Willie Velásquez

Willie Velásquez was born on 9 May 1944 to Mexican-American parents; his father, a union organiser, was stationed in Florida during the Second World War. At St. Mary's University in San Antonio he helped found the Mexican American Youth Organization in 1967 and took a degree in economics, and he helped lay the groundwork for the Raza Unida Party.

In 1968 he coordinated the United Farm Workers' boycott and organised strikes in the Rio Grande Valley; he founded the Mexican American Unity Council and in 1970 became field director of the Southwest Council of La Raza. Between 1972 and 1974 he built the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, which worked to bring Latinos into the voting process and made "Su voto es su voz" — your vote is your voice — a national motto.

He died of kidney cancer on 15 June 1988, survived by his wife and three children, before seeing the full effect of his work. In 1995 President Bill Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously.

Sources

Facts in this profile are drawn from the Wikipedia article(s) linked below, consulted on 21 September 2026; the text is original. Wikipedia (English)

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