The Brown Berets:
Young Chicano Revolutionaries
Fight Back! interviewed Carlos Montes, one of the founders and former Minister of Information of
the Brown Berets National Office in East Los Angeles from 1967 to 1970. In the late 1960s and
early 1970s, the Brown Berets emerged as one of the most powerful and militant organizations in
the Chicano liberation movement. Like the Black Panther Party, the Brown Berets were hit hard by
government repression. This interview brings out a part of our history that is rarely taught in
schools and some lessons for today’s activists from our movement’s past.
Fight Back!: Who were the Brown Berets?
Carlos Montes was a co-founder of the Brown Berets in 1967.
Carlos Montes: We were a group of young Chicano revolutionaries from the barrios of the
Southwest fighting for the self-determination of our people. We organized in our barrios,
published the newspaper La Causa, ran a free clinic and fought against police brutality as well as
against the U.S. war in Vietnam.
We evolved from a youth group - from Young Citizens for Community Action, to Young Chicanos
for Community Action to the Brown Berets. We evolved from civic participation and assimilation
to revolutionary nationalism. The brown beret was a symbol of the pride in our culture, race and
history. It also symbolized our anger and militancy and fight against the long history of injustice
against the Chican@ people in the U.S., especially the Southwest. We claimed the Southwest as
Aztlan, the original homeland of the indigenous Aztec ancestors and founders of Mexico City…We
were from poor working class families growing up with the racism and police abuse.
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Fight Back!: Why did you join?
Carlos Montes: My family came to L.A. from Juarez, Mexico in 1956. I grew up in the barrios of
South L.A. and East L.A. and experienced the racist conditions in the schools, police abuse, drugs,
and the poor living conditions. This led me to get involved in the first Chicano student group, the
Mexican American Student Association (MASA), at East L.A. College in 1967 which saw using
education as the solution to injustice. I was also working as a youth center director and came
across Young Chicanos for Community Action and La Raza newspaper, which were starting to
voice opposition to the racist conditions in the barrio. I was drawn to the more active and direct
action approach of Young Chicanos for Community Action, which became the Brown Berets in late
1967.
Fight Back!: What kind of community organizing did you do?
Carlos Montes: We first took on the issue of police brutality. The East L.A. sheriffs were notorious
for their brutality, especially against Chicano youth, which I experienced cruising Whittier
Boulevard on the weekends with hundreds of other youth. We were the first to lead a protest at
the East L.A. sheriffs station to protest the killing of youth at the station in 1967. We also started
working with the car clubs in East L.A. to defend them against police abuse. We opened a local
cultural center in East L.A., The Piranya Coffee House, where we held youth meetings and cultural
programs. It became one of the meeting places for the Brown Berets.
We also started working on the problems of the bad school conditions and the racist educational
system. Our schools were old and in bad condition, with high drop out, or push out, rates and
racist administrators and teachers. Over time, we started agitating for bilingual education, better
school conditions, Chicano studies and more Chicano teachers. We attended community, school
and youth meetings to raise demands for better educational and school conditions. This finally led
to the historic East L.A. Blowouts in March of 1968, where thousands of high school Chicano youth
walked out of the four predominantly Chicano high schools in the Eastside over a two week
period.
Police photo of Brown Beret led walk-out at L.A.’s Lincoln High School
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The Brown Berets were the first to run in to the high schools, yelling, “Walk out! Walk out!” To get
the blowouts started, me and James Vigil (a k a Mangas Coloradas) ran into Lincoln High School on
the first day to kick off the walkouts. We then went on to Roosevelt High School and the other
schools.
We also supported the land movement in New Mexico of the Chicano small farmers and ranchers.
They fought to recover the land stolen by the rich Anglo ranchers and the U.S. federal government.
We supported the United Farm Workers’ struggle for union recognition and better working
conditions. We marched with the first Rainbow Coalition in the Poor Peoples Campaign in
Washington D.C. in the summer of 1968. We were at the first historic Chicano Youth Liberation
conference, where the Plan Espiritaul de Aztlan was formulated in Denver, Colorado. We also
organized the first Chicano Moratorium against the Vietnam War in December 1969. This led to
the historic national Chicano Moratorium march and rally against the Vietnam war on Aug. 29,
1970, where over 20,000 Chicanos protested the high casualty rate of Chicanos in Vietnam and
demanded self-determination at home in the Southwest. ‘Raza si! Guerra no!’
