A Chicano activist and founder of Tiempo newspaper, Ernesto Fraga worked tirelessly to advocate for the interests of Hispanic communities in Waco and Austin. Fraga’s family had a long history in Waco: his grandparents, like so many others, had moved there in 1910 fleeing the Mexican Revolution, joining a growing Hispanic community in Waco. Fraga made it his life’s mission to protect this community by fighting discrimination, advocating for their representation in politics and media, and celebrating their rich heritage. 

Born in 1950 in Chicago, Fraga spent the early years of his life moving all over the country because his stepfather was in the Army. He moved to Waco when he was twelve years old, where his extended family still lived, and grew up on Spring St just north of the Brazos. Many of his family members, along with others in the Waco Hispanic community, worked in the cotton fields. In school, Fraga encountered racism and sometimes got into fights; from a young age he refused to let racism go unchallenged. At age seventeen he left home due to familial strife and moved in with two roommates, one of whom was Manuel Sustaita, a Vietnam veteran and activist in Waco, and at this point his political involvement began. That same year, he helped create a junior chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), a Texas-born civil rights organization, bringing together around eighty high school and McLennan Community College students in Waco. Within a year, he moved up the ranks to be elected as a state director. He then helped to organize a chapter of the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) in Waco, a group originally founded in San Antonio based on more aggressive political demonstrations, including protests and school walkouts. MAYO in turn coordinated the Alliance of Mexican American Organizations in Waco, a coalition of churches, businesses, and clubs that advocated for equitable hiring practices. All of this took place before Fraga graduated from high school in 1968. 

In 1970 Fraga moved to Austin to work for the Office of Economic Opportunity, a War on Poverty initiative, and he quickly became involved in the Austin Chicano Movement. He helped found a chapter of the Brown Berets in Austin, a paramilitary organization that pushed for civil rights for Hispanic communities and a major player in the nation-wide Chicano Movement. The Brown Berets participated in strikes, protested police brutality, and advocated for housing, education, and immigration reforms. While in Austin, Fraga also worked with the Echo newspaper and some other barrio newspapers, introducing him to the ability of media to empower a community. He believed that the mainstream press both in Waco and Austin did not represent the issues and concerns of Hispanic residents, making barrio newspapers crucial tools for informing and organizing Hispanic communities. Fraga moved back to Waco in 1974 after being fired by the city of Austin for his involvement in protesting a city official. He organized another chapter of the Brown Berets in Waco but moved back to Austin in 1977 to continue his activism. 

Two of the most famous incidents the Brown Berets organized in East Austin took place at this time. The first was a confrontation with the Ku Klux Klan in 1977. The KKK claimed they were going to patrol the border in South Texas to intimidate illegal immigrants. After the Brown Berets announced their intent to confront the KKK at a press conference and organized caravans to travel to South Texas, a KKK leader called off the patrol to avoid the encounter. Fraga recalled this success with pride. The second was a protest in 1978 against the annual Aqua Fest, a boat racing contest that took place in a Hispanic neighborhood. The residents of this neighborhood had repeatedly petitioned to have the contest moved to another location, to no avail. The races caused noise, traffic, and significant pollution, as viewers left their trash in the neighborhood and parked on lawns, devaluing the properties in the area. The peaceful protest turned violent when police began to roughly handle and then beat protesters. Ernesto Fraga was one of the nineteen protesters arrested, although all of the charges against them were dropped when the court found that they had been within their rights to protest. Fraga’s activism in Austin was varied, but it forever shaped his political consciousness. 

Fraga’s most well-known work in Waco began with the founding of the Tiempo newspaper in 1982. He believed it was important to have a media outlet that represented Latino concerns. Tiempo was distributed free of charge; Fraga and his wife Linda made their living from ads placed in the newspaper. Tiempo covered all kinds of topics, both political and personal, and it was bilingual. Articles about immigration issues could be found next to announcements of community socials. Fraga continued his political activism, organizing marches and protests, especially against immigration-related policies which he and others felt were degrading to Latinos. The day after one such march in July 2018, Fraga suffered a heart attack which forced the closing of Tiempo. Another newspaper has not yet stepped into the same role, leaving a “void” in the Waco Hispanic community. He inspired not only Latinos, but other minority groups to organize and fight discrimination. Fraga never remained silent on an issue that impacted Latino communities, but raised awareness and advocated for change. 

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When Ramiro “Ramsey” Muñiz ran for governor of Texas in 1972, he became the first candidate of Hispanic descent to run for the state’s gubernatorial seat. Despite Muñiz’s controversial legacy, his career was, for many, as inspiring as it was polarizing.

Ramsey Muñiz was born in Corpus Christi in 1942 to Rudy G. Muñiz and Hilda [née] Longoria. One of five children, the young Ramsey worked to help make ends meet for his large family, sometimes picking cotton from daybreak until evening. The future candidate was exposed to Mexican-American politics from an early age and often volunteered his time to help with the campaigns of Chicano politicians as a teenager. As a student, Muñiz excelled both in the classroom and on the football field at Corpus Christi High School, and eventually received a scholarship to attend Baylor University. He graduated in 1967 with a bachelor of science degree and went on to attend Baylor University Law School. Muñiz, who had played football for the Baylor Bears during his undergraduate years, worked as an assistant coach to support himself through law school and graduated in 1971 with a doctor of jurisprudence. The new attorney stayed local after graduation to work as an administrator for the Waco Model Cities Program, then headquartered at 1818 Columbus Avenue.

Muñiz’s college and law school years coincided with the heyday of the Chicano movement in American politics, as a growing number of Mexican Americans united to call for economic, social, and political equality. Many Chicano activists felt that neither of America’s major political parties were prepared to fight for the Mexican American cause. La Raza Unida Party (RUP) emerged in 1970 as the answer to Chicano calls for a third party that would represent the interests of Mexican Americans in Texas. Thanks to leaders such as Jose Angel Gutierrez and Mario Compean, the party’s initial success at the local level in Crystal City inspired some RUP members to establish a party presence at the state level in 1972.

