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Garza / The Dirty Dozen

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Interviewer-"I have on here, can you tell me a little bit about the dirty dozen, an what that refers to?' Mr. Garza-Ok, the dirty dozen refers to a group that was created in the 1980s, 1980 when I was growing up in the school board for a full term. The, Anita Martinez had been elected by CA establishment, the city council group and there was a group of young anglo-leaders that created, what the called, the new CCA, which was supposed to diversify the power of the old CCA and John [?] was the leader of that group. He invited me and [?] to part of the CCA. So, when that happened we put opened up the process for selecting candidates that the new CCA would endorsed [?] And, the group that was pretty much behind my election in 1980 an then behind [?] in his election, ended up being labeled by the Dirty Dozen and it was a group of [?]. But, the group was pretty much focused on opened up to representing Hispanic [?] on grand juries and other focused on Hispanics on school level and the county and other places like that. So, we pretty much ended up advocated for opening doors for Hispanics in 1970. So, that was pretty much the rule of the planning committee, in the sense we were political because we were supported candidates, but we weren't really politicians, we were not getting paid for this. We were more in accomendation of [?] democracy and citizen ship involving some political activity. The group that really came in focused struggling on politics were 1980s, was [?] which opened up a new era for civil districts and legal actions, but the planning committe was basically, before that, we had nothing, we had nothing, so a group of professionals. I have heard [?] tell us that, that we in that group did not involved any Medranos, and I told him that his father was involved heavily state-wide and nation-wide and he did not have as much interest locally as he did [?]. So, the group that composed the Dirty Dozen [?] give you a list of who those person's were, was more of a door opener for Hispanic involvement. Interviewer-"To get into politics?" Mr. Garza-Well, no just to participate and, of course, for that participation it either had to be someone political, but the group was involved in county politics as much as it was involved in the school board and city council.....

Interview Interview with Trini Garza
Subjects Community Organizations
Race Relations › Anglo-Mexican Race Relations
Tags Martinez, Anita
Callejo, Adelfa
Aguirre, Pedro
Rizo, Frances
Hernandez, Frank
Medrano, Ricardo
Medrano, Francisco "Pancho"
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Interview date 2015-06-11
Interview source CRBB Summer 2015
Interviewees Garza, Trini
Interviewers Bynum, Katherine
Duration 00:04:44
Citation "The Dirty Dozen," from Trini Garza oral history interview with Katherine Bynum,  June 11, 2015, Dallas, TX, Civil Rights in Black and Brown Interview Database, https://crbb.tcu.edu/clips/1435/the-dirty-dozen, accessed September 24, 2025