El Primer Congreso Mexicanista

The congress answered a season of violence. Nicasio Idar's La Crónica had reported the burning and hanging of Antonio Rodríguez by a mob near Rocksprings, after he was accused of killing an Anglo woman. It had also run a series, "The Mexican Children of Texas," against separate schools. Clemente Idar proposed the meeting, and invitations went to lodges, mutual-aid societies, Mexican consuls, journalists and women. Delegates created the Gran Liga Mexicanista de Beneficencia y Protección and the Liga Femenil Mexicanista, under the motto Por la Raza y Para la Raza, and pledged to fight segregation of Mexican American students.

What the plaque says

El Primer Congreso Mexicanista In the late 19th and early 20th century, shifting racial hierarchies, large-scale property transfer, and agricultural industrialization led to an extended period of conflict between Texans of Mexican descent and those of Anglo origins. Economic problems and the Mexican Revolution in 1910 increased the immigrant population to Texas and subsequently increased tensions between the groups. On September 14, 1911, the owners of Laredo newspaper La Crónica organized El Primer Congreso Mexicanista (The First Mexican Congress), which brought together Mexican Americans from across Texas and citizens of northern Mexico. This gathering, likely the largest Mexican American Civil Rights meeting to that time, addressed growing economic disparities, racial violence, labor exploitation, inadequate educational opportunities, women's rights and social discrimination. Delegates frequently referred to the recent lynchings of Antonio Rodríguez in Rocksprings and Antonio Gómez in Thorndale as examples of the dire threats they faced. With representatives from dozens of cities and towns, the congress met for more than a week, in conjunction with a statewide meeting of the International Grand Lodge of the Caballeros de Honor (Knights of Honor) and Laredo's Diez y Seis Celebrations. The first officers elected were Jose P. Reyes of Brownsville, President; Nicasio Idar of Laredo, Vice President; and Lisandro Peña of Nuevo Laredo, Secretary. Meeting in the Order of the Red Men Hall and the City Market, delegates discussed strategies to address civil rights issues. Through later court cases and legislation, the delegates and their constituents made short-term progress and long-term impact on the rights of Hispanic Texans and the relationships among all the citizens of the state. (2014)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• San Agustín Plaza — 0.5 mi
  The shaded square at the center of Laredo's 1755 town, where Carrizo families, Spanish ranchers and a century of border politics shared the same ground.
• Republic of the Rio Grande Museum — 0.5 mi
  A stone-and-adobe Laredo house, by tradition the capitol of a federalist republic that lasted ten months in 1840, now a museum of life in a mid-nineteenth-century home.
• San Agustín Cathedral — 0.5 mi
  Laredo's Gothic Revival parish church, finished in 1872 on a parish older than Texas statehood, and the mother church of the Diocese of Laredo since 2000.
• Fort McIntosh Historic District at Laredo College — 0.6 mi
  An 1849 Army post on the Rio Grande above Laredo, its barracks, officers' quarters and 1895 chapel still standing on a college campus that took over the site in 1947.

More markers nearby

• Jovita Idar — steps away
• Saint Peter the Apostle Catholic Church — steps away
• Jarvis Plaza — steps away
• Laredo's Washington's Birthday Celebration — 0.4 mi