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"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
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The soul (and the soles) of an activist
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Race
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| Contributor | Thomas Walker |
| Last Edited | Thomas Walker Dec 08, 2006 01:00pm |
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| Category | Profile |
| Media | Newspaper - Arizona Republic (Phoenix) |
| News Date | Monday, May 15, 2006 06:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Yes, the recent immigrant marches might prove, as critics contend, strategically flawed.
The demonstrations, boycotts and work stoppages might turn off more voters than they turn on.
They could annoy more Americans than they win over.
But it probably doesn't matter in the long run. It's the young, teenagers and college students who are feeling their own political empowerment. Their time is tomorrow.
A similar moment in political history occurred 33 years ago, when many of the state's leading Latino figures got their start, organizing, protesting and following the lead of Cesar Chavez. You know their names: Alfredo Gutierrez, Ed Pastor, Danny Ortega, Mary Rose and Earl Wilcox, Ronnie Lopez and others.
There is another name, now virtually forgotten, who, at a critical moment in 1973, stepped forward and carried a signature message of empowerment across Arizona. On foot. In doing so, he played a key role in the emergence of Latino political influence. And he's not even Mexican.
Jerry Pollock, now 73, is an attorney, still in practice, still a progressive Democrat whose politics came naturally from a mother who was willing to get fired - twice - trying to organize a union. And from an older sister who dragged him along to picket local theaters that segregated Blacks. He was active in Civic Unity, pushing for integration in the 1950s. By the 1960s, he was a trial attorney and a liberal in a largely conservative state. |
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