Austin Chicano Huelga: Then & Now
BY MATTHEW MEDINA
February 6, 2024 marks the 53rd anniversary of Cesar Chavez’s visit to Austin in support of the Austin Chicano Huelga, a Mexican American-led labor movement sparked by the Economy Furniture Industries strike of the late 1960s/early 1970s. In honor of this anniversary, this four-part blog series on the Austin Chicano Huelga was prepared by Fowler Family Underrepresented Heritage Intern Matthew Medina. Read the series here.
My name is Matthew Medina, I am a graduate student in the Public History Program at Texas State University! The historical topic that I focus on is Labor and Working Class history. I am interested in the moments in history when working people decided to conceive of a different relationship to labor for themselves and their community, organizing and protesting to make their voices heard. I hope to echo their words in the work that I produce, acknowledging the significance of their ideas and struggles.
Here I am standing in front of the old Economy Furniture Manufacturing Building on the corner of Fifth Street and Shady Lane. This was one of the major manufacturing plants of Economy Furniture, and also where many Mexican American residents of East Austin worked. The company stopped using the building in the mid-1960s, moving all operations to a much bigger plant in North Austin, on McNeil Road. The new plant was the site of the two-and-a-half-year strike beginning in 1968 by Mexican-American Huelgalistas for recognition of UIU Local #456 and wage increases. Although many of the structures significant to the organizing of the Local #456 are not standing anymore we can still visit the spaces in Austin that served as sites of demonstration. Come with me as we go to a couple of places in Austin and revisit some of the spaces important to the successful strike by Local #456!
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS STUDENT UNION
In the black and white Archival Photo, you can see Lencho Hernandez meeting with UT students handing out flyers promoting the 1970 rally for the strikers. UT students organized into different student coalitions, like the Mexican American Student Organization (MASO) and the Student Mobilization Committee helped handbill stores, distribute rally and information flyers, collected signatures for boycotts, and marched with strikers. UT student journalists from the Rag, a counter-culture student magazine, published news and information about the strike that was omitted or censored in Austin's major news publications. Solidarity between Huelgalistas and students is exhibited throughout the entire two years of the strike.
Today, standing in front of Union Building on the UT campus, where Lencho and the students are pictured, things don't look much different. The change created can't be seen, it can only be carried on by the various student groups, and activist organizations that continue to conceive of a better Austin in 2024.
CONGRESS AVENUE
Many have walked, marched, protested, and rallied down Congress Avenue, with the Capitol looming in the background and signs hoisted high. The Huelgalistas faced a lot of opposition to create the opportunity for that archival photo to be taken. The rally pictured in the photo took place in 1970 and was the second major demonstration voicing the concerns of strikers at Economy Furniture. Many barriers were created to stop the strikers from demonstrating, like the passing of a city ordinance regulating "parades" by requiring a permit, holding "parade" organizers financially liable for police protection, and any damage caused by the "parade". At the first major rally, Huelgalistas were served with various charges for organizing the protest. It took a coalition of students, activists, labor leaders, and lawyers to advocate for a means of legal demonstration for the strikers at Economy Furniture.
Today, Congress Avenue has gone through major change, and the facades of the buildings look nothing like they once did. The neon signage that once dominated the aesthetic of commercial buildings have been replaced with trees. However, the organized and nonviolent demonstrations by the Huelgalistas and the brave efforts amid the threat of arrest, and legal repercussions, contributed to the Congress Avenue of today as a site of demonstration.
LORENZO DE ZAVALA TEXAS STATE ARCHIVES BUILDING
The rally featuring Cesar Chavez had been in the making since the beginning of major strike operations in 1969. Janet Newton, the Austin Chicano Huelga public information coordinator had been corresponding with the Chavez team to get him to Austin for two years. In 1971, Cesar Chavez, one of the most important Mexican-American civil rights figures in history visited the capitol city of Texas to show solidarity with the striking workers of Economy Furniture Industries.
The archival photo, taken after the 1971 march, shows some of the male strike leaders and Cesar Chavez in front of the Lorenzo De Zavala Texas State Archives building on the capitol ground. The inscription behind them, engraved into the side of the building is from the first Texas Constitution. History does not exist separately from the present, and this archival photo exemplifies the temporal connection to the significance of the strike today. Over fifty years ago, those men stood in front of a repository that might one day collect their stories, presenting themselves with power. As I stand in the same space, I can try and connect myself with what they felt at the moment the photo was taken. That connection we can feel in historic spaces is why preservation is so important!