National Council of La Raza

History and Activism

The success of the African American civil rights movement during the 1960s raised awareness of lingering inequalities and social grievances that affected other communities of color in the United States, including Latinos. The NCLR's origins date to the early 1960s, when a group of Mexican American activists known as the National Organization for Mexican American Services (NOMAS) realized that the Mexican American community lacked the type of local and political infrastructure and leadership that marked the struggle for African American civil rights. NOMAS submitted a funding proposal to the Ford Foundation, which resulted in Ford financing the first national study of Mexican Americans conducted by academics from the University of California, Los Angeles.

A portion of this grant was used to hire three Mexican American activists—Ernesto Galarza, Herman Gallegos, and Julian Samora—to study the social experiences of Mexican American communities throughout the southwest. The results of this study indicated that poverty constituted the greatest social barrier for Mexican Americans and that Mexican Americans needed a national civil rights lobbyist organization similar to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) or the National Urban League.

From this study emerged the Southwest Council of La Raza (SWCLR) in February 1968, the predecessor of the NCLR. The SWCLR established its headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, and devoted much of its early attention to establishing and maintaining partnerships with local grassroots Mexican American organizations, increasing voter registration and political participation among Mexican Americans, and promoting housing and economic empowerment initiatives within the Mexican American community. The organization expanded its focus considerably in 1972, when it relocated its headquarters to Washington, D.C., and changed its name to the National Council of La Raza.

...