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June 13, 2008 ·Juan Sepulveda looks at today’s political headlines and can’t help wondering what his one-time mentor Willie Velasquez would have thought.
“This would have been an incredible time for Willie,” Sepulveda said.
But Velasquez did live to see this history making presidential election – June 15 marks twenty years since the sudden passing of the voting rights activist and Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project founder.
At the age of 44 Velasquez was diagnosed with kidney cancer. He died only a month after that diagnosis.
Sepulveda worked closely with Velasquez and authored a biography of the man, The Life and Times of Willie Velasquez: Su Voto es Su Voz.
“I think a lot of us just thought of Willie as a really strong person. And I think we were all shocked that it happened literally just a month later,” said Sepulveda.
Velasquez died three days shy of when he was scheduled to introduce former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis at the Texas Democratic Convention. Dukakis was the 1988 Democratic presidential candidate and had met Velasquez when both were at Harvard.
Dukakis remembers how shockingly quick the cancer escalated, and that it took a man of such persuasive eloquence.
“It was just stunning and numbing, best was I can describe it. It was just numb. Here was this guy with unbelievable talent and charisma and energy,” Dukakis said.
Velasquez used those talents to fight for voting rights in Texas in an age when it was common for civic leaders to scheme to prevent Mexican Americans and African Americans from exercising their voting rights.
Rolando Rios is a voting rights attorney based in San Antonio. He was the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project’s first legal director. He says Velasquez was a tremendous leader who was a force even in college.
Velasquez helped with organizing the United Farm Workers in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley in 1966, during his final semester of graduate studies at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio.
“Because he was tremendously committed to democracy and to the impact that Latinos could have in the democratic process and America,” Rios said.
Rios recalls that Velasquez asked him to join the organization because getting Hispanics registered was only half the electoral problem not only in Texas, but other states like New Mexico, Arizona and California.
“The other half of the problem was the election systems themselves were discriminatory so that even if you got everybody to vote the Hispanics wouldn’t be able to elect a candidate of their choice because they had systems like at-large elections, numbered post, things like that,” Rios said.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 helped knock down those voting right barriers minorities were facing, but Rios says it is one thing to pass a law, another to enforce it.
If Velasquez were alive today he still would be fighting the at-large election systems that still remain in place today. Today that job has fallen to Rios who is challenging the Texas municipality of Farmer’s Branch adjacent to Dallas.
Farmer’s Branch has a population that is about 35% Mexican American, yet there has never been a Mexican American on the its city council.
“They are not going to voluntarily change the system you got to sue them. You know, I’ve done two hundred of these lawsuits, and we had to do it here in San Antonio. We didn’t actually have to sue San Antonio; we had to use the Justice Department to object to them, but every other jurisdiction, like I said Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth they all had to be dragged to federal court and they changed it and things are better for that,” Rios said.
Sepulveda says Velasquez would be truly excited during this presidential election year because of John McCain, representing a state with strong Latino connections; Bill Richardson, the first Hispanic making a serious run at the presidency; Hillary Clinton, having strong support from the Latino community; and Barack Obama, actually doing what Velasquez dreamed about.
“Which was that a major presidential candidate took serious the notion of putting money into the field and community organizing which was the backbone of everything he did at Southwest Voter,” Sepulveda said.
Dukakis said Velasquez would certainly be involved not so much with a campaign, but with organizing and voter registration.
“He would be deeply and actively involved especially in the community, mobilizing them. I think he would be fully engaged in many ways it would represent the culmination of his work,” Dukakis said.
Velasquez drew large numbers of young people into the political process. Much like Barack Obama has done this presidential campaign. But Sepulveda says what we would also see is the impact and influence of Willie Velasquez and Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project.
“You would also have seen this extensive network of people who’d been trained and touched and who had gone through the Willie Velasquez Southwest Voter school, which, I think, who have put once again put us as Latinos in a very different place within these presidential campaigns than we had ever seen before in the history of the country,” Sepulveda said.
Velasquez had an impact on changing at-large electoral systems and gerrymandering of districts. But for Rolando Rios, there was something more important that Velasquez gave.
“I think the most important thing about Willie was that he was truly a visionary and truly believed in democracy, and that he was a leader in making sure that the community at large realize that the values and principles that the Latino community brings to the democratic experience are values that are important to make our democracy work,” Rios said.
President Bill Clinton in 1995 recognized the work of Willie Velasquez by posthumously awarding him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor any civilian can receive.
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