to hear about how effective or how present labor was in this era that you write about. Now its the labor is not perhaps as effective as a mobilizing force. My question is what were the causes that might have led to a decline in labor strength and being able to shift politics in texas and did that occur in texas at a time different than maybe through the rest of the country . Thats an important one. Labor is a key part of the coalition and today is very hard to imagine a Progressive Movement that doesnt have to labor in some form. So across the country, theres several moments we look at, purging radicals from the Labor Movement in the 19 4, permanently crippled it and it narrowed its vision in most places. As i said in texas, that wasnt the end all be all and it continues to struggle and organize and thats true in much of the southwest that labor continued to fight and lost those fights. What they lost the fight because there are parts of the country that opened the door for right to work laws and other antilabor legislation and i think organized labor had a very narrow base. It was primarily among white male Industrial Workers and craftsmen. And one of the things that brown brought to the labor in texas in the 60s was his experiences of working sidebyside with core workers in san antonio and the sense that look at these people who are our people potentially more unorganized. And what did labor do to commit itself to organize in south texas along the border area in the kinds of businesses in which they are traditionallyrepresented. To his credit, hank brown pulled out a bunch of programs in that area, some of which i get into in the book. Union organizing programs using labor resources as a whole to help those communities laid the foundation for later union organizing. A lot of the battles were there and fought and lost. And then of course the industrialization comes along and pulls the rug out from under the industrial part of the Labor Movement and labor was not equipped to fight back and given power for managerial positions. Moving forward, i think what we see is the Labor Movement in texas and elsewhere beginning to experiment in new forms. Organizing in the city for example, the tax drivers union. New occupational groups, new setups like the workers Defense Project in the city where they are advocating for construction workers on the job but not in a Traditional Union structure. So i think organized labor needs to get back to thinking of itself as a Broad Social Movement representing all working people rather than just its members and theres lots of positive signs in that direction. Hopefully that will mean that we can reverse that long trend of decline. We will see. Ive got a comment on that. The economics of the United States, we lost that industrial base. You cant organize when theres no factory. All the Automobile Companies have moved out of alabama, tennessee because those laws and the right to work states were so established. From the Labor Movement, what they are is to public works, to the cities,counties. And. And more to so to the service sector. If theres no jobs organize, you cant organize manufacturing but theres no reason manufacturing is a good job in service isnt. Theres no economic reason for that. The reason is all about power. If workers were to organize in at mcdonalds the way they organize the general motors, they would make the same amount of money. We could make the new economy be without good jobs. I agree with you that the fantasy of reorganizing manufacturing sectors, those jobs are coming back but i think labor moved in that direction, theres been a fight for 15 among workers in the fast foodindustry, theres been efforts to push back at walmart, to organizing hospitals. Theres 1 million of them and im sure theres more but thats the picture. But it cant just be about work. It has to be about working people and their experiences beyond the worksite. In the community as well. I agree with that and ive seen that in my life. Im a retired Union Organizer and i had, it was my last 2 and a half years was organizing with nurses union in el paso. And the nurses union actually for the first time anywhere in texas organized for hospitals in the space of about less than two years. And one of the seven hospitals are now organized and say, four of them in el paso. And organizing, they do a lot of work but they still looked out to, there were only four mercer unions in for hospitals. We need to look out to the community and look at a broader struggle and understand the history of el paso as a lowwage city. We began some of those very same things and leaders, not me but other leaders and we jumped in as the organizers that we began to build, fighting for a living wage, we call for safety on the job and stopping wage fixes. We built coalitions Mexican American communities and immigrant groups and catholic groups and lobbied the council and made some gains that way. I think we didnt solve the history but im hoping to share your book with more because there are things like that being done now that are inventing how to do it. The Teachers Union has done that around the state. Organizing parents to Work Together in coalitions, to elect members so theres lots of examples of how thats still building. Sure and im optimistic about all that. I think its great. And we should all read the book and figure out what they might learn from it. But one of the things i would argue is that we have to think