Even as I share these historical memories, I can envision her face, which is full of love, pride, strength, faith, and a 'never give up' attitude like no one else in this world.

[1] A football player, he once organized a protest by the athletic team on behalf of the first African American seeking to join the cheerleading squad.

In 1971, he procured his Juris Doctor degree from Baylor Law School, having worked as an assistant coach to help finance his studies.

Other such university speakers in his day were the clergymen Billy Graham, Jesse Jackson, and Ralph Abernathy, the Hispanic activist Cesar Chavez, American Indian Movement figure Russell Means, Georgia State Representative Julian Bond, and the black communist Angela Davis.

His campaign focused primarily on issues of importance to Hispanics, as espoused at the first Raza Unida convention held earlier that year in El Paso.

Muñiz had a female running mate for lieutenant governor, Alma Canales of Edinburg, who had been a farmworker and journalism student at the University of Texas - Pan American.

She was defeated by the Democratic nominee Bill Hobby of Houston[2] who won the first of five terms (the first for two years) in the state's second ranking constitutional office.

Though he polled only 214,118 votes (6 percent) in the election, Muñiz said that his campaign benefited Mexican Americans by offering a consistent political voice.

Even liberal activist Frances Farenthold of Corpus Christi, who had lost the Democratic runoff election to Dolph Briscoe, endorsed her party nominees.

In that election, Briscoe won the first four-year term for governor in Texas since 1873, when Democrat Richard Coke unseated Republican Edmund J.