Civil Rights Leader Albert Armendariz Sr. Dies

Civil rights leader Albert Armendariz Sr. died of natural causes last Thursday in Brownsville, Texas, where he was vacationing. He was 88. Armendariz spent a career fighting racism and promoting civil rights as a lawyer and as a member of the League of United Latin American Citizens.

Armendariz was born in El Paso, Texas in 1919. He was drafted at the onset of World War II. After undergraduate study at Texas College of Mines (now University of Texas at El Paso), Armendariz attended law school at the University of Southern California graduating in 1950. Traveling back to El Paso, he commenced his outstanding legal career in a law office less than four blocks from his childhood home.   From 1976 to 1985, he was an immigration judge (special inquiry officer) with the U.S. Department of Justice; later he held an appointment on the Texas Court of Appeals.

Judge Armendariz has been actively involved in the League of United Latin-American Citizens (LULAC) since 1951 and served as its national president in 1954. In the late sixties, with the help of many other attorneys, Judge Armendariz helped found the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), a national organization addressing civil rights issues. From 1968 to 1971, he served as chairman of the MALDEF board of trustees.

Judge Armendariz continued to zealously defend the rights of immigrants, the population he has served so remarkably for over a half a century, up until his passing.

For the El Paso Times obituary, click here.

KJ