Brown Berets

“The Brown Berets (Los Boinas Cafes) are a pro-Chicano organization that emerged during the Chicano Movement in the late 1960s founded by David Sanchez and remains active to the present day.^[1] The group was seen as part of the Third Movement for Liberation. The Brown Berets’ movements largely revolved around farm worker’s struggles, educational reform, and anti-war activism; they have also organized against police brutality. Several groups have been quite active since the passage of California Proposition 187. … The group decided to wear brown berets as a symbol of unity and resistance against discrimination. As a result, the organization gained the name ‘Brown Berets’. Their agenda 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 set up branches in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, New York, Florida, Chicago, St. Louis and other metropolitan areas with large ‘raza’ populations. The ideology of the Brown Berets was primarily represented by Chicanismo, for example with them having communication with the Black Panther Party in L.A. and having the Black Panther Party promoted, they were mainly aiming for a third world position. …  By September 1968, the Brown Berets became a national organization having opened chapters California, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, Minnesota, Ohio, Oregon, and Indiana. The Brown Berets also came to be known for their direct action against police brutality. They protested killings and abuses perpetrated by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department at the station in the barrio. … The Brown Berets organized the first Chicano Moratorium against the Vietnam War in 1970,^[8] and a few months later the National Chicano Moratorium in which close to 20,000 Chicanos marched and protested the high casualty rate of Chicanos in Vietnam and the military draft. This peaceful protest became chaotic when the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department decided to end the event by attacking attendees. Three Chicano activists were killed (two of them Brown Berets), including journalist Rubén Salazar. …”
Wikipedia
Formation: The Little Known History Of The Brown Berets
¡La Lucha Continua! Gloria Arellanes and the Making of a Chicano Movement in El Monte and Beyond
Up from the barrio
Brown Beret Chapters 1969-1972
YouTube: Brown Berets: Chicano Revolutionaries