Dr. Héctor P. García came to Corpus Christi in 1946 with a Bronze Star from North Africa and Italy and opened a practice with his brother José Antonio. He found that Mexican American veterans were not getting what the G.I. Bill promised, and in 1947, as president of the city's LULAC chapter, he began helping them file claims with the Veterans Administration. On March 26, 1948, a meeting at Lamar Elementary School organized the American G.I. Forum. About 700 veterans took part. Its first fights were over benefits, hospital care and Mexican American seats on draft boards.
The call from Three Rivers
Felix Longoria, a private from Three Rivers, was killed by a Japanese sniper on Luzon in mid-June 1945. In late 1948 his widow, Beatrice, received an Army telegram asking where to send his remains, and she chose his hometown. The town's only funeral home was the Rice Funeral Home, owned by Tom Kennedy, and the cemetery kept a Mexican section behind barbed wire. When Beatrice asked for the chapel for a wake, Kennedy refused, reportedly saying "the whites wouldn't like it." A relative called García. On Monday, January 10, 1949, García phoned Kennedy himself while his secretary, Gladys Bucher, took notes. Kennedy gave him the same answer.
Eight forty-nine
García sent telegrams to officials, a dozen by one count and seventeen by another. The one to Senator Lyndon Johnson asked for "immediate investigation and correction" of Kennedy's "un-American action," and it reached Johnson's Senate office at 8:49 the next morning. Aides John Connally or Walter Jenkins opened it, and neither could later say which. Johnson is reported to have said when he saw it, "By God, we'll bury him in Arlington!" His telegram that afternoon said he "deeply regret[ted]" that "the prejudice of some individuals extends even beyond this life," and offered burial with full military honors at Arlington or at Fort Sam Houston, at no cost. That evening more than a thousand people met in Corpus Christi, and Johnson's reply was read aloud. Walter Winchell wrote that Texas "looks mighty small tonight." García's family received insults and threats. Beatrice told a New York Times reporter, "I'm all mixed up about this." Longoria was buried at Arlington on February 16, 1949, with Johnson, Lady Bird Johnson and a representative of President Truman present.
The hearing
The Texas House authorized a five-member committee, which held open hearings at the Three Rivers Chamber of Commerce. Five witnesses testified or filed notarized statements that Kennedy's motive was racial. Kennedy later attributed the refusal to a dispute within the Longoria family. Four members signed a majority report finding that he had not discriminated, that he acted in anger and that he had apologized. Frank Oltorf wrote that his words "appear to be discriminatory," and another member withdrew his name and filed a separate account placing the action on "the fine line of discrimination." The report was never formally filed.
The Forum went on to argue Hernandez v. Texas with LULAC lawyers in 1954. The funeral home was demolished in 2014, and the marker was moved to the entrance of city hall, where the Felix Longoria marker tells the family's story.