Many were held back a few grades until they had mastered the English language, and classrooms were racially segregated, he said. He knew what he saw was wrong, and in college at Texas A&I University, he began to fight back for equal rights.

During college is about when he saw a familiar face on a magazine cover: Cesar Chavez.

“I’ll never forget the pride I felt to see a Mexican-American on the cover of Time magazine,” Guerra said as he spoke Saturday during a celebration of Cesar Chavez’s legacy. “I had never seen anything like that before.”

Years later, Guerra, a retired San Antonio Express-News columnist, would come to know Chavez as a close friend during the 1970s Chicano movement. On Saturday afternoon, nearly 150 people marched in Chavez’s honor during the 11th annual Cesar Chavez Marcha sponsored by the Coastal Bend Cesar E. Chavez Committee. City and county officials, local activists and young students gathered to listen to stories about Chavez.

Dressed in red T-shirts, the group began their march at the Cesar Chavez memorial at Port Avenue and Agnes Street, chanting “Si, se puede,” or “Yes, we can.”

On Agnes Street, the marchers stopped for a blessing at St. Joseph Catholic Church where the Rev. Joe Lawless reminisced about rallying alongside Chavez in the 1960s.

“Marching with him gave me so much strength in my ministry,” Lawless said. “He was such a great man who stood up against evils in our country.”

Raised by rural farmers in Arizona, Chavez left school in the eighth grade and never went back. While working Southwestern farms, he saw firsthand the substandard conditions many Hispanics dealt with.

In the 1960s, Chavez organized farm workers to fight for better wages and work conditions, eventually creating the United Farm Workers union and inspiring future generations.

“For us, Chavez became a symbol of defiance to the status of second-class citizens,” Guerra said. “He awakened in us the reality that we had to fight for justice with our heads held high.”

Santiago Hernandez, a member of the Felix Longoria Chapter of the American GI Forum, made the 20-minute march.

Hernandez recalled the GI Forum’s civil rights struggle when it fought in 2004 to have a post office in Three Rivers named after Longoria, a local soldier who fought and died in World War II.

“Our children need to be taught about Cesar Chavez, so that they can compare how we were treated in the past to how we are treated today,” he said.

“They need to know about the blood, sweat and sacrifice of others so that we may all live a better life in the future.”