On a cold and rainy Sunday in February 1929, a group of Latino men in dapper suits and boater hats gathered in a convention hall in Corpus Christi, Texas, to forge a new Latino civil rights group.
Most of the men, about 175 in total, were Mexican American veterans of World War I. They had returned home a decade earlier to a small but thriving Hispanic middle class in South Texas, where they had helped form three of the most prominent civil rights organizations in the region.
Now the men were merging their groups to form the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, in hopes of better leveraging their resources to combat racism and to elect political leaders who represented their families and interests.
These were radical notions. At the time, Jim Crow laws were in effect, poll taxes kept many Black and Mexican American voters from the ballot box and some restaurants hung signs outside their doors barring the entrance of dogs and Mexicans.
Nearly a century later, as President-elect Donald J. Trump is set to return to the White House, LULAC is preparing to stand on the front lines of clashes with the incoming administration over proposed mass deportations, voting access and issues involving education and the social safety net.
The group’s chief executive, Juan Proaño, said in an interview that its mission — protecting the rights of Latinos — was more critical than ever. But he said LULAC was also contending with election results in which many Latino voters, especially Latino men, gravitated toward Mr. Trump, suggesting they might no longer see themselves as part of the group’s fight.
