Albert Peña: Civil Rights Leader and Attorney from San Antonio (1917–2006)

Albert Peña, attorney, county commissioner, judge, and civil rights leader, was born in San Antonio, Texas, to Alberto Antonio Peña, Sr., and Dolores López on December 15, 1917. He was the first-born of the family that included sisters Madeline, Belinda, and Irene, and brothers Richard and Anthony. Twins (a boy and girl) were stillborn. Alberto Jr. did not like his middle name of Antonio and later used the name Armendariz (as later recorded on his military draft card). He initially attended St. Mary’s Catholic School, then Stephen F. Austin Elementary and Hawthorne Junior High School. Once in school, his name was changed by teachers to Albert. His nickname became “Peanuts” in Main Avenue High School because of his short and stocky stature, but he made the varsity football team. After school and on weekends, he helped his father with dance promotions and doing other odd jobs. Alberto Sr., tired of low-paying jobs selling furniture, had begun promoting dances to supplement his income, but he had aspirations to become an attorney and enrolled at the Weber School of Law in downtown San Antonio. After ten years of night classes, he passed the bar exam in 1935 and began practicing law. He dreamed that his three sons, Albert Jr., Richard, and Anthony, would also become lawyers and together they would form a law firm.

Albert Peña, Jr., did undergraduate studies at St. Mary’s University, but, with the U.S. entry into World War II, he joined the United States Navy in March 1942 and was stationed mainly at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, during his service. He had left his new bride, Joséfina Herrera, expecting their first child, Albert Anthony Peña III, when he joined the navy. He had a second child—Belinda Peña—with her but never returned to her side upon discharge. The marriage ended soon thereafter once he met Olga Ramos. In September 1947 she became the second spouse. Albert and Olga had several children: William, Sandra, Mary, Olga, and Roxanne.

He resumed his studies at St. Mary’s University for a time but then finished law school at Houston’s South Texas College of Law, where his brother Richard also studied. Albert Peña, Jr., received his law license on August 20, 1951. As soon as both, Albert and Richard, passed the Texas bar exam they began to practice law with their father in San Antonio. Peña, Peña, and Peña, the new name of the law office, was located downtown near San Fernando Cathedral and the Main Plaza. Anthony, the youngest brother, moved to California and eventually also became a lawyer but never returned to Texas.  

Peña Jr. got involved in civil rights work at the behest of Dr. Hector P. García, founder of the American G. I. Forum. He was recruited to fight segregation of Mexican American children in Hondo, Texas. Employing both legal means and unconventional tactics of mass protest, Peña won the fight. The State Board of Education ordered Hondo to desegregate. The next victory was desegregating the public schools in Lytle, Texas, and he assisted schools in Devine, Natalia, and Batesville. In 1948 Peña with others formed the Loyal American Democrats (LAD). In 1952 they organized the first political rally for a presidential candidate, Democrat Adlai Stevenson. Other statewide Democrats, including Governor Allan Shivers, were backing the Republican candidate, Dwight D. Eisenhower. San Antonio’s West Side, the largest segregated barrio in the city, was the site for that rally which drew thousands of Mexican Americans. Stevenson was very impressed. Oppositional Democrats led by Lyndon Johnson and John Connally whisked Stevenson away to their rally at the Alamo. Thousands from the West Side rally marched down Houston Street to the Alamo and cheered Stevenson there also. Peña was asked to represent Black boxer I. H. “Sporty” Harvey who was denied a fight with a White boxer. Matches between fighters of different races were not allowed in the state at the time. Peña lost the case, but in 1954 it was won on appeal with his associates Carlos Cadena and Maury Maverick, Jr., and Harvey went on to fight many matches, some including White boxers.

Turning to state politics, in 1954 Peña decided to run for the state legislature; he lost. Elections for the legislature were at-large, and there was the poll tax to pay in order to register to vote. Anglo voters regularly outpolled the Mexican American voters. Olga, his wife, noticed that Peña had carried the entire West Side which was County Commissioner Precinct 1. She suggested he seek that office in 1956. They raised the filing fee of $960 and began organizing the voters of the West Side. Peña not only won the primary election with 6,225 votes but also the run-off election and the general election in November. He served as the only Mexican American county commissioner in Bexar County for the next sixteen years—four terms. He became a master of working the media with a weekly Saturday morning radio show on KEXX 1250 AM and a weekly column in the Weekly Shopper. 

In 1960 Peña and others did the legwork for the John F. Kennedy presidential campaign. The group called themselves the Viva Kennedy Clubs, which later evolved into the Political Association of Spanish-Speaking Organizations (PASSO). After the election, Vice President Lyndon Johnson asked Peña if he wanted to become a U.S. representative and fill a vacancy in the local delegation. Peña declined and instead suggested they name Henry B. González. In 1963 Peña and PASSO joined in support of the first all-Mexican-American city council victory in Crystal City and Mathis, Texas. He supported the founding of the Mexican American Unity Council (MAUC) in San Antonio. As a board member, he made regular visits to New York’s Ford Foundation and sought additional funding. He pressed for establishing a legal defense fund to support Mexican American civil rights groups and activists, which marked the beginning of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and later the Southwest Council of La Raza, a precursor to the National Council of La Raza (now UnidosUS). Commissioner Peña was very active in the Chicano movement of the era by helping to desegregate downtown San Antonio’s major businesses; joining protests against San Antonio mayor Walter McAllister’s San Antonio Savings Association; marching in the Palm Sunday March in Del Rio; participating in the Poor People’s Campaign; and taking part in school walkouts led by the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO). When he signed a petition to free Angela Davis, a jailed UCLA professor and admitted communist, the action sparked a movement to defeat him as commissioner. In the 1972 elections, his opponent and ultimate victor was Albert Bustamante, a former aide to Henry B. González. Olga Peña, who always successfully organized his election campaigns, was substituted by Ernesto Cortes who had never conducted an electoral campaign. In 1974 Olga divorced Albert because of his womanizing and disinterest in his own political future.

In 1977 Peña became a municipal judge and was later appointed chief justice of the municipal courts. He served for fifteen years. During those years, a clerk with the police department, Rosa Gutierrez, caught his eye and he married her in 1979. They had a child, Cristina, and a tumultuous marriage. They divorced, then remarried only to divorce again. By 1992 Peña, tired of scandals—both his own and a ticket-fixing scheme involving some of his municipal judges—announced his retirement. In 1994 he married Frances Guajardo, some thirty years younger. Together, they formed the last group he organized, the Inner City Advocates, whose purpose was voter registration and naturalization drives. Years prior he had worked for the incorporation of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project (SVREP) with Willie Velásquez. He felt SVREP should also do naturalization and immigration services and not just voter registration. From 1989 to 2002 he kept writing weekly columns that were published in La Prensa in San Antonio.

Peña’s honors included the Mexican American Unity Council Lifetime Achievement Award (1998), Bexar County Democrats Lifetime Achievement Award (2001), Martin Luther King Jr. Commission Chairman Lifetime Achievement (2001), and César Chávez March Lifetime Achievement Award (2002). After retirement as municipal judge, he tried to practice law once again and joined the Douglas Dilley law firm. Age had caught up with him, however, and he developed ailments soon diagnosed as the onset of Parkinson’s disease. In 2003 he was badly injured from a fall or an assault. The police never made a final determination. Despite his health and confinement to a wheelchair, he was part of the marchers in the annual Cesar E. Chavez March for Justice held on March 27, 2004, but his health continued to deteriorate. Albert A. Peña, Jr., died in San Antonio on July 3, 2006. A funeral Mass was held at Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church, and he was buried in Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery.