LULAC

Ben Garza, the chairman on the plaque, was born in Brownsville in 1892 and raised in Rockport. He moved to Corpus Christi in 1914, waited tables, and in 1920 bought into the Metropolitan Cafe on North Chaparral. As president of Council No. 4 of the Order of the Sons of America he pushed the rival groups together, and he was elected LULAC's first president at the May 1929 convention. In the early 1930s he testified in Washington against a bill that would have allowed segregating Mexican American students. Tuberculosis closed his cafe, and he died in 1937 at forty-four.

What the plaque says

LULAC One of the most influential American political groups of the twentieth century, the League of United Latin American Citizens was founded in Corpus Christi. The formation of LULAC resulted from the merger of three groups: the Order of Sons of America (Corpus Christi); the Knights of America (San Antonio); and the Latin American Citizens League of the Rio Grande Valley. The organizational meeting was held in Obreros Hall, at this site, on Feb. 17, 1929, with 25 delegates and 125 observers. Local businessman Ben Garza was the chairman. At the first general convention in Corpus Christi in May 1929, he was elected president. Andres de Luna was secretary and Louis Wilmot, treasurer. The LULAC organization has been a pioneer in the development of social and educational programs for Hispanic-Americans. Special projects have included assistance for the elderly and needy, adult basic education classes, prisoner rehabilitation, job training, preschool programs, and sponsorship of housing projects and youth organizations. Now a nationwide organization, LULAC continues to be a leader in the development of programs for the betterment of the Hispanic-American community. (1981)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mirador de la Flor — 0.6 mi
  Corpus Christi's bayfront memorial to Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, the Tejano singer from this city, killed in 1995 at twenty-three, visited by about thirty thousand people a year.
• Art Museum of South Texas — 1.2 mi
  Philip Johnson's 1972 museum on the Corpus Christi bayfront, joined in 2006 by Ricardo Legorreta's Miller Wing, holding more than 2,000 works mostly from Texas and the Americas.
• Texas State Aquarium — 1.4 mi
  A nonprofit aquarium on the tip of Corpus Christi Beach built around the Gulf and the Caribbean, with the largest coastal wildlife rescue center in Texas behind the exhibits.
• USS Lexington Museum on the Bay — 1.6 mi
  An Essex-class carrier of 1943 moored off North Beach, the Blue Ghost that Tokyo Rose kept reporting sunk, and the Navy's training carrier for nearly three decades after.

More markers nearby

• Site of Cheston L. Heath School — steps away
• Felix von Blucher — steps away
• Old St. Patrick's Church — 0.2 mi
• Captain Enrique Villarreal and Rincon del Oso Land Grant — 0.2 mi