Benny Martinez, Texas Native & Latino Civil Rights Leader, Dies at 85
Style Magazine Newswire | 1/3/2020, 1:59 p.m.
Benny Martinez (LULAC Greater Houston Council #4967)
Benny Martinez, a Mexican-American civil rights leader who helped organize the historic Latino meeting with President John F. Kennedy, died Sunday. His daughter, Loretta Martinez Williams, said Martinez died peacefully of natural causes in Olmito following a long bout with several illnesses. He was 85. Born in Goliad, Martinez went to segregated schools before his father moved the family to Houston so his sons “wouldn’t have to pick cotton for a living.” After serving 18 months as a medic in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, Martinez returned to Houston and organized boycotts against businesses that refused to hire Mexican-Americans. Martinez later joined the League of United Latin American Citizens, then the nation’s largest civil rights organization for Latinos, and raised money for Mexican-Americans to pay their Texas “poll taxes” so they could vote.
