Book Review on the Chicano Liberation Struggle: Crusade for Justice
The new book, Crusade for Justice, Chicano Militancy, by Ernesto B. Vigil, is a major contribution to U.S. and Chicano history. The University of Wisconsin Press edition, released May 1999, tells the history of the Crusade for Justice (CFJ) and its militants' struggles for Chicano Liberation in the late 1960s and 1970s.
Based in Denver, Colorado, the CFJ made an impact on the entire movement by organizing the 1968 National Chicano Youth Liberation Conference. Over 2,000 people attended the conference, which to the formation of the Plan Espiritual de Aztlan. This key event raise the struggle from one of civil rights to one for self-determination and revolution for Chicanos in the Southwest. Vigil's book also describes the CFJ support for the land struggle of the Alianza Federal de Mercedes, its role in the La Raza Unida Party and the August 29, 1970 Chicano Moratorium against the Vietnam War.
This new book, 10 years in the making, draws from Freedom of Information files from the FBI and local police. It shows how the CFJ and movement were victims of police repression, frame-ups, infiltration and disruptions.
The book, Crusade for Justice, sums up important lessons for today's ongoing fight for Chicano Liberation. The need to continue to build grassroots, militant, democratic, fighting organizations among the community, youth, women and the poor working class to gain real liberation. It also highlights the need to unite the broad radical forces in the struggles for revolutionary change.