Some civil rights sites at risk of being lost to history

Tour buses pass but never stop at a Houston building where Latino activists planned civil rights events.

From a Civil War battlefield where Hispanic Union soldiers fought to birthplaces of civil rights leaders, sites linked to the nation's struggle for racial equality are overlooked, neglected and absent from travel guides.

In Albuquerque, for example, there are no detectable markers for black civil rights advocate and 1950 Nobel Peace Prize winner Ralph Bunche, who attended school in the city.

There also are no historic makers for David C. Marcus, an Albuquerque High School graduate who represented Latinos in landmark desegregation cases in California, including Mendez v. Westminster that challenged Orange County's segregated school system.

In Houston, a nonprofit recently formed to restore a building that served as a meeting place for Latino civil rights groups during the 1950s, said Ray Valdez, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens' LULAC Council 60.

New Mexico Office of African American Affairs executive director Yvette Kaufman-Bell said it will take a community effort to bring attention to these sites, including creating simple informative, tourist brochures.