This date is now celebrated in the Chicano movement and Chicanos in Denver today honored it for the fourth year in a row with a demonstration and parade.

The parade concluded with a rally at the state capitol. The combined participation in the parade and rally was about 5,000.

All along the parade route there were militant and spirited shouts of "Chicano Power!" "Que Viva La Raza!"

The connection of the Chicano self-determination struggle to the struggles of the oppressed from Puerto Rico to Southeast Asia was stressed in the rally speech by Crusade for Justice leader Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales. He emphasized the need for the Chicano movement to support all such struggles.

October 6, 1947
DETROIT, Sept. 28 - A motorcade of more than 250 residents went to Lansing yesterday to demand that Governor Sigler and the special session of the Legislature immediately pass a state law freezing all rents and declaring a moratorium on evictions.

The demonstration was sponsored jointly by the Great Detroit Tenants Council, the UAW Housing Department and the Wayne County CIO Council.

Jack Lesnik, vice-president of the Wayne County CIO Council and organizer of the demonstration, outlined the tasks facing the tenants in Michigan. Ernest Dillard, chairman of the Brewster Project Tenants Council, spoke on the solidarity of white and Negro tenants and the similarity of their problems.

The tenants then crossed the street and set up a picket in front of the Hotel Olds, home of Sigler and most of the legislators. They carried signs reading: "Evict Kim Sigler," "Freeze Rents," "We Had Foxholes, Now Give Us Homes," "Stop Evictions," etc.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home