Fight Back!: What were major successes?
Carlos Montes: We exposed police brutality. Back then, some people tried to deny it existed. We
were part of building the Chicano movement for self-determination, which raised the slogan of
Chicano Power. It also started the movement for cultural awareness and pride in our Chicano
history in the Southwest and Mexico, and our culture and language.
The blowouts were historic because it was the fist wave of mass actions by Chicanos in the urban
barrios of the late 1960s. We eventually won bilingual education, Chicano studies, better school
conditions and Chicano teachers and administrators. The mass anti-war demonstrations were part
of the movement that eventually forced Nixon to pull out of Vietnam. We also opened the doors for
affirmative action in higher education and political representation.
Fight Back!: How did the political views of the Brown Berets develop?
Carlos Montes: We started out with civic involvement and education as the road to equality, but
soon learned that only real revolutionary change and political power by poor working people
would gain real equality and freedom. We evolved from civic duty, work within the system, to selfdetermination, revolutionary nationalism and international solidarity with the liberation
movements of Latin America, Africa and Asia - like the Vietnamese, the Congolese and Cubans
fighting for freedom from U.S. domination.
Fight Back!: How did they see the world?
Carlos Montes: We believed in self-determination for Chicanos. The Brown Berets’ thirteen-point
political program talked about self-determination as having political and economic control over
our lives. It called for a return of our land, release of prisoners, jobs, education, housing, an end to
the destruction of the environment by the capitalists, open borders, solidarity with all
revolutionary peoples engaged in the struggle for self-determination. And we denounced the U.S.
system of capitalism and imperialism.
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Fight Back!: Did they work with groups in the Black community?
Carlos Montes: Yes, we supported and formed alliances with Black groups such as the Black
Panther Party. We supported them when the police attacked them. We also set up similar
programs like the East L.A. Free Clinic and free breakfast programs. We also were part of the first
Rainbow Coalition when we joined the Poor Peoples Campaign in the summer of 1968. The Rev.
Martin Luther King had struggled within the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to include
the Chicano militant groups in the march on Washington, such as the Crusade for Justice, from
Colorado; Alliance of Free City States, from New Mexico and the Brown Berets.
Fight Back!: What happened to the Brown Berets?
Carlos Montes: The Brown Berets grew to have about fourteen chapters throughout the
Southwest, with East L.A. being the National Office. After the initial organizing efforts, the Los
Angeles Police Department and sheriffs sent undercover officers to infiltrate the Brown Berets.
The police infiltrators spied and acted as agent provocateurs, with the purpose of arresting the
leadership and disrupting the organization. The police used secret grand jury indictments to try to
jail and tie up the leadership in court trials. The top-down military structure of the group did not
allow for the development of new leadership, or the leadership and development of the women
who did a lot of the internal work. The Brown Berets continued ‘till about 1972, when they were
disbanded. By then, the Prime Minister David Sanchez had degenerated into staging publicity
stunts and running a one-man egomaniac undemocratic group.
Fight Back!: What are the lessons for today?
Carlos Montes: Building a mass militant movement to the stop the U.S. war drive, for social change
and for revolution is key. Also rebuilding grassroots militant organizations in the community that
fight for self-determination, social justice and liberation - not just for reforms. We need an
organization that includes the participation of the entire family and that values and promotes the
leadership of women.
Fight Back!: What about today’s ‘Brown Berets?’
Carlos Montes: The current group that call themselves Brown Berets have not led or been involved
in any positive mass campaigns for self-determination or social change. They have not been able
to grow or get support from any large segments of the Chicano community. They have not taken
up the fight for immigrant rights or other important issues, especially the growing anti-war
movement of today. They are primarily male and male dominated. They use militant rhetoric, but
do not organize.
To talk with Carlos Montes contact him at the Centro CSO (323) 221-4000
http://www.fightbacknews.org/2003winter/brownberets.htm
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