George I. Sánchez

Who was George I. Sánchez?

George Isidore Sánchez was a pioneer in American educational scholarship and civil rights activism, originally from the state of New Mexico. He served on the faculty of the University of New Mexico, held several concurrent teaching, chair, and dean positions at The University of Texas at Austin, where he had earned his Masters of Educational Psychology and Spanish, from 1940 until his death. Dr. Sanchez also acted as the President of the League of United Latin American Citizens, while spearheading several landmark civil right aimed court cases focusing on gaining equal public education rights for African, Native, and Chicano Americans and all the time maintaining an "open-door" policy at both his home on Scenic Drive and in his office at the UT Austin Education building now named in his honor. Today, he is remembered as a leading figure in the early "Mexican-American/Chicano" movement, which culminated during World War II, after heavy involvement with and collaboration between Chicano-Americans and Latin Americans through The Office of Inter-American Affairs. He received his Ed.