Voter Registration
Ross worked on voter registration in Riverside County, in the town of Belltown, where there was a segregation problem in the public schools. The Mexican and African-American children were all attending one school and the Anglo children were picked up by a bus and taken to another school. There was a bond election to provide funding to fix the predominantly Anglo school, but there was to be no money spent on the other school. The mainly Hispanic area was the Casa Blanca barrio, but their city council representative was an orange grower that refused to visit the people and address their grievances because of previous worker strikes against him. Ross, alongside numerous NAACP workers, registered voters in this area and unified the Hispanic community to vote against the orange grower in the city council election. Belltown eventually integrated the schools and the bonds passed. After this experience, Ross began to believe in the success of his type of organization. From then on, Ross and the CSO established two broad-based programs wherever they went – voter registration and citizenship classes.
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