LAUSR

The Journal of Southern History, Volume LXXXVIII, No. 4, November 2022 significant point for me is the willingness to tackle the legacy of Dr. Hector P. García and his off and on leadership of the American GI Forum, a post–World War II civil rights organization largely composed of Mexican American veterans. The literature surrounding both García and the organization is vast and hagiographic, and the determination to confront the long shadow of García and his many complexities is long overdue and refreshing. It is the third section where the theme of coalitional politics and behavior is confronted most vigorously, with the cities of San Antonio and Austin offering the most compelling examples. Young Black and Brown radicals in San Antonio forged ties of solidarity that included biracial support for Angela Davis, César Chávez and the United Farm Workers’ grape boycott, as well as electoral cooperation to promote a mixed platform of Black and Brown candidates for city offices. Biracial efforts in Austin also included young radicals as well as formal legal efforts by more mainstream organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund to sue for local redistricting to promote better electoral representation. My fear, however, is that the few examples of intersectionality found within the third section are structurally overwhelmed by the first two sections, which clearly illustrate separate trajectories of civil rights activism that seldom overlapped. Moreover, obvious sources of tension, such as the embrace of whiteness by some in the Mexican American community, a powerful point of debate within Chicanx historiography, need a fuller examination than what is offered here. Furthermore, the present-day context of these struggles in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, including vocal elements of the Black Lives Matter movement that posit Black emancipation as the source of emancipation for all marginalized communities, could have been addressed. All of this is to say that on a case-by-case basis Black and Brown intersectionality did (and does) exist, and this excellent anthology joins a growing body of literature that examines such collaborations.