Fight Back!: How did the political views of the Brown Berets develop?
Carlos Montes: We started out with civic involvement and education as the road to equality, but soon learned that only real revolutionary change and political power by poor working people would gain real equality and freedom.
We evolved from civic duty, work within the system, to self-determination, revolutionary nationalism and international solidarity with the liberation movements of Latin America, Africa and Asia - like the Vietnamese, the Congolese and Cubans fighting for freedom from U.S. domination.
Fight Back!: How did they see the world?
Carlos Montes: We believed in self-determination for Chicanos.
The Brown Berets� thirteen-point political program talked about self-determination as having political and economic control over our lives.
It called for a return of our land, release of prisoners, jobs, education, housing, an end to the destruction of the environment by the capitalists, open borders, solidarity with all revolutionary peoples engaged in the struggle for self-determination. And we denounced the U.S. system of capitalism and imperialism.
Fight Back!: Did they work with groups in the Black community?
Carlos Montes: Yes, we supported and formed alliances with Black groups such as the Black Panther Party.
We supported them when the police attacked them.
We also set up similar programs like the East L.A. Free Clinic and free breakfast programs.
We also were part of the first Rainbow Coalition when we joined the Poor Peoples Campaign in the summer of 1968.
The Rev. Martin Luther King had struggled within the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to include the Chicano militant groups in the march on Washington, such as the Crusade for Justice, from Colorado; Alliance of Free City States, from New Mexico and the Brown Berets.
