Around the same time another civil rights issue was confronted head on in the Mexican American community, that of equal education. Before 1947, children of Mexican decent were segregated from white children in California, Texas and New Mexico. Frustrated with the poor quality of their children’s education, a group of five Mexican-American fathers joined together to challenge segregation in Los Angeles court. The League of United Latino American Citizens (LULAC) soon took up their cause and eventually the case of Mendez v. Westminster reached the L.A. District Court. Here, the judge ruled in favor of the families, finding that segregating Mexican-Americans was unlawful. Schools in California were integrated, and surrounding states soon followed suit. This case was not only a victory for the Chicano Movement, but was later used as a precedent in the Brown v. Board of Education case that put an end to all school segregation.
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