About Elizabeth
Elizabeth “Betita” Martinez served full-time in the 1960’s with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the South and as a coordinator of its New York office.
She is a Chicana feminist and a long time community organizer, activist, author, and educator. She has written numerous books and articles on different topics relating to social movements in the Americas.
Her best-known work is the bilingual 500 years of Chicano History in Pictures, which later formed the basis for the educational video jViva la Causa! 500 Years of Chicano History. Her work has been hailed by Angela Y. Davis as comprising “one of the most important living histories of progressive activism in the contemporary era”.
In 1968, she moved to New Mexico to start a newspaper to support the Alianza Federal de Mercedes. Martinez co-founded the bilingual movement newspaper El Grito del Norte, which she worked on for five years.
In 1973, she co-founded and directed the Chicano Communications Center, a barrio-based organizing and education project.
Since moving to the Bay Area in 1976, Martinez has organized around Latino community issues, taught Women’s studies part-time, conducted anti-racist training workshops, and worked with youth groups.
She ran for governor of California on the Peace & Freedom Party ticket in 1982 and has received many awards from student, community, and academic organizations, including Scholar of the Year 2000 by the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies.
In 1997, she and Phil Hutchings cofounded the Institute for Multi-Racial Justice, which “aims to strengthen the struggle against white supremacy by serving as a resource center to help build alliances among peoples of color and combat divisions”.
In 2004, she served on the advisory board for the group 2004 Racism Watch. She is also an adviser to the Catalyst Project, an anti-racist political education organization that focuses on white communities.