about where the forces of change are coming from as being multivalent. Civil Rights Movement is what gave the Labor Movement their energy in the 1960s. Right now, black lines matter is organizing communities in ways we havent seen in decades. And you know, Hillary Clinton barely talked about it on the campaign trail. A sickly dodge to the questions in the debate. So i think its clear that for democrats to win they are going to have to align themselves with Racial Justice in levels that, theyre going to have to continue to be stronger advocates for working people of all colors and to tackle the class struggle but they cant do one or the other. Hello, thank you for your talk. I look forward to reading your book and assigning chapters. I was just wondering and i apologize if i missed it, i was wondering what the role or if you discussed the role of bw or Texas Farmers Union in this moment, it was repeated obviously to 2016 but definitely the time when they are watching austin around the same time so i guess that was the role in your book. And. We should make them all by the book. Know, the book ends with the Farmers Market in 1966 area its beginning of the long and thats a critical moment in pushing the chicano movement, to new levels and new heights and bringing awareness to the issues and causes beyond just south texas. It drew upon the networks that i write about in the book, this whole two activists who had been sort of politicized and training and opinions organization are the core of the aid care that feed the strikers in the valley and help them take the market appear. When they get to austin the labor day of 1966, they are joined by 10,000 Union Organizers from across the state, most of them white and joined by the and aa cp who led a march in one group in particular, a group of students from huntsville in east texas of africanamericans who had marched there to be there in solidarity so i do have this multiracial moment in the book. But its this critical turning point and lots of changes as a result and thats why in the book there. But yes, i would say what we see after 1966 is that that farmworker struggle energizes even more chicano activists and pushes the politics of the elders to the left. And they do it with the support of africanamericans and white labor people. When they are pushing for the minimum wage during the 1967 session they are succeeding because brown is their lobbying for it, Barbara Jordan is in the senate , gil bernard is in the senate and they have a vote because of the coalition. Its a fitting end to the story. Although its also a new beginning, its a moment when the federal government finally intervenes in critical important ways. I hate to be the one to ask this question but you said you were going to talk about how the election is solved and im curious about how thathappened. Sure. It dissolves for a lot of reasons. But these tensions were always there. The fact that they overcame a lot of the disagreements at all, was remarkable. But there was a period of couple of years where they managed to Work Together effectively. What we see after, the big change, the biggest turning point is the assassination of kennedy. I think prior to that moment, most observers in the state thought that John Yarborough had a great chance of succeeding John Connolly in the next election. August liberal movement was moving the needle. They thought what was happening in washington and national politics, they saw the civil rights activists getting more inpatient and active every day. And when kennedy got shot in dallas, John Connolly got shot two. And he became untouchable politically and so that made the coalition flounder in terms of writing an identifiable target. They worked on these down out things but the other thing that came with that was because they work so well, africanamericans and Mexican Americans exerted new power in the city in a way that they wanted to put their priorities first, understandably and white activists were always ready for that. So the end result actually i get into great detail in the chapter, basically the coalition starts inviting again and white liberals decide to go it alone. They form a group called texas liberal democrats and they claim once again as they had 10 years earlier that they were going to create a group of individuals who are going to be colorblind, going to speak for everyone and that didnt work. It was a conflict over what the goals were. For white liberals, to win this internet fight within the Democratic Party. And to bring thegovernment to the states , and for most black and brown activists it was about destroying the capture and these are just different visions. And i argue that White Supremacy of the liberals made it verydifficult. Right after your book, the economic opportunities, these things are all path. Hundreds of thousands of people who were actors, went to work for headstart, for legal aid or community action. And we had five minority people, after the economy running for strikes in austin. Give me the names of the employees all came out, margaret is all came out of that adequacy in the economy strike but my point is that all of a sudden a lot of people, how they are kind of organizing, they all went with secondary education. They had these dollars and so people went to do other things. Theres a certain amount offatigue in fighting the same battles again. I think also , theres many cases in which activists use those antipoverty agencies