The Impact of Brown on the Brown of South Texas: A Micropolitical Perspective on the Education of Mexican Americans in a South Texas Community

Abstract

This article identifies the Edcouch-Elsa High School Walkout of 1968 as a pivotal event in the educational history of Mexican American students in south Texas. It presents elements of the Civil Rights Movement, including the Brown decision, the rise of Mexican American political organizations, and the actions of community youth. The authors use oral histories that they and their high school students produced between 1997 and 2002, through the work of the Llano Grande Center for Research and Development, a nonprofit organization founded by the authors and their students. Through the use of secondary literature, local stories, and micro–macro integrative theory, this study describes how the Brown decision and other national events affected Edcouch-Elsa schools between 1954 and 1968.