United Farm Workers - Texas Campaign

Texas Campaign

By mid-1971 the Texas campaign was well underway. In Sept. 1971, Thomas John Wakely, recent discharge from the United States Air Force joined the San Antonio office of the Texas campaign. His pay was room and board, $ 5.00 a week plus all of the menudo he could eat. The menudo was provided to the UFOC staff by the families of migrant workers working the Texas fields.

TJ worked for UFOC for about 2 years and his responsibilities included organizing the Grape Boycott in San Antonio. His primary target was the H.E.B grocery store chain. In addition, he attempted to organize Hispanic farm workers working the farmers market in San Antonio — an institution at that time controlled by the corporate farms. Among his many organizing activities included an early 1972 episode where he and several other UFOC staff members who were attempting to organize warehouse workers in San Antonio were fired upon by security agents of the corporate farm owners.

In mid-1973 the San Antonio office of the UFOC was taken over by the Brown Berets. This radicalization of the San Antonio UFOC office led to the eventual collapse of the San Antonio UFOC organizing campaign.