to continue the struggle, to do civil rights work in new ways and maybe most notably when my owed the Mexican American Youth Organization uses the Mobilization Program to basically get the government to Higher Authority organizers for them. And it really worked. It worked well until Hector Gonzalez comes out about it and decided he found it threatening and crusted. But what weve learned, theres a bunch of people who do scholarship on the grassroots war on poverty on how that was entrenched in the civil rights rather than maybe your coop of it but clearly theres something lost if you were going to work at headstart in an independent protest organization. You are limited in what you can do. Its important work, it saved peoples lives and that was the reason people started getting into that activism in the first place but i think the depiction of those programs as a way to sell purpose probably has contributed to it. Tom, can you talk about the role of women in your book . Yes, so its interesting. Theres a number of Power Couples in the book. Christine lambert, a white woman whos a Union Organizer and democratic activist and the teacher look whos a Democratic Partyorganizer , an africanamerican from houston. They had prominent roles in the story and they do a lot of the work of organizing on the ground at different moments. And forging a bond between the two of them that becomes a model for others. Theyre both married women. Married women have access to public leadership. There are no single women. They did not have access. It was clear that it was mostly a boys club in the 1960s. And you know, they periodically tackled gender specific issues at work or Something Like that. And a lot of the democratic, the white liberal Democratic Leaders were women as well. That was kind of a Good Housekeeping among middleclass white women, specifically involved in your local Democratic Party so the ones that were liberals extend that into the broader struggle. Gender issues become much more common by the later 1960s but yes, you see powerful women like lane and leroy played a Critical Role laying the groundwork for the san antonio campaign. They are there. And they play a really important role. They dont generally run for office. We only have time for one more. One more, thank you. Hey, just thinking about this geography on the Labor Movement and its not a new trend but a growing trend . Looking at these alliances or interethnic alliances, theres a conference at the National Association of chicanostudies coming up and this is the theme. In your opinion, why do you think, your book is coming just now so why do you think this is something, it seems like a very important topic so why is this just coming out now . Not just labor history but social movement and social history, why is it happening now . Ive been working on this for 10 years and theres a lot of people who have been talking in different conferences about this work and i think its finally catching on that theres a Critical Mass of studies coming out helping to make the case that we need to study these in a different perspective. Take the frameless strike of mexican garment workers in san antonio. Its very important. Weve analyzed the gender dynamics. But it tends to be viewed as a monolithic phenomenon. I had this one group of chicago workers against the anglo state of the farm workers strike and what were finding is is by looking at those draw multiracial lens, it changes the meaning in important ways and particularly among Mexican Americans, the caricature of a postwar Mexican American activist that we have seen in historical scholarship in Popular Culture is a group that is essentially conservative in their politics, assimilationist in their leanings. Theyre not interested in being a mexicans, they want to be americans. They are patriotic and they even at times are viewed in texas as black, that they aligned themselves with the forces of White Supremacy in the age of jim crow. Looking through this multiracial lens completely explodes that story. Instead we see members of the Mexican American federation or liberal, engaging interethnic alliances , fighting in the streets and hosting these tactics and committed to expanding the promise of postwar liberalism to all people which is a different politics. So i think the election of obama, that starts to work with the election of obama in 2008 and in 2012, around 70 percent of the latino vote and Everyone Wants to know whats going to happen to this latino vote, will it continue to support africanamericans . Candidates like Hillary Clinton . I think our goal is trying to answer those Big Questions and the case im making is that the way we talk about coalitions and electoral politics, that isnt enough. Instead we need to come out and build grassroots social movements and how thats committed to our politics. I think those are the different forces at work. And its a critical question. If we are going to build more democratic societies, the question is how do the largest minority groups in the country interact with one another and with progressive whites and labor whites. Thats the key question we all need to figure out the answer to. I hope we can start on that. Thank you all very much for having me. Appointment heres our prime time lineup. Thatll happens tonight on cspan2s booktv. Hello, everyone. Its allowed. Thank you so much for coming. Thanks for supporting your authors, your favorite authors and your local indepnt