Communists and the Early Movement for Mexican-American Civil Rights: The Benjamin Moreno Inquiry and its Aftermath.

The article considers the communist-led inquiry into the 1939 death of thirteen year old Mexican American Benjamin Moreno while in the custody of the state-run Whittier State School for Boys in California, a juvenile detention facility. It was led by El Congreso del Pueblo de Habla Español (the Congress of Spanish-Speaking Peoples) and a branch of the International Labor Defense (ILD), two California-based communist groups. Moreno was initially reported to have committed suicide, but his family argued against such a conclusion. Other subjects explored include how the communist groups failed in their efforts to garner the support of Mexican Americans; Mexican American civil rights in the 1930s and 1940s, and the national political agendas of American communist societies in the 1930s.