A friend and I drove down to Fresno for two days to pay our respects to one of the grand old men of California organizing. Gilbert Padilla is a spry and dry-witted youngster of 80 who cut his organizing teeth with the CSO (Community Services Organization) in the Central Valley after his stint in the WW II army (along with his 5 brothers.) Unwelcome to many places and jobs on their return Gilbert, along with many others, hispanic and black, became the new ground troops for equality and justice that grew into the civil rights movements of the 60s and beyond. “Give us a class on this” we asked him, using one of his favorite phrases to get people to talk about issues that concern them. He showed us a short video interview he had done with Hector Tarango who initiated the landmark desegregation case, Westminster v. Mendez, in Orange County, 1947. Following an unprecedented voter registration drive organized by Fred Ross and the CSO, Hector and others decided to sue Westminster to provide hispanics with an education equal to that of the anglo children at the school directly adjacent, separated by a wire fence and decades of discrimination. Thurgood Marshall came to visit following the decision and used many of the arguments in his Brown v. The Board of Education.

It was a great classroom for Jim and me to sit with Gilbert and Esther. You can catch up a bit on the CSO Project website and see the same clip of Hector — weeping at his recollection of those battles 60 years ago. A partial transcript is here.

My sense is that we have done a poor job of leaving our histories and memories to those coming along now. The CSO Project is a great addition to the grass roots effort. We need to see more — of draft resisters, anti-war organizers, early women’s groups, premature world worriers….