HARLINGEN — During his historic campaign stumps across Texas, Mexican-Americans’ first state gubernatorial candidate stirred students like Rogelio Nunez to keep pushing for the growing Chicano movement’s civil rights goals.
In 1972, Ramsey Muniz, the first Hispanic to run for the state’s governorship, was rousing students across Texas on college campuses like Texas A&I University in Kingsville.
Last Sunday, Muniz died at 79 after suffering complications stemming from myasthenia gravis, leaving a tortured legacy that after 50 years still burns in the wounds of Mexican-Americans’ struggle for civil rights.
While his two runs for governor under La Raza Unida party helped democratize Texas’ electoral system, his drug convictions led to the party’s collapse.
‘PIVOTAL MOMENT’
In 1972 and 1974, Muniz’s bold runs for governor under the La Raza Unida banner challenged the conservative Democratic Party’s stronghold on the state’s political system.
Across Texas, he was helping to transform a generation of young Mexican Americans.
During his campaign stumps, Muniz ignited Mexican Americans across the state.
“It was packed,” Nunez, executive director of Proyecto Libertad, a human rights group in Harlingen, recalled of the young lawyer’s speech at A&I University’s student center in 1972.
“It was a pivotal moment,” he said. “Ramsey was very educated — he was a very good orator. He was very inspiring — he inspired me. I was beginning to learn how our people have been discriminated. South Texas was to us the equivalent of the South and what blacks went through.”
THIRD PARTY
In La Joya in 1972, Amancio Chapa volunteered to work on Muniz’s first campaign for governor.
“We were going door-to-door, holding community meetings in neighborhoods,” Chapa, 76, a former executive director of Amigos del Valle who served as the La Joya school district’s fine arts director, said.
In 1971, Chapa joined La Raza Unida party.
“You have this new political movement with liberal progressive Mexican American Democrats,” he said.
During his campaign, Muniz carried La Raza Unidas’ flag, introducing Texas voters to a third political party.
“He had a very progressive platform,” Chapa said. “He was advocating greater opportunities in higher education at universities, addressing high drop-out rates in public schools, more economic opportunities for Mexican Americans, meaning better wages. He was anti-war — he saw Mexican Americans were drafted and dying at higher rates — and he was an early advocate for women’s rights.”
Meanwhile, the Rio Grande Valley was one of the poorest regions in the country.
“We had some of the highest property rates in the United States,” Chapa said. “We had little or no representation in local government. In those days, Anglos controlled almost every political office in the three counties.”
CHALLENGING THE TWO-PARTY SYSTEM
Among Mexican Americans, Muniz “was accepted very well,” Chapa said.
“The only criticism was his politics were ‘too far to the left — he’s not going to win,’” he said. “At that time, the Mexican American community was very dedicated to the Democratic Party and many liberal Mexican American party Democrats were more loyal to the national Democratic Party. This was one of the biggest problems we had in the Valley.”
‘DEMOCRATIZING THE POLITICAL PROCESS’
In the general election, Muniz pulled about 200,000 votes, or about 6.3 percent, while Democrat Dolph Brisco claimed victory with 47.8 percent of the vote.
“The Democratic Party had a lock on the system — it was a very conservative party,” Chapa said. “For the first time, the Democratic Party candidate failed to get the majority of the votes cast. Ramsey’s candidacy helped progressive Democrats participate. He attracted a younger generation that began advocating loudly for change in the party structure.”
Muniz’s entry into Texas politics pushed the Democratic Party to open up, he said.
“Ramsey’s campaign helped democratize the political process,” Chapa said. “It put pressure on the Democratic party — they couldn’t take the Mexican-American vote for granted anymore.”
PARTY’S DEATH
After a second run for governor two years later, Muniz opened a law firm in his hometown of Corpus Christi, Chapa said.
Then in 1976, he pleaded guilty to drug charges after the first of three arrests, serving a total of about 3o years in federal prison.
“Obviously, it was a big disappointment to us,” Chapa said. “Obviously, it was a big blow to our political movement. Obviously, the party didn’t survive this blow. But for me and a lot of people that I interacted with throughout the state, it did not diminish our commitment to the Chicano movement.”
By the mid 1970s, organizers were forming the party’s offshoot — the Mexican American Democrats, Chapa said.
“Many said, ‘We’re going back to the Democratic Party, pushing almost the identical agenda of La Raza Unida party,” he said.
LEGACY
Maintaining his innocence while declaring himself a political prisoner, Muniz requested supporters petition then-President Barack Obama for his release.
In 2018, he was released on compassionate grounds.
“I never lost my respect for Ramsey,” Chapa said. “To me, he will go down in history. Though he had his legal problems, I still consider him one of the premier Chicano leaders.”
