The Eastside of San Antonio’s Role in Civil Rights and Community Empowerment, Some Recollections from the Past
At an early age I was beginning to question the lies taught. In high school, in 1967, at Phyllis Wheatley High School, I was one of the leaders of a boycott of the school cafeteria because of an unsanitary kitchen. This was one of his first protests and after high school, as a member of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) I helped to lead a second protest at Hawthorne Middle School in 1969 after the schools principle was segregating Black and Mexican American students in the lunch line. SNCC members were arrested, but called for a boycott of the school. It was successful, as hundreds of parents kept their children at home that week. Many of these students were from the ghettos of the Carson Homes and the Sutton Homes. I was one of those arrested in the protest.
Before becoming a public school teacher and later a professor, Reverend Claude Black led the civil rights struggle in San Antonio for many years. Reverend Black was the pastor of Mt. Zion First Baptist Church who supported San Antonio SNCC in later years. He was an inspiration to many including me. I eventually became a member of Mt. Zion First Baptist Church. It is important to note that the FBI spied on Reverend Black and his protest against the cancellation of a speaking engagement by the City of San Antonio City Council of renowned activist Langston Hughes and continued illegal spying for years under a racist FBI director.
In 1976, I became the coordinator for SNCC and this eventually resulted SNCC becoming the last original Black Panther Party Chapter and SNCC chapter in America. The organization, when it was a part of SNCC, developed survival programs modeled after the original Black Panther Party which included a free breakfast program for school children, which was eventually adopted by the San Antonio school district. The program also included free sickle cell anemia testing, free political education classes, free legal help, and others. Also, SNCC organized of all of the Black Student Unions at San Antonio colleges and universities. The free breakfast program was conducted on the East Side of San Antonio at Antioch Baptist Church. The program involved feeding elementary and middle school students and providing transportation to school. Unfortunately, the program was sabotaged by authorities and sell outs that wanted to create their own program with federal funds.
The SNCC-Panther organization, as it later became known, collected thousands of signatures demanding the freedom of Angela Davis in 1972. At the rally to free Angela Davis, Reverend Claude Black was on stage as was other signers of the petition. Other signers included Rosie Castro, John Inman, Franklin Garcia, State Representative G.J. Sutton, and others. SNCC political education classes (1972-1976) were held on Burnet Street at the Ella Austin Community Center. The building was originally a Black orphanage. I worked at the Ella Austin Center as a community organizer with Charles Middleton, John Allen, and Paul Battle.
Later in life, I spoke out again the Israeli invasion of Lebanon with former CIA agent John Stockwell (author of In Search of Enemies), at the University of Texas at Austin in opposition to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. After the local SNCC-Panther chapter dissolved in 1976, former members went on to help organize Organizations United for Eastside Development (OUED), and during the MLK state holiday struggle a new group was formed called Frontline 2000. Frontline 2000 was the organization that succeeded in getting the state holiday passed after years of protests by other organizations.
