Mercedes, Hidalgo County
Hector Perez Garcia (1914-1996) was a courageous leader in the Civil Rights movement. He achieved profound change in the treatment of fellow Mexican-Americans through peaceful protest and legal recourse. Garcia was born in Mexico; in 1917, when the Mexican Revolution endangered his family, they fled to the United States, legally taking up residence in Mercedes. In 1932, Garcia was valedictorian of his Mercedes High School class. He graduated with honors from the Univ. of Texas (1936), earned a medical degree from the Univ. of Texas Medical School at Galveston (1940), then completed a two-year residency in Nebraska. In 1942, Dr. Garcia volunteered for the U.S. Army and served as an officer and medical corps surgeon. When discharged as a major in 1945, he had earned a bronze star with six battle stars for service in north Africa and Italy. In 1946, Garcia moved his young family to Corpus Christi, where he opened a private practice with his brother. Dr. Garcia found himself drawn to addressing concerns of Mexican-American veterans. In March 1948, he and others formed the American G.I. Forum. Through the incident later named the Longoria Affair, Dr. Garcia and the Forum gathered national attention. The publicity brought an expansion to forum activities including education reform, desegregation, farm labor, and poll tax repeal. In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Garcia as Alternate Ambassador to the United Nations, with a directive to improve relations with Latin America and Spain. Dr. Garcia's activities foreshadowed much of the struggle for Mexican-Americans after World War II. A figure of national and international prominence, his life has impacted society from the poorest barrios to the highest echelons of government. Years of Texas Independence - 1836-2011