Reies Tijerina

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Reies López Tijerina (September 21, 1926 – January 19, 2015), was an activist who led a struggle in the 1960s and 1970s to restore New Mexican land grants to the descendants of their Spanish colonial and Mexican owners.^[1] As a vocal spokesman for the rights of Hispanos and Mexican Americans, he became a major figure of the early Chicano Movement (although he preferred "Indohispano" as a name for his people) and founded the Alianza Federal de Mercedes.^[2] As an activist, he worked in community education and organization, media relations, and land reclamations. He became famous and infamous internationally for his 1967 armed raid on the Tierra Amarilla courthouse located on the Tierra Amarilla Land Grant whose lands, originally designated for Hispanic settlers, had largely been acquired by Anglo ranchers and land developers.