African American History in New Mexico: Portraits from Five Hundred Years

16: The Modern Civil Rights Movement in New Mexico, 1955–1975

201 16 The Modern Civil Rights Movement in New Mexico, 1955–1975 george m. cooper • • • A discussion of the modern African American civil rights movement often starts with the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954. In many states it is seen as stimulating the drive for equality by the single largest minority in the United States prior to the onset of the twenty-first century. However, in New Mexico that particular watershed event did not constitute a vital happening for several unique reasons. Foremost is the fact that at no time during the modern civil rights movement did African Americans in New Mexico ever exceed more than 3 percent of the population of the entire state. African Americans were the third-largest minority in New Mexico in 1950, but they were a distant third, less than 2 percent of the population.1 With the number of African Americans in New Mexico being so small, their fight for equality and civil rights often included the struggle of the other minorities as well. Secondly, because of their small numbers and their dispersal throughout the state, African Americans found it difficult to present a unified front significant enough to attract the attention of decision makers in the state. To a large degree, African Americans took few independent actions of their own to alleviate discriminatory practices by the dominant white society. Thirdly, we need to expand 202 george m. cooper our study of the civil rights movement within the restricted area of New Mexico and across the ethnic boundaries of the state, and we must also expand our temporal horizons. The state government of New Mexico long had addressed issues of minority rights; however, in most instances the issue of black rights was incidental to the concerns of other groups. Nonetheless, in some cases the people of New Mexico took corrective action well ahead of the rest of the nation, especially the southern states. The New Mexico state legislature early ratified a fair employment act. In fact, the state passed its fair employment act in 1948, before the U.S. Congress enacted similar legislation. Indeed, the national bill proposing establishment of a permanent Fair Employment Practices Board was sponsored and championed by New Mexico senator Dennis Chavez. In 1951 Carlsbad desegregated its schools to avoid losing accreditation for the entire system, well ahead of cities in neighboring states. Tucumcari integrated its secondary schools at the request of African American parents who didn’t want their children to attend out-of-town schools. The state’s largest city, Albuquerque, enacted an antidiscrimination ordinance on February 13, 1952.2 In 1962 the Hobbs City Council appointed a committee composed of both African Americans and whites to address the issues of racial intolerance in the city. While African Americans played a role statewide, with the exception of the Hobbs committee they were not the only minority involved in the struggle for civil rights in New Mexico. Toward the end of the 1960s blacks in New Mexico realized some progress in their own civil rights role. Under the leadership of Governor David Cargo in 1969, the state legislature passed and, more significantly , funded civil rights legislation. Cargo also was aggressive in appointing blacks to governmental positions during his administration , naming African Americans to major appointive offices in the state and increasing the number of such appointees to fortythree .3 There is ample evidence that the state did not ignore the plight of blacks even prior to the Cargo administration, even though few blacks resided in the state to influence policy. In the introductory chapter to Minorities and Civil Rights, Charles Woodhouse argues that African Americans mobilized in the late fifties and sixties not to gain freedom and independence but rather to gain assimilation into the dominant white culture.4 The lack of The Modern Civil Rights Movement in New Mexico 203 assimilation success in most instances was obvious. In New Mexico Hispanics as well as African Americans were excluded by majority choice based on racial differences.5 In New Mexico the place of African Americans was further complicated by the fact that they were seen as neither native, conqueror, nor colonist but often as a subservient people brought to the territory by the Spanish and Anglo conquerors. Despite this situation, free blacks were early settlers in the New Mexico territory. Mountain man James Beckwourth...