10 Facts About Baldemar Velasquez

1.

Baldemar Velasquez was named a MacArthur Fellow in 1989, and awarded the Order of the Aztec Eagle in 1994, the highest honor Mexico can bestow on a non-citizen.

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2.

Baldemar Velasquez's maternal grandparents fled to Pharr in 1910 after the Mexican Revolution, and his mother, Vicenta, was born there in 1920.

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3.

Baldemar Velasquez enrolled at Pan American University in Edinburg, Texas, in 1965, intending to major in engineering.

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4.

Baldemar Velasquez graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology in 1969.

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5.

Baldemar Velasquez spent several weeks in the summer of 1968 working with CORE and living with an African American family in Cleveland, Ohio.

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6.

In 2010, Baldemar Velasquez led FLOC in joining with the United Auto Workers in announcing a boycott of JPMorgan Chase to protest the banking concern's efforts to begin extensive foreclosure proceedings against homeowners nationwide.

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7.

In 1990, Baldemar Velasquez obtained a degree in practical theology from Florida International Seminary.

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8.

Baldemar Velasquez helped organize the National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in 1991, and in 2006 served on the board of directors of Agricultural Missions, a nonprofit corporate arm of the National Council of Churches.

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9.

Baldemar Velasquez received an inaugural Bannerman Fellowships in 1988 for helping organize people for racial, social, economic, and environmental justice.

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10.

Baldemar Velasquez has received honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degrees from Bowling Green State University in 1996, Bluffton College in 1998, and the University of Toledo in 1998.

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