History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
Civil rights history — in Orange County
- 12-03-2010
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Column by Hector Tobar/Los Angeles Times
It bothered Sandra Robbie that she didn't know. She'd grown up in 1970s Westminster, the daughter of a Mexican American family. She'd learned all about Selma and the March on Washington. But Robbie, 54, graduated from high school and college without ever being told about Mendez et al vs. Westminster, the battle waged for civil rights in her own community. "I had all this history around me and didn't know it," she told me. Years before the Supreme Court ruled in Brown vs. Board of Education that state laws segregating public schools were unconstitutional, Gonzalo Mendez, Lorenzo Ramirez and other working parents led a battle that forced school districts in central Orange County to integrate. Those districts segregated children of Mexican descent. Latino parents confronted school administrators, held community meetings and eventually went to court. In 1947 they won. Their victory in federal court helped integrate all California schools and reverberated throughout the Southwest, where segregation of Latino students was common. (more…)
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