Carlos Montes

Carlos Montes
at the San José Peace & Justice Center, February 19, 2012
Movement	Chicano Movement

Carlos Montes is a nationally respected leader in the Chicano, immigrant rights, and anti-war movements. He was a co-founder of the Brown Berets, a Chicano working class youth organization in the United States in the late 1960s and 1970s. The Brown Berets were inspired by and often compared to the Black Panther Party. Montes was one of the leaders of the Chicano Blowouts, a series of walkouts of East Los Angeles high schools to protest against racism and inequality in Los Angeles-area high schools. He is portrayed by Fidel Gomez in the 2006 HBO movie Walkout.

He has been facing charges since 2011 on a firearms violation that he and supporters insist is unsubstantiated and politically motivated, intended to stifle dissent.

The agenda of the Brown Berets was to fight police harassment, inadequate public schools inadequate health care, inadequate job opportunities, minority education issues, the lack of political representation, and the Vietnam War. It had a 13-point program that included self-determination for Chicanos. It set up branches in Texas, New Mexico, New York, Florida, Chicago, St. Louis and other metropolitan areas with Chicano populations.

Montes was indicted twice for the ELA Blowout (he was one of the East LA 13) and later with ten others for conspiracy to commit arson by the Los Angeles Police Department at a demonstration against then Governor Ronald Reagan in 1969. After threats against his life and beatings by the police and many arrests on false charges, he went underground and lived in Juarez, Mexico, and later in El Paso, Texas, where he did organized labor. He was rearrested in Monterey Park, California in May 1977 and tried. However, with a competent legal defense, community support and a defense committee he was found not guilty of all charges. The Walkout indictment was dismissed as unconstitutional.

Montes remains an activist and is a leader of Latinos Against War, a Latino anti-war organization based in Los Angeles and a member of the immigrant advocacy group the Southern California Immigration Coalition.