Trial by fire: the Ford Foundation and MALDEF in the 1960s

ABSTRACT

This article is about the relationship between legal activists, foundations, and social movements. It is a study of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) the largest and oldest Latino civil rights law organization in the United States. Established in 1968, MALDEF is an organization of cause lawyers, attorneys who devote most or part of their professional lives to or who are closely identified with social justice movements. MALDEF is primarily dependent on the Ford Foundation, which issued the first grant that created the organization. This essay is a study of MALDEF in its first five years of operation a time when community activists pressured its lawyers for legal representation while the Ford Foundation insisted that it concentrate on legal reform. These irreconcilable demands and MALDEF’s compliance with the Ford Foundation’s demands illustrates the impact that lawyers and philanthropy can have on the course of Latino social movement politics. This research also points to the impact that foundations, corporations, or wealthy individuals can have on the representation of minority political interests.

KEYWORDS:

• American politics
• Chicano/a politics
• civil rights
• identity
• Latino/a politics
• social movements
• minority representation
• cause lawyers

Acknowledgements

Primary data for this project came from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund Records, Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, California; Rockefeller Center Archives and the Carnegie Corporation of New York Archive in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University Libraries.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.