The Called me "King Tiger," My Struggle for the Land and Our Rights [first edition]

Reies Lopez Tijerina was one of the four acknowledged major leaders of the 1960s Mexican-American Civil Rights Movement. The others were Cesar Chavez, Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales, and Jose Angel Gutierrez.Tijerina is, significantly, the only member of this historical group to have penned his memoirs, perhaps in an effort to explain the trials and frustrations that brought him and his Federal Land-Grant Alliance members to break the law: reclaiming part of a national forest reserve as part of their inheritance; invading and occupying a courthouse; inflicting a gunshot wound on a deputy sheriff in the process; and challenging New Mexico and national authorities at every opportunity. But the acts that placed him in most danger were also the ones that won the hearts and minds of many young Chicano activists.What is clear from Lopez Tijerina's testimony is his sincerity, his years of research on the issues of land grants and civil rights, and his persistent spiritual and political leadership of the disenfranchised descendants of the original colonizers of New Mexico. All of the passion and commitment, as well as the flamboyant rhetoric of the 1960s, is preserved in this recollection of a life dedicated to a cause and transformed by continuous prosecution.They Called Me "King Tiger": My Struggle for the Land and Our Rights is a historical document of the first order, clarifying the motives and actions of one of the Chicano Movement's now-forgotten martyrs - a man who sought justice for those who have been treated like foreigners on their own soil.