After several well-known Democratic politicians turned down the RUP nomination for governor, Ramsey Muñiz emerged as the party’s most viable gubernatorial contender. Muñiz had joined the party in 1968 while still a law student. The aspiring governor selected as his running mate journalist Alma Canales who, at twenty-four years of age, did not meet the minimum age requirement for lieutenant governor. Muñiz, however, felt that as a young, college-educated activist, Canales represented the RUP’s average supporter and would help to win the vote of the party’s female members. The duo’s platform centered around bilingual education, women’s and workers’ rights, and the establishment of Mexican American political power at the local level.

The Muñiz/Canales ticket brought in 6.28 percent of the vote in the November election, most of which came from smaller Hispanic communities in South Texas. While Democratic candidate Dolph Briscoe emerged victorious over Republican Henry Grover with 48.79 percent of votes cast, the RUP was so successful in siphoning off Democratic votes that Briscoe became the first candidate to win a Texas gubernatorial election without a majority. The 1972 loss deterred neither the RUP nor Muñiz from seeking the governor’s seat for a second time. Muñiz ran again in 1974, along with several other RUP candidates seeking state and local offices. This time, the RUP attempted to recast itself not simply as a Chicano party, but one that represented the everyman. The 1974 platform proposed improvements in medical care, transportation, education, environmentalism, and urban life. Muñiz, however, was unable to gain the support of many urban Hispanic voters, and received less than 200,000 votes when election day arrived. Dolph Briscoe nabbed an easy victory as a result.

In the years immediately following the election, the party suffered from internal divisions and lack of external support. This decline was exacerbated when Muñiz was arrested in 1976 for the attempted importation of over three tons of marijuana from Mexico. The former politician fled south to Mexico, but was apprehended five months later, and received felony drug charges for which he served five years in prison. During his time in prison, the RUP continued to suffer a string of political defeats and largely faded out of the public eye. Shortly after Muñiz’s release from prison, he was again arrested in 1982 for possession of cocaine, for which he served a two-year sentence. While he found work as a legal assistant following his second release, his career was short-lived. In 1994, Muñiz received a third charge for conspiracy to distribute drugs when, during a traffic stop, police located a large supply of narcotics in his car. Muñiz pleaded not guilty, insisting that neither the car nor the drugs were his and arguing that the traffic stop was without probable cause. Many others questioned the proceedings surrounding Muñiz’s conviction, claiming that evidence pointed to a set up. In the end, the former politician was sentenced to life in prison.

To many, Muñiz was a political prisoner, unjustly accused to silence an entire party. The “Free Ramsey” movement ceaselessly fought to liberate the politician in the decades following his imprisonment, and eventually secured his “compassionate release” on December 10, 2018. The persistence of this effort testifies to the lasting impact of Muñiz and the Raza Unida in Mexican American history and on the American political landscape.

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During the early 1970s, the rhythms of Austin's much-acclaimed music scene reverberated through McLennan County from Bellmead's Abraxas Club.

Until the club's founding, Waco had remained relatively closed off to the music culture that thrived ninety miles to the south in Texas's live-music capital. That changed, however, when Roy Delgado, Steve Espinoza, Jesse "Jay" Ortiz, Arthur Ramos, and Pete Saiz set out to open a nightclub of their own, one which would bring some of Austin's best blues, rock, and Tejano performers to McLennan County listeners. The co-owners dubbed the new venue Abraxas, a nod to Carlos Santana's 1970 album of the same name.

As news of the up-and-coming venue spread, the Abraxas Club succeeded in attracting a growing number of talented artists. With help from Austin-based booking agent Charlie Goodnight and musician Jimmie Vaughan (older brother of the famed Stevie Ray Vaughan), the venue went on to book such performers as the Allman Brothers Band, Freddie King, Ruben Ramos, Paul Ray, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Wet Willie, and David Zychek. While the weekly lineup at the Abraxas featured musicians from a variety of genres ranging from blues to boogie to Texas rock, the club's Tejano flavor quickly emerged as one of its most defining qualities.

In addition to cultivating a space for Tejano music to thrive in Central Texas, the Abraxas Club played a part in the growing Chicano movement of the early 1970s. The club's owners were eager to lend resources and support to their fellow Mexican Americans in the struggle for social, political, and economic empowerment. The founders worked to solidify the movement in the Waco area by offering their club as an organizing space to activist groups such as the Chicanos Unidos, Mexican American Youth Organization, and the political party La Raza Unida. During its four-year lifespan, the Abraxas Club also served as a center for community discussion groups on the Chicano experience. In this way, the club's impact extended far beyond its weekly audiences, contributing to a much broader revival of Mexican-American consciousness in the early 1970s.

Although many were drawn to Abraxas's countercultural, activist vibe, the venue's association with drug use kept many in the area from patronizing the establishment. Several of the club's owners and patrons recalled frequent police raids, in which officials searched the premises for illicit substances, underage drinkers, and AWOL military personnel fleeing the draft in the closing days of the Vietnam War. Financial setbacks associated with these raids and steep booking-agent fees ultimately took their toll on Abraxas. The club often could not afford to entice would-be musicians with competitive compensation, and eventually ceased operation in 1974 following a drug raid led by local police.

For some, the club's closing was a victory in the fight against societal vices. For others, it proved an ill-fated end to a beloved musical and cultural community. Despite the Abraxas's checkered legacy, the club's life provides an illuminating glimpse into several significant cultural, social, and political impulses in 1970s Texas, and as such remains a valued piece of Waco history